Desiderius Erasmus

DESIDERIUS ERASMUS

Desiderius Erasmuss "The Praise of Folly" stands as a seminal work in Renaissance literature, intertwining humorous satire with profound philosophical inquiry. Composed in 1509, this essay employs a voice of playful irony through the character of Folly, who extols the virtues of foolishness in contrast to the pervasive seriousness of learned scholars and religious leaders. Erasmuss deft use of rhetorical devices and his crisp, accessible style make this text both entertaining and intellectually stimulating, reflecting the humanist ideals of his time while critiquing the follies of society, religion, and politics. Erasmus, a Dutch scholar and theologian, significantly shaped the intellectual landscape of the Renaissance. His commitment to education, language, and moral philosophy deeply influenced his writing. Raised in the aftermath of the late medieval period, Erasmus witnessed the rising tide of humanism, prompting him to explore the intersections of faith and reason, and to criticize the dogmatism prevalent within the Church. His extensive travels and dialog with various intellectual currents undoubtedly informed the incisive wit and critical lens found in this work. For readers intrigued by the confluence of humor and critique, "The Praise of Folly" offers a rich exploration of human nature and societal norms. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the foundations of modern thought and the Renaissance, appealing to scholars, students, and casual readers alike.

"He tocado brevemente estos temas para poner de manifiesto que no hay un solo mortal que pueda vivir agradablemente, si no está iniciado en mi culto y si yo, la Estulticia, no le dispenso mi benevole

Erasmo de Rotterdam, Juan Luis Vives, Pedro Mexía, IsócratesDetalles de LibroELOGIO DE LA LOCURA o ELOGIO DE LA ESTULTICIA. DIALOGOS por Erasmo de Rotterdam. DIALOGOS, Juan Luis Vives. COLOQUIOS, Pedro Mexia. LA PARENESIS, Isocrates. Prologo y notas de J. B. Bergua.

Translator: Richard Sherry

Editor: A. H. Kan / Illustrator: Hans Holbein the Younger / Translator: J. B. Kan

The Praise of Folly is a treatise written by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and it is a satirical attack on superstitions, various traditions of European society and on the Latin Church. The Praise of Folly begins with a satirical learned encomium, in which Folly praises herself, in the manner of the Greek satirist Lucian, whose work Erasmus and Sir Thomas More had recently translated into Latin; it then takes a darker tone in a series of orations, as Folly praises self-deception and madness and moves to a satirical examination of pious but superstitious abuses of Catholic doctrine and corrupt practices in parts of the Roman Catholic Churchto which Erasmus was ever faithfuland the folly of pedants. The treatise is filled with classical allusions delivered in a style typical of the learned humanists of the Renaissance.

Erasmus was the most facetious man, and the greatest critic of his age. He carried on a reformation in learning at the same time he advanced that of religion; and promoted a purity of style as well as simplicity of worship. This drew on him the hatred of the ecclesiastics, who were no less bigotted to their barbarisms in language and philosophy, than they were to their superstitious and gaudy ceremonies in religion; they murdered him in their dull treatises, libelled him in their wretched sermons, and in their last and most effectual efforts of malice, they joined some of their own execrable stuff to his compositions: of which he himself complains in a letter addressed to the divines of Louvain. He exposed with great freedom the vices and corruptions of his own church, yet never would be persuaded to leave her communion. The papal policy would never have suffered Erasmus to have taken so unbridled a range in the reproof and censure of her extravagancies, but under such circumstances, when the public attack of Luther imposed on her a prudential necessity of not disobliging her friends, that she might with more united strength oppose the common enemy; and patiently bore what at any other time she would have resented. Perhaps no man has obliged the public with a greater number of useful volumes than our author; though several have been attributed to him which he never wrote. His book of Colloquies has passed through more editions than any of his others: Moreri tells us a bookseller in Paris sold twenty thousand at one impression.

Erasmus services to a new way of learning took various forms. He wrote school-books, bringing out his view that boys were kept too long over grammar, and ought to begin reading some good author as soon as possible. His own "Colloquies" were meant partly as models of colloquial Latin; the book was long a standard one in education. These lively dialogues are prose idylls with an ethical purpose,the dramatic expression of the writers views on the life of the day. Thus the dialogue between the Learned Lady and the Abbot depicts monastic illiteracy; that between the Soldier and the Carthusian brings out the seamy side of the military calling. Lucian has influenced the form; but the dramatic skill which blends earnestness with humour is the authors own; there are touches here and there which might fairly be called Shakspearian. This is part one of two.

Desiderius Erasmus was a very human man. A humanist, who was no more humane than the rest of the wits and cynics of his time, there was in him a plenty of human weaknesses and uglinesses. Nevertheless he does strike occasionally a note that is genuinely human, universally true, accordant with all the race of men. And this is eminently so of the "Complaint of Peace." The complaints which he puts in the mouth of Peace might have come from the lips of Divae Paris with as much verisimilitude as they did when Erasmus echoed them many centuries ago.

Erasmus services to a new way of learning took various forms. He wrote school-books, bringing out his view that boys were kept too long over grammar, and ought to begin reading some good author as soon as possible. His own "Colloquies" were meant partly as models of colloquial Latin; the book was long a standard one in education. These lively dialogues are prose idylls with an ethical purpose,the dramatic expression of the writers views on the life of the day. Thus the dialogue between the Learned Lady and the Abbot depicts monastic illiteracy; that between the Soldier and the Carthusian brings out the seamy side of the military calling. Lucian has influenced the form; but the dramatic skill which blends earnestness with humour is the authors own; there are touches here and there which might fairly be called Shakspearian. This is part two of two.

Erasmus reached England after a stay in Italy early in the summer of 1510. Soon afterwards, in Thomas Mores house at Bucklersbury, he rapidly wrote his famous satire, the Encomium Moriae, or "Praise of Folly," in which Folly celebrates her own praises as the great source of human pleasures. He had been meditating this piece on the long journey from Rome; it is a kaleidoscope of his experiences in Italy, and of earlier memories. As to the title, Moria, the Greek word for "folly," was a playful allusion, of course, to the name of his wise and witty host. This "Praise of Folly" is a satire, not only in the modern but in the original sense of that word,a medley. All classes, all callings, are sportively viewed on the weak side. But in relation to the authors own life and times, the most important topics are the various abuses in the Church, the pedantries of the school-men, and the selfish wars of kings. If this eloquent Folly, as Erasmus presents her, most often wears the mocking smile of Lucian or Voltaire, there are moments also when she wields the terrible lash of Juvenal or of Swift. The popularity of the satire, throughout Europe, was boundless. The mask of jest which it wore was its safeguard; how undignified, how absurd it would have been for a Pope or a King to care what was said by Folly! And, just for that reason, the Encomium Moriae must be reckoned among the forces which prepared the Reformation.

We get some sense of things which were moving deeply in Erasmus life from his "Manual of a Christian Knight." We find here a characteristic criticism of religious forms taking the place of religious substance. We find a tremendous emphasis upon the intelligence which in no way lessens the emphasis on vital piety. Prayer and knowledge are to work together in the life of the Christian knight. The inner is to give force and power to the outer. The outer is never to take the place of the inner. The warfare and the weapons and the true wisdom of the Christian are discussed. There is many a pithy judgment: "The way to worship the saints is to imitate their virtues." You have the sense of a clear and highly trained mind applying itself to the interests of piety. It is the work of a Renaissance scholar. But it is the work of a man of the Renaissance whose whole attitude had become profoundly Christian. Serious-minded men in many countries felt their minds stirred and their lives deepened as they read it.

Vilified by generations of philosophers and moralists, the goddess Folly decides to climb onto the pulpit and vindicate herself, since humankind stubbornly refuses to acknowledge her many indisputable virtues. Doesn't she make life a blessing by giving men and women illusions, by filling them with vain ambitions, and by preventing them from taking the world's sorrows and evils too seriously? Isn't she the one whom superstitious clerics, pedantic grammarians, hair-splitting lawyers, self-conceited poets, and religious charlatans should be adoring? A satire on the intrinsic vanity of the social order and an exhortation towards a humanistic Christianity, Erasmus's Praise of Follywritten in 1509 and put on the index of forbidden books by the Council of Trent in 1559 after becoming the greatest literary success of the Humanistic Ageis the towering achievement of one of the most brilliant minds of all time, and one of the most influential books ever written. Published here in a new translation by Roger Clarke which brings out the underlying humor of the original, Erasmus's masterpiece is presented in this volume with one of his lesser-known satirical dialogues, Pope Julius Barred from Heaven, and with a selection from his other great work, the Adagia.