Praise of Folly (Princeton Classics) (HardPress Classics) (Ann Arbor Paperbacks)

by Desiderius Erasmus

A. Levi (Notes), Betty Radice (Translator), and A. H. T. Levi (Notes)

Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1466-1536) is one of the greatest figures of the Renaissance humanist movement, which abandoned medieval pieties in favour of a rich new vision of the individual's potential. Praise of Folly, written to amuse his friend Sir Thomas More, is Erasmus's best-known work. Its dazzling mixture of fantasy and satire is narrated by a personification of Folly, dressed as a jester, who celebrates youth, pleasure, drunkenness and sexual desire, and goes on to lambast human pretensions, foibles and frailties, to mock theologians and monks and to praise the 'folly' of simple Christian piety. Erasmus's wit, wordplay and wisdom made the book an instant success, but it also attracted what may have been sales-boosting criticism. The Letter to Maarten van Dorp, which is a defence of his ideas and methods, is also included.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

• ISBN10: 0140446087
• ISBN13: 9780140446081
• Publish Date: 1 March 1994 (first published 21 November 1941)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780140446081

Reviews

[celinenyx]

Praise of Folly was written by Erasmus when he was ill for a few days. It got a bit tweaked and published, even though Erasmus himself thought it wasn't very good.

Yet Praise of Folly sparked a literary revolution with its commentary on medieval values and more modern view of society. The whole novel is a satire written from the viewpoint of Folly itself. At first she praises herself and argues that she is revered by thousands of people, often without them even knowing it. After the initial chapters, she talks about the different kinds of fools, including but not limited to women, aristocracy, philosophers, scholars...

I read this book in Dutch, as Erasmus himself was a Dutch person even though he wrote Praise of Folly in Latin. I haven't had this hard a time to get through a book in ages. I'm not sure what the problem is - maybe it's the subject matter. I had a hard time caring for Folly's ideas and the constant grating on one part of society or another. All philosophers are fools. We get it, Erasmus.

I can see why this book was important in its time, but I think it's almost unreadable unless you're familiar with the entire Bible and with everything that has been written in Antiquity. I'm not, so sadly all of his metaphors completely went over my head.