Keller_Rabelais and the Renaissance Idea of Progress

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Rabelais and the Renaissance Idea of ProgressAuthor(s): Abraham C. Keller

Source: Renaissance News, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer, 1949), pp. 21-23Published by: The University of Chicago Presson behalf of the Renaissance Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2858254.

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REN ISS NCE W SA quarterly newsletter published by Dartmouth College Libraryfor the American Council of Learned Societies

FREDERICK W. STERNFELD, editor VERNON HALL, JR. RAY NASHAddressall communicationsto the editor, P.O. Box 832, Hanover, N.H.Annual subscription:domestic $i.oo, Canada and foreign $1.25VOL. II SUMMER I949 No. 2

REN ISS NCE W SA quarterly newsletter published by Dartmouth College Libraryfor the American Council of Learned Societies

FREDERICK W. STERNFELD, editor VERNON HALL, JR. RAY NASHAddressall communicationsto the editor, P.O. Box 832, Hanover, N.H.Annual subscription:domestic $i.oo, Canada and foreign $1.25VOL. II SUMMER I949 No. 2

IDEA OF PROGRESS: RABELAIS page 21IDEA OF PROGRESS: ELIZABETHANS 23The foregoing are abstractsof papersto be delivered beforethe RenaissanceSection of the Modern Language Associa-tion at Stanford University on September7-8EINSTEIN)S 'MADRIGAL): A REVIEW 25REGIONAL CONFERENCES 28LIBRARIES 29PROJECTS AND EUROPEAN NEWS 3 I

HISTORY AND LITERATUREMUSICVISUAL ARTS

LATIN TRANSLATIONS 37

Rabelaisand the RenaissanceIdea of ProgressBY ABRAHAM C. KELLER

T HE genesisof Rabelais' onceptionf progressllustrateshe com-ing to terms of two divergent points of view in the sixteenth cen-tury, the humanists'belief in the pastand the artisans'belief in the future.That a belief in the progress of knowledge played a significantrole inthe thought of certain fifteenth and sixteenth century precursorsof thescientific movement has been well established.It seems equally certainthat the idea of progress, though increasinglycommon among men whowere engaged in the practical arts, had little appeal for most of the

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IDEA OF PROGRESS: RABELAIS page 21IDEA OF PROGRESS: ELIZABETHANS 23The foregoing are abstractsof papersto be delivered beforethe RenaissanceSection of the Modern Language Associa-tion at Stanford University on September7-8EINSTEIN)S 'MADRIGAL): A REVIEW 25REGIONAL CONFERENCES 28LIBRARIES 29PROJECTS AND EUROPEAN NEWS 3 I

HISTORY AND LITERATUREMUSICVISUAL ARTS

LATIN TRANSLATIONS 37

Rabelaisand the RenaissanceIdea of ProgressBY ABRAHAM C. KELLER

T HE genesisof Rabelais' onceptionf progressllustrateshe com-ing to terms of two divergent points of view in the sixteenth cen-tury, the humanists'belief in the pastand the artisans'belief in the future.That a belief in the progress of knowledge played a significantrole inthe thought of certain fifteenth and sixteenth century precursorsof thescientific movement has been well established.It seems equally certainthat the idea of progress, though increasinglycommon among men whowere engaged in the practical arts, had little appeal for most of the

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humanistsof the time of Erasmus and before, preoccupiedas they werewith classical earning as the ne plus ultra. By the end of the sixteenthcentury the progressiveview, which had received its main impetus fromthe side of the technologicalwriters, had become part of the intellectualequipmentof many classicallyeducatedmen, and the scientificmovement,heralded by Bacon and exemplifiedby Gilbert and Galileo, was in fullswing. But the concurrenceof technology and classicalscholarshipwas aslow process,and it is unlikely that an exact date for it can be fixed or awriter named in whom it first occurred.Thus the example of Rabelais sintended more as illustration han to establishany primacy.In Pantagruel and Gargantua (1532, 1534) Rabelais displayedtheenthusiasmand reverencefor antiquitywhich were typicalof the human-ists from Petrarch to Erasmusand Bude. His praiseof the advanced stateof learning in his own day as comparedto that of the periodof Gothicbarbarism was based,not upon a belief in any steadyincreaseof knowl-edge, butuponthe conviction that men had drawn closerthan ever beforeto the wisdom of the ancients.In the last three books of his work (1546-1564), however, though never ceasingto draw heavilyupon his classicalerudition,Rabelaisshowed, insteadof his former reverence,a high degreeof skepticismand independence.Whereas in the first bookshe could payno higher complimentto a character'seloquenceor wisdom than to likenit to that of the ancients,in the last bookshe proclaimedthat the ancientsleft much for modern men to do-in making new discoveriesas well asin building upon ancient knowledge by finding new applicationsof oldformulas. In this view, and in his enthusiasm for material advance,Rabelais departed from traditional humanism and, especially, under-mined the Senecanantagonismbetween wisdom and ingenuity.To account for Rabelais'changed positionvis-a-vis classicalauthorityand for his statement of an idea of progress is to examine at once theintellectualeventsof the period 1534-1546 and the elements of Rabelais'trainingand inclinationswhich made him receptiveto the progressivecur-rent. In this period, which saw Rabelais turning sharply away fromPlatonism-perhaps as a result of his quarrel with the Lyon group onthe woman question,-and which saw the passing of his chief classicalmentors, Erasmus and Bude, there were published n Europe a numberof importantbookswhich, on the one hand, stated the ideaof the progressof knowledge in much the same terms that Rabelais was to adopt, andon the other hand gave proof of the possibilityof advancing beyond thelearning of the ancients. The progressiveformulations of certain writersof the new generation and the scientific achievements of the 1530S and1540s, e.g. in the medicalsciences,where Rabelais'profession ay, pressedhard uponthe traditionalhumanistic view of authority.

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Above all, Rabelais' training and inclinationsmade him appreciativeof these movements and rendered him receptive to the un-humanisticstandard of values impliedin them. His attachment to medieval ways ofthought-strong in spite of himself,-his closenessto, and thorough ac-quaintancewith, manual trades (already visiblein the period I532-34),and hisstudyand practiceof medicine,where the barriersbetween scholarand practitionerhad alreadybeen largely broken (notably at Montpellier,where Rabelais receivedhis degrees), made him a ready rebelagainstthecircumscribed lassicalteachings,as much as these may at firsthave exer-cised an expansiveand liberatinginfluence.This is not to say that even in his late books Rabelais departedfromthe ancientmasters. But the new use to which he put them as vehicles forhis own ideas,and his obviousleaning to Stoicism,which providedclassi-cal confirmation for his new dynamicview of the growth of knowledge-these considerationsbring Rabelais close to Montaigne's generationofindependent French thinkers, and provide an example, before Leroy,Bodin, Gilbert, and Bacon, of the union, on a philosophicallevel, ofhumanisticlearning with the practicalarts whence the idea of progressderiveda large measureof its force.UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

T'heIdea of Progress: SomeElizabethan Considerations

BY ERNEST A. STRATHMANNIF we investigateElizabethanthought on the nature of human progressonly in terms of J. B. Bury's strictdefinition of that idea as a theorywhich involves a synthesisof the past and a prophecyof the future, theresultsare likely to be no more fruitful than Bury found them. By theseterms, a completegraspof the ideaof progressrequires an interpretationof historywhich regards men as slowly advancing . . . in a definite anddesirabledirection, and infers that this progress will continue indefin-itely. *Admittedly many Elizabethan concepts were unfavorableto the ideaof progress.The Fall of Man accounted not only for original sin butalso for intellectual and physicalimperfections.It was a common belief,supportedby the propheciesof Daniel and other religiousteachings, that* The Idea of Progress ( 928, p. 5.)

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Above all, Rabelais' training and inclinationsmade him appreciativeof these movements and rendered him receptive to the un-humanisticstandard of values impliedin them. His attachment to medieval ways ofthought-strong in spite of himself,-his closenessto, and thorough ac-quaintancewith, manual trades (already visiblein the period I532-34),and hisstudyand practiceof medicine,where the barriersbetween scholarand practitionerhad alreadybeen largely broken (notably at Montpellier,where Rabelais receivedhis degrees), made him a ready rebelagainstthecircumscribed lassicalteachings,as much as these may at firsthave exer-cised an expansiveand liberatinginfluence.This is not to say that even in his late books Rabelais departedfromthe ancientmasters. But the new use to which he put them as vehicles forhis own ideas,and his obviousleaning to Stoicism,which providedclassi-cal confirmation for his new dynamicview of the growth of knowledge-these considerationsbring Rabelais close to Montaigne's generationofindependent French thinkers, and provide an example, before Leroy,Bodin, Gilbert, and Bacon, of the union, on a philosophicallevel, ofhumanisticlearning with the practicalarts whence the idea of progressderiveda large measureof its force.UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

T'heIdea of Progress: SomeElizabethan Considerations

BY ERNEST A. STRATHMANNIF we investigateElizabethanthought on the nature of human progressonly in terms of J. B. Bury's strictdefinition of that idea as a theorywhich involves a synthesisof the past and a prophecyof the future, theresultsare likely to be no more fruitful than Bury found them. By theseterms, a completegraspof the ideaof progressrequires an interpretationof historywhich regards men as slowly advancing . . . in a definite anddesirabledirection, and infers that this progress will continue indefin-itely. *Admittedly many Elizabethan concepts were unfavorableto the ideaof progress.The Fall of Man accounted not only for original sin butalso for intellectual and physicalimperfections.It was a common belief,supportedby the propheciesof Daniel and other religiousteachings, that* The Idea of Progress ( 928, p. 5.)

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Keller_Rabelais and the Renaissance Idea of Progress