Idle Works in Rabelais' Quart Livre

When Pantagruel and his band arrive on Gaster's isle in the Quart Livre a strange spectacle awaits them. The Gastrolatres are idle and yet the dedicated servants of Gaster; decadent and yet subject to poverty; idolatrous and yet like Pantagruel, an evangelical prince, who partly shares their fate: "honoring" and "serving" the idol Gaster. This study argues that Rabelais uses the allegorical climb up Virtue enacted by Pantagruel and his friends at the onset of the episode, pilgrimage imagery, and public works discourse in order to challenge Catholic orthodoxy's doctrine of works as a means of justification. The Gastrolatres episode offers a lesson on work with distinctly Calvinist resonances at odds with the defense of cooperation in the storm at sea episode in the 1552 edition

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