To each their own Rabelais On two anglophone imitators, Laurence Sterne and Eric Linklater

This article offers a reading of two English texts inspired by the Pantagruelian gest, the Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais by Laurence Sterne, considered a precursor to his masterpiece, Tristram Shandy, and Rabelais Replies by Eric Linklater, influenced by the atrocities of the Second World War. In addition to Rabelais’s timelessness, these creative imitations of the gest demonstrate the richness and relevance of the source text, which continues to lend itself to new contexts.