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Some of the topics explored by Rabelais were controversial, and only the support of influential patrons preserved him from severe ecclesiastical censure during his lifetime; the third and fourth books of Gargantua and Pantagruel were both banned at times. The adjective, Rabelaisian, from his name, describes something that is in the style of his writings: containing an abundance of coarse humor, extravagant language and keen satire.

Some of the topics explored by Rabelais were controversial, and only the support of influential patrons preserved him from severe ecclesiastical censure during his lifetime; the third and fourth books of Gargantua and Pantagruel were both banned at times. The adjective, Rabelaisian, from his name, describes something that is in the style of his writings: containing an abundance of coarse humor, extravagant language and keen satire.

The works of Rabelais were the subject of study by the Russian cultural theorist M. M. Bakhtin (1885-1975), who derived two major concepts from "Gargantua and Pantagruel": that of the [[carnivalesque]], mocking authority through proletarian laughter; and of the [[grotesque body]], seeing the greatest reality in the portrayal of bodily functions, principally sexual and excretory. The emphasis on anti-authoritarianism is thought to explain why his work on the subject, Rabelais and his World, while submitted as a PhD thesis in the early 1940s, was not passed for a doctorate and was only published in the post-Stalinist (relative) thaw of 1965.

The works of Rabelais were the subject of study by the Russian cultural theorist M. M. Bakhtin (1885-1975), who derived two major concepts from "Gargantua and Pantagruel": that of the [[carnivalesque]], mocking authority through proletarian laughter; and of the [[grotesque body]], seeing the greatest reality in the portrayal of bodily functions, principally sexual and excretory. The emphasis on anti-authoritarianism may explain why his work on the subject, ''Rabelais and his World'', while submitted as a PhD thesis in the early 1940s, was not passed for a doctorate and was only published in the post-Stalinist (relative) thaw of 1965; though it is quite possible that Bakhtin, who [[smoking|smoked]] the only manuscript of his study of the German novel during the battle of [[Stalingrad]]<ref>http://www.mclemee.com/id91.html</ref> , did not consider publication a matter of any urgency.

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