In Francois Rabelais: Critical Assessments, Jean-Claude Carron brings together a distinguished group of senior scholars who have found themselves at the center of an ongoing debate about historical contextualization and interpretive strategies.

Throughout the book, the authors address certain recurring themes from a variety of critical points of view. The hermeneutic closure or opening of Rabelais's text, crucial to most recent critical debate, is in question throughout. Individual chapters explore such issues as the "design" and composition of the text, Rabelais as humanist, his antifeminism, his religious "position" as revealed by biblical or evangelical references, and particular aspects of low early-modern culture.

A chapter on Rabelais and Erasmus points up essential differences between the two "giants of European humanism."