When was erasmus’s the praise of folly published

Originally written to amuse his friend Sir Thomas More, this satiric celebration of pleasure, youth, and intoxication irreverently pokes fun at the pieties of theologians and the foibles that make us all human, while ultimately reaffirming the value of Christian ideals. This Princeton Classics edition of The Praise of Folly features a new foreword by Anthony Grafton that provides an essential introduction to this iridescent and enduring masterpiece. Like all great minds Erasmus has the faculty of being perennially contemporary, and The Praise of Folly is a gay, witty revelation of the subtleties and intricacies of the scholarly mind of the Renaissance.

This handsome volume will certainly please the student as well as the general reader. Buy from…. View all retailers. Related titles. Start With Why. Conversations on Love. Beyond Good And Evil. Four Thousand Weeks. The Republic. Great Ideas. City Of God. In short, humanity is being scolded. The representatives of the Church in particular are in the thick of it. But is all of it meant to be taken seriously? After all, it is Mrs. Folly, not Erasmus, who is delivering the criticisms. Satire with a false bottom then?

Praise of Folly was first printed in