L’imaginaire de François Rabelais se présente souvent à la faveur d’éléments étranges, ambigus et équivoques qui proviennent de la virtuosité stylistique mise en œuvre. Cette liaison nette entre l’imaginaire et la technique se manifeste dans de nombreuses descriptions dont l’auteur nourrit le Tiers livre et le Quart livre. Appréhender les pratiques descriptives dans ces deux œuvres nécessite une analyse à deux niveaux distincts de la technique d’écriture : le style et les objets décrits. Pour le premier, le recours aux théories rhétorique et dialectique de l’époque permet d’illustrer le procédé d’hybridation qui renvoie aux multiples pratiques descriptives existant avant Rabelais. Pour les seconds, le rapprochement avec l’art des grotesques souligne, par ses figures capricieuses et composites, la supériorité de l’artifice sur la nature. En se reportant au réel et au fictif dans le système complexe de rapport entre le mot et le référent, cette investigation révèle la modalité de l’« ingénieuse fiction » forgée par l’artifice de Rabelais. / The imaginary world of François Rabelais appears often as strange, ambiguous, and polysemic, a result of his stylistic virtuosity. This close connection between creativity and technique shows itself in the numerous descriptions with which the author furnishes his Tiers livre and Quart livre. Full comprehension of the descriptive practices in these two works requires an analysis at both levels of his written technique : the style and the objects described. For the former, a consideration of the rhetorical and dialectical theories of Rabelais' contemporaries illustrates a process of hybridization, which refers to the multiple descriptive practices available to Rabelais. For the latter, a connection drawn to the grotesque in art emphasizes, by its capricious and composite figures, the superiority of artifice over nature. By placing the real and the imaginary within the complex system of relationships between the word and the referent, this investigation finds a modality of " ingenious fiction " forged by the artifice of Rabelais.

v anglickém jazyce: This thesis mainly analyzes the five-part novel Gargantua and Pantagruel written by the French author Francois Rabelais. Emphasis is based particularly on an inclusion of Rabelais's work in historical and literary context of the period of transformation between medieval and Renaissance society. More specifically, it deals with the author's humanist opinion and his critique of contemporary society, which is the main line of the work itself. The aim of our thesis is especially an attempt to outline the various possible meanings of the terms « road or path » and « stranger » in Rabelais's work and explain the role of these thematic concepts in the author's concept of criticism of society.