Fischart: A Lutheran Reformer or an Erasmian Humanist?

• In Event: Ludic Rhetoric Revisited: Rabelais, Fischart, Yver

Abstract

As a child of humanistic education and of Strasbourg’s fight for the evangelical-liberal faith, Johann Fischart (1546-1591) – one of the most brilliant German writers of the 16th century – finds his place in a tradition of pluralism. However, in the midst of his represented diversity modeled on the scholarly idea of encyclopedic composition, it seems that his confessional-political writings and the boisterous coloring of his translations testify to a zealous fighter for an exclusive conception of truth and of moral behavior. This paper inspects Fischarts paradox of the religious unity that holds a humanistic variety in itself. It is illustrated by Fischarts references to Lutheran and Erasmian thoughts about Christian matters of the early modern period. While Fischarts polemic or advisory writings clarify specific theological topics, his “Geschichtklitterung” (1575-90) – an exuberant revised version of the novel “Gargantua” (1534/35-42) by the humanist Rabelais – figures as a plurivalent pool of his humanistic-theological conceptions.

Author

• Florence Brunner, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen