LETTER–To Lucian of Samosata

In a let­ter to Lucian of Samosa­ta, the author mus­es over Lucian’s cur­rent abode in a par­a­disi­a­cal set­ting, sur­round­ed by beau­ty, laugh­ter, and notable com­pan­ions like Heine, Pla­to, and oth­ers who share Lucian’s wit and clar­i­ty of vision. This imag­i­na­tive par­adise serves as a back­drop for express­ing deep appre­ci­a­tion for Lucian’s endur­ing satire and wis­dom, paint­ing him as the mas­ter of mirth and con­tent­ment. The author, in a tone blend­ing admi­ra­tion with wist­ful­ness, won­ders about the joy that Lucian’s com­pa­ny — includ­ing Rabelais, Voltaire, and oth­ers — would find in their “Hap­py Islands,” devoid of life’s bur­dens and filled with per­pet­u­al youth and laugh­ter.

Tran­si­tion­ing to a more con­tem­po­rary set­ting, the author laments the absence of Lucian’s inci­sive mock­ery in a world over­run by super­sti­tion, pseu­do-sci­ence, and shal­low philoso­phies. Through an imag­i­na­tive sum­mon­ing of Lucian’s per­spec­tive, the author cri­tiques mod­ern soci­etal flaws, like the auc­tion­ing of pop­u­lar sages, reveal­ing a yearn­ing for Lucian’s sharp insights in nav­i­gat­ing the fol­lies of present times. This reflec­tion expands to a broad­er cri­tique of soci­ety’s gulli­bil­i­ty, the triv­ial pur­suits of plea­sure, and the unchang­ing nature of human vices and fol­lies, essen­tial­ly argu­ing that despite cen­turies of progress, human­i­ty remains as sus­cep­ti­ble to the same old weak­ness­es and sim­pli­fi­ca­tions that Lucian once mocked.

Final­ly, the let­ter shifts focus to Rabelais and the await­ed advent of the “Coq­ci­grues” — a metaphor­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of absur­di­ties plagu­ing soci­ety. This is vivid­ly illus­trat­ed through an encounter with a horde of physi­cians advo­cat­ing against plea­sure and a cacoph­o­ny of pre­scrip­tive voic­es from var­i­ous “reform­ers” impos­ing their dog­mas on Pan­ta­gru­el and his com­pan­ions. This chaot­ic scene sym­bol­izes the absur­di­ty of soci­etal con­straints and the loss of joy in liv­ing, themes both Rabelais and Lucian explored in their works. The author implic­it­ly con­trasts the time­less wis­dom and lib­er­at­ing satire of Lucian and Rabelais with the mod­ern era’s restric­tive norms and the decline in intel­lec­tu­al free­dom, humor­ous­ly under­scor­ing the time­less rel­e­vance of their cri­tiques and the neces­si­ty of their insight to chal­lenge con­tem­po­rary absur­di­ties.