ABSTRACT
In a sonnet published posthumously, although probably written as early as April 1553, the poet Joachim Du Bellay records a troubled night spent at Saint-Symphorien. His long-dead uncle Guillaume Du Bellay, sieur de Langey, appears to him in a dream, 'plus grand que de coustume' [taller than usual]; waking in fright, he recalls that this was the very place where Langey had died in January 1543. The analyses of Krailsheimer and Screech go a long way towards clarifying the philosophical and Christian allusions of the two Rabelais passages. The reduplication of the reference in Rabelais is, to say the least, striking. If the episodes are considered separately, the evocation of Langey's death in each appears almost accidental; it plays an illustrative role which is clearly subordinate both to the narrative itself and to the themes raised by the narrative. The internal similarities between the two accounts of Langey's death are likewise striking.
