The Praise of Folly

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 Church—to which Erasmus was ever faithful—and the folly of pedants. The treatise is filled with classical allusions delivered in a style typical of the learned humanists of the Renaissance.

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was a Dutch philosopher and Catholic theologian who is considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance. As a Catholic priest, he was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style.