SOURCE: “The Chimeric Communities of the Quart Livre,” in The Portrayal of Community in Rabelais's Quart Livre, Peter Lang, 1997, pp. 13-54.

In the excerpt below, Harp outlines the ways in which the encounter with the Ennasins in the Quart Livre reflects Rabelais's beliefs about evangelic humanism.

Throughout the many episodes of the Quart Livre, Pantagruel and his crew visit twelve islands. With each landing, the crew of the Thalamège not only encounters a new community, but reaches a haven. In Christian art, ships seeking a harbor may symbolize souls in search of Heaven (Cirlot 294-95). Rabelais, from the outset of his book, presents his protagonists as Christian travelers. The crew, for example, sings Psalm 114, a description of the Exodus, immediately before the Thalamège sets sail. While the Dive Bouteille serves as an unlikely Promised Land, a parallel does seem to exist between the Pantagruelists' quest and...