In Praise of Folly

This sixteenth-century religious satire by a Renaissance critic and theologian is “a masterpiece of humor and wise irony” (Johan Huizinga, Dutch historian).

At the onset of his hugely successful satire of medieval European society, Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus invokes the goddess Folly, daughter of Youth and Wealth, who was raised by Drunkenness and Ignorance. She’s followed by idolatrous comp...