Pantagruel - Chrabré a hrůzostrašné skutky slovutného Pantagruela, zaznamenané nebožtíkem panem Alcofribasem, abstraktérem kvintesence – Rabelais Françoise (2022)

Pantagruel, "the first masterpiece of modern comedy" (F. X. Šalda), describes the peculiar journey of the main character in search of knowledge. The structure of the novel provided the author with numerous opportunities for satire on all areas of contemporary life and medieval thought, such as scholastic theology and logic, monasticism and Catholic asceticism, Protestant Puritanism, and the waning chivalry, in addition to being a parody of contemporary literature and its genres. The only available translation of this seminal work of world literature is the collective translation by the so-called South Bohemian Thelema from 1931. Since then, it has been published four times (most recently by Odeon in 1989), without ever being thoroughly revised. Although the South Bohemian Thelema's effort was commendable in its time, a 90-year-old translation does not hold up today. The JT translation adheres to the romantic conception of Rabelais established in the 19th century, which is now clearly outdated: a systematic emphasis on "folk" at the expense of intellectuality and literary innovation. This must also be supplemented by certain French language missteps, a certain degree of self-censorship in vulgarisms (especially of an erotic nature); the critical apparatus, of course, is also outdated, relying on the French edition from 1922. A new translation by Patrik Ouředník addresses all the pitfalls...