In Pantagruel, Rabelais illustrates the advantages and risks of polyglotism. Panurge and Pantagruel, as good humanists, make it a mark of erudition and a rhetorical instrument. The Limousin schoolboy, on the other hand, is ridiculed for his Latinized verbiage. By advocating an enlightened multilingualism, Rabelais in no way devalues his mother tongue: the text contains a defense of French, which must both prevail over other languages and be fertilized by them.
CLIL theme: 4027 -- SCIENCES HUMAINES ET SOCIALES, LETTRES -- Lettres et Sciences du langage -- Lettres -- Etudes littéraires générales et thématiques