In Praise of Folly ~ Desiderius Erasmus

Upon choosing the text In Praise of Folly (also know as The Praise of Folly) by the Catholic Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus I was surprised to learn what the work is about. Prior to purchasing and reading the book I had never heard of Erasmus nor his work In Praise of Folly. Erasmus was from Rotterdam but eventually made his way to England where he met and befriended Sir Thomas More. In Praise of Folly was written by Erasmus to More on a trip back from Rome. Erasmus wrote the work to amuse himself and originally had no intention of publishing it, but he eventually did. In Praise of Folly ended up being one of the books which led to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. 

So without leaving my readers in suspense as to what In Praise of Folly is about I will give a description of the work. 

Published in Paris in 1511, In Praise of Folly is a witty satire which pokes fun at the learned in society as well as at the Catholic clergy and the Catholic Church. The narrator of the work is the goddess Folly who is the daughter of the god of wealth Plutus and the nymph Youth. Folly says she was suckled by the two jolly nymphs Drunkenness and Ignorance. Folly comes to her audience dressed as a jester in ridiculous and colorful garments. She begins her oration by extolling her own virtues and describing how she should be extolled because she brings such universal pleasure to all men. The work is kind of divided into parts in that Folly focuses on a certain topic of folly before turning to another topic of folly. 

The first part has Folly defending her claim to being important to all humanity by explaining how marriage would not occur without her help. Folly allows man to say of an ugly woman that she is as beautiful as Venus causing marriages, births, and life to continue. All gatherings need Folly to bring amusement. Even friendships require Folly for them to succeed. Folly extolls self love saying all men need some self love to go anywhere in life. 

In the second part, Folly pokes fun at those of the upper class like lawyers, philosophers, gamblers, poets, and grammarians. These men see themselves as better than those classes below them making them smug and foolish. These men look down on the lower classes for their silly behavior saying they indulge in folly, yet Folly ridicules these upper class men for refusing to see the folly they themselves partake in. She says of philosophers and their blind conjectures, “they know nothing, even this is a sufficient argument, that they don’t agree among themselves and so are incomprehensible touching every particular.”(44) In this part of the text, Folly pays special attention to particularly condemning Catholic clergy including theologians, monks, and bishops. Folly attacks the clergy saying even though these men say they do not partake in Folly they truly do yet pretend it isn’t so. They ignore the Gospel and Scripture message, live in luxury, desire to inspire awe in their listeners through illogical speech, and basically focus on themselves but pretend it is in the name of Christ.

The final part of In Praise of Folly is on the Christian fool. The Scriptures speak highly of the ignorant simpleton who lives in the world but is not of the world. While the world turns its nose up at the simple fool and searches for wisdom Folly insists it misses that it is through foolishness that ones leads a truly Christian life. Christ and his apostles acted foolish by leaving behind all earthly goods and arming themselves with nothing but the sword of the spirit. Christ told his followers to rejoice in the face of persecution for his sake, which smacks of pure folly. Folly says Christianity is not a religion based on wisdom but one based on foolishness. To come closer to God requires one act the fool. “‘We are fools for Christ’s sake.’ You have heard from how great an author how great praises of folly; and to what other end but that without doubt he looked upon it as that one thing both necessary and profitable. ‘If anyone among ye,”’ says he, ‘seem to be wise, let him be a fool that he may be wise.’”(65) After focusing on the Christian fool, Folly concludes her oration telling her audience to drink, be merry, and enjoy life as her disciples.

For only being 71 pages long, In Praise of Folly packs a lot in and will take time to read and digest. Personally, I found it very difficult to read at first. Erasmus is articulate in his writing but his style takes getting use to for it is dense and very fact paced. The book also has no breaks for it is meant to be a speech of sorts by Folly. Because it has no section breaks, In Praise of Folly is hard to put down only because you know how difficult it will be to pick back up. A reread of the previous page or two sometimes is necessary to remember what is being discussed. However, after becoming more familiar with Erasmus’ writing style the book became easier to read and understand. The biting satire and dry humor became more apparent and I actually began to enjoy what I was reading. I did struggle at times with the fantasy Erasmus uses throughout the text. The amount of references made to ancient Roman and Greek gods and goddesses, characters in classical works like the Iliad by Homer, heroes like Perseus, and countless other authors, poets, and muses of ancient times can be overwhelming. While many of the references I got, there were just as many I needed to look up to understand what Erasmus was referring to. Depending on a reader’s background in fantasy, classic books (pre Renaissance), history, and mythology In Praise of Folly could either be a treat or a major headache.  

Overall, In Praise of Folly ended up going from a chore I kept forcing myself to read out of sheer necessity for this blog post to a more enjoyable, and dare I say, fun read. After reading In Praise of Folly I can understand how it was used by the Protestant Reformation as a tool to attack the Church. Erasmus was writing caricatures of the Catholic clergy but many took the images he created and turned them into history. There is a fascinating article about Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly and its unintended affect on the history of the Reformation titled  An Accidental Historian: Erasmus and the English History of the Reformation. by Gregory D. Dodd which can be found in the June 2013 issue of the academic journal Church History. 

I purchased my copy of In Praise of Folly at Amazon.com for $3 with Amazon Prime account.

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Erasmus, Desiderius. In Praise of Folly. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 2003.
All photos found through Google Images.