In Praise of Folly
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~45,700 words · 217 passages
Cite this work
- APAErasmus. (n.d.). In Praise of Folly. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/erasmus/in-praise-of-folly
- MLAErasmus. "In Praise of Folly." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/erasmus/in-praise-of-folly.
- ChicagoErasmus. In Praise of Folly. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/erasmus/in-praise-of-folly.
What it is about
The Praise of Folly (1511): Folly climbs into the pulpit and delivers her own encomium.
Context and history
Erasmus wrote it in a week while staying at Thomas More's house, and the title puns on it: Moriae Encomium means both 'praise of folly' and 'praise of More'. It begins as a scholars' joke and ends as the sharpest criticism the Church of its day received. **The catalogue holds two English translations of this same work**; the other is 'The Praise of Folly'. An English translation. Erasmus's Latin, which is what should be cited, is in the catalogue only in the anthology of epistles.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Illustrated with many curious CUTS, Designed, Drawn, and Etched by Hans Holbein, WITH PORTRAIT, LIFE OF ERASMUS, AND HIS Epistle addressed to Sir Thomas More. LONDON: REEVES & TURNER, 196, STRAND, W.C. 1876. THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. ERASMUS, so deservedly famous for his admirable writings, the vast extent of his learning, his great candour and moderation, and for being one of the chief restorers of the Latin tongue on this side the Alps, was born at Rotterdam, on the 28th of October, in the year 1467. The anonymous author of his life commonly printed with his Colloquies (of the London edition) is pleased to tell us that _de anno quo natus est apud Batavos, non constat_. And if he himself wrote the life which we find before the Elzevir edition, said to be _Erasmo autore_, he does not particularly mention the year in which he was born, but places it _circa annum 67 supra millesintum quadringentesimum_. Another Latin life, which is prefixed to the above-mentioned London edition, fixes it in the year 1465; as does his epitaph at Basil. But as the inscription on his statue at Rotterdam, the place of his nativity, may reasonably be supposed the most authentic, we have followed that. His mother was the daughter of a physician at Sevenbergen in Holland, with whom his father contracted an acquaintance, and had correspondence with her on promise of marriage, and was actually contracted to her. His father's name was Gerard; he was the youngest of ten brothers, without one sister coming between; for which reason his parents (according to the superstition of the times) designed to consecrate him to the church. His brothers liked the notion, because, as the church then governed all, they hoped, if he rose in his profession, to have a sure friend to advance their interest; but no importunities could prevail on Gerard to turn ecclesiastic Finding himself continually pressed upon so disagreeable a subject, and not able lon
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