PRAISE OF FOLLY;LETTER TO MAARTEN VAN DORP,1515 Desiderius Erasmus - Author Betty Radice - Translator A. H. T. Levi - Introduction by A. H. T. Levi - Notes by
Book: Paperback | 129 x 198mm | 256 pages | ISBN 9780140446081 | 27 Sep 2004 | Penguin Classic | 18 - AND UP
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.
Praise of Folly
Preface to the 1993 Edition
Introduction
1. The importance of the Praise of Folly
2. Erasmus, scholastics, humanists and reformers
3. The Praise of Folly, Dorp and the spirituality of Erasmus
Select Bibliography
Praise of Folly
Prefatory Letter Moriae Encomium, that is, the Praise of Folly
Letter to Maarten Van Dorp, 1515
