The fictional works of François Rabelais have been popular and celebrated ever since they first appeared, and whilst they are today among the most widely disseminated and intensively studied texts of the French Renaissance, they nevertheless retain many elements of controversy and mystery. The life of their author has been the object of similar study, but despite the close attention of very many scholars, its documentation remains sketchy, and many significant and lengthy gaps are filled only by conjecture arising from features of the fiction which seem based on personal experience.
Even the year of Rabelais's birth is conjectural: it was probably in 1494, and probably at La Devinière, the country home of his father Antoine, a prosperous lawyer working in the nearby town of Chinon:
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Citation: Gauna, Max. "Rabelais". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 September 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3687, accessed 22 November 2024.]
