In Praise of Folly
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~45,700 words · 217 passages
Cite this work
- APAErasmus. (n.d.). In Praise of Folly. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/erasmus/in-praise-of-folly
- MLAErasmus. In Praise of Folly. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/erasmus/in-praise-of-folly.
- ChicagoErasmus. In Praise of Folly. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/erasmus/in-praise-of-folly.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
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.
words, they will furnish up a long scroll of old obsolete terms out of some musty author, and foist them in, to amuse the reader with, that those who understand them may be tickled with the happiness of being acquainted with them: and those who understand them not, the less they know the more they may admire; whereas it has been always a custom to those of our side to contemn and undervalue whatever is strange and unusual, while those that are better conceited of themselves will nod and smile, and prick up their ears, that they may be thought easily to apprehend that, of which perhaps they do not understand one word. And so much for this; pardon the digression, now I return. Of my name I have informed you, Sirs; what additional epithet to give you I know not; except you will be content with that of most foolish; for under what more proper appellation can the goddess Folly greet her devotees? But since there are few acquainted with my family and original, I will now give you some account of my extraction: First then, my father was neither the chaos, nor hell, nor Saturn, nor Jupiter, nor any of those old, worn out, grandsire gods, but Plutus, the very same that, maugre Homer, Hesiod, nay, in spite of Jove himself, was the primary father born amongst these delights, I did not, like other infants, come crying into the world, but perked up, and laughed immediately in my mother's face. And there is no reason I should envy Jove for having a she-goat to his nurse, since I was more creditably suckled by two jolly nymphs; the name of the first drunkenness, one of Bacchus's offspring, the other ignorance, the daughter of Pan; both which you may here behold among several others of my train and attendants, whose particular names, if you would fain know, I will give you in short This, who goes with a mincing gait, and holds up her head so high, is Self-Love. She that looks so spruce, and makes such a noise and bustle, is Flattery.…