The Praise of Folly愚人颂.docVIP

Reading report of the Praise of FollyWhat is a folly? Different people may have different definitions about folly. Before I have read the Praise of Folly, in my mind, folly was really a derogatory term. In our daily life, a man who is stupid and silly is described as a folly. However, it really changes my mind when I touch the work of Desiderius Erasmus, the Praise of Folly. From Erasmuss work, we can find that there are a few of folly who can distinguish the real folly and wise. And they are common people who maybe happy, anger or sad. About the bookThe Praise of Folly sometimes is translated as The Praise of More, was an essay written in Latin in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus and first printed in 1511. Erasmus revised and extended the work, which he originally wrote in the space of a week while sojourning with Thomas More. It was hugely popular, to Erasmus astonishment and sometimes his dismay. Leo X thought it was funny. Before Erasmus death it had already passed into numerous editions and had been translated into French and German. An English edition soon followed. It influenced teaching of rhetoric during the later sixteenth century, and the art of criticism or praise of worthless subjects became a popular exercise in Elizabethan grammar schools: see Charles O. McDonald, The Rhetoric of Tragedy (Amherst, 1966). A copy of the Basel edition of 1515/16 was illustrated with pen and ink drawings by Hans Holbein the Younger. The Praise of Folly is considered one of the most notable works of the Renaissance and played an important role in the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation. These are the most famous illustrations of The Praise of Folly.About the authorDesiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (14661536) was the most famous and influential humanist of the Northern Renaissance, especially north of the Alps. He was a leading writer on education, author of five influential treatises on humanist educational theory and even a greater number of widely used and often reprinted textbooks taught in humanistic schools throughout Europe, he even wrote and published Latin poems on both secular and religious themes, the one genre in which he had no lasting influence.The guides to theological method and exegesis of the Bible that he wrote as prefaces to the 1516 and 1518 editions of the New Testament mark a major turn in theology and the interpretation of Scripture and posed a serious challenge to the scholastic theology that had dominated university faculties of theology since the thirteenth century. He was also an active letter-writer, corresponding with contemporaries high and low, famous and obscure, and carefully preserving his letters and publishing some of them since like his Roman models, he regarded the letter as an important literary genre. The one genre in which Erasmus wrote no works at all was philosophy, though he often cited ancient philosophers and dealt (normally in a non-philosophical way) with several intellectual problems of interest to philosophers.The details of the book At the beginning of the book, theres a letter to Erasmus good friend, Thomas More, with whom he wants to share a taste for dry humor and other intellectual pursuits. For the words “The first thing was your surname of More, which comes so near the word Moriae (folly) as you are far from the thing. And that you are so, the world will clear you. In the next place, I conceived this exercise of wit would not be least approved by you”, the title The Praise of Folly can also be read as meaning The Praise of More. The double or triple meanings go on throughout the text. Personally, I divide the book into five parts. First is a series of orations of feigned matter spoken by Folly in her owns. The following material which I lined shows the equal idea of Erasmus and his positive life attitude. Considering with our present life, there are still many wise people judge a people by his birth or his society position. We can even hear that some rich or officer second generation prefer competing to Dads. We should know that it is not our background of birth which decide who we are but ourselves. Everyone is created equal. The whole material also presents his contempt to the Greek Gods and Goddesses. And as to the place of my birth, forasmuch as nowadays that is looked upon as a main point of nobility, it was neither, like Apollos, in the floating Delos, nor Venus-like on the rolling sea, nor in any of blind Homers as blind caves: but in the Fortunate Islands, where all things grew without plowing or sowing; where neither labor, nor old age, nor disease was ever heard of; and in whose fields neither daffodil, mallows, onions, beans, and such contemptible things would ever grow, but, on the contrary, rue, angelica, bugloss, marjoram, trefoils, roses, violets, lilies, and all the gardens of Adonis invite both your sight and your smelling. And being thus born, I did not begin the world, as other children are wont, with crying; but straight perched up and smiled on my mother. Nor do I envy to the great Jupiter the goat, his nurse, forasmuch as I was suckled by two jolly nymphs, to wit, Drunkenness, the daughter of Bacchus, and Ignorance, of Pan. And as for such my companions and followers as you perceive about me, if you have a mind to know who they are, you are not like to be the wiser for me, unless it be in Greek: this here, which you observe with that proud cast of her eye, is Philautia, Self-love; she with the smiling countenance, that is ever and anon clapping her hands, is Kolakia, Flattery; she that looks as if she were half asleep is Lethe, Oblivion; she that sits leaning on both elbows with her hands clutched together is Misoponia, Laziness; she with the garland on her head, and that smells so strong of perfumes, is Hedone, Pleasure; she with those staring eyes, moving here and there, is Anoia, Madness; she with the smooth skin and full pampered body is Tryphe, Wantonness; and, as to the two gods that you see with them, the one is Komos, Intemperance, the other Negretos hypnos, Dead Sleep. These, I say, are my household servants, and by their faithful counsels I have subjected all things to my dominion and erected an empire over emperors themselves. In the second above paragraph we can notice that Follys faithful companions include Philautia (self-love), Kolakia (flattery), Lethe (forgetfulness), Misoponia (laziness), Hedone (pleasure), Anoia (madness), Tryphe (wantonness) and two gods Komos (intemperance) and Eegretos Hypnos (dead sleep). Folly praises herself endlessly, arguing that life would be dull and distasteful without her. Here we can find out the definition of Folly, who is a common man.Second is a series of orations of Folly Seasons Mans Life with Pleasure. The lined sentences of earthly existence, Folly pompously states, youll find nothing frolic or fortunate that it owes not to me. But I think it is a small matter that you thus owe your beginning of life to me, unless I also show you that whatever benefit you receive in the progress of it is of my gift likewise. For what other is this? Can that be called life where you take away pleasure? Oh! Do you like what I say? I knew none of you could have so little wit, or so much folly, or wisdom rather, as to be of any other opinion. For even the Stoics themselves that so severely cried down pleasure did but handsomely dissemble, and railed against it to the common people to no other end but that having discouraged them from it, they might the more plentifully enjoy it themselves. But tell me, by Jupiter, what part of mans life is that that is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be seasoned with pleasure, that is to say, folly? For the proof of which the never sufficiently praised Sophocles in that his happy elegy of us, To know nothing is the only happiness, might be authority enough, but that I intend to take every particular by itself.Third is a series of orations of Folly makes effects on society. The author quoted Platos sentence, then described the example of M. Antoninus, which arose people to think that whether the wise emperor can bring peace for the country. After comparing the Socrates children with Ciceros son, we can obviously know which people are really wise men and which people are real fools.And next to these is cried up, forsooth, that goodly sentence of Platos, Happy is that commonwealth where a philosopher is prince, or whose prince is addicted to philosophy. When yet if you consult historians, youll find no princes more pestilent to the commonwealth than where the empire has fallen to some smatter in philosophy or one given to letters. To the truth of which I think the Catoes give sufficient credit; of whom the one was ever disturbing the peace of the commonwealth with his hair-brained accusations; the other, while he too wisely vindicated its liberty, quite overthrew it. Add to this the Bruti, Casii, nay Cicero himself, who was no less pernicious to the commonwealth of Rome than was Demosthenes to that of Athens. Besides M. Antoninus (that I may give you one instance that there was once one good emperor; for with much ado I can make it out) was become burdensome and hated of his subjects upon no other score but that he was so great a philosopher. But admitting him good, he did the commonwealth more hurt in leaving behind him such a son as he did than ever he did it good by his own government. For these kind of men that are so given up to the study of wisdom are generally most unfortunate, but chiefly in their children; Nature, it seems, so providently ordering it, lest this mischief of wisdom should spread further among mankind. For which reason it is manifest why Ciceros son was so degenerate, and that wise Socrates children, as one has well observed, were more like their mother than their father, that is to say, fools.The fourth is a series of orations of the Wise like Princes, Our Great Illuminated Divine, Madness, Monks e.g. 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. Erasmus had recently returned disappointed from Rome, where he had turned down offers of advancement in the curia, and Folly increasingly takes on Erasmus own chastising voice. In like manner cardinals, if they thought themselves the successors of the apostles, they would likewise imagine that the same things the other did are required of them, and that they are not lords but dispensers of spiritual things of which they must shortly give an exact account. But if they also would a little philosophize on their habit and themselves. whats the meaning of their linen rochet, is it not a remarkable and singular integrity of life? What that inner purple; is it not an earnest and fervent love of God? Or what that outward, whose loose plaits and long train fall round his Reverences mule and are large enough to cover a camel; is it not charity that spreads itself so wide to the succor of all men? that is, to instruct, exhort, comfort, reprehend, admonish, compose wars, resist wicked princes, and willingly expend not only their wealth but their very lives for the flock of Christ: though yet what need at all of wealth to them that supply the room of the poor apostles? These things, I say, did they but duly consider, they would not be so ambitious of that dignity; or, if they were, they would willingly leave it and live a laborious, careful life, such as was that of the ancient apostles.Nay, further, whereas the Church of Christ was founded in blood, confirmed by blood, and augmented by blood, now, as if Christ, who after his wonted manner defends his people, were lost, they govern all by the word. And whereas war is so savage a thing that it rather befit beasts than men, so outrageous that the very poets feigned it came from the Furies, so pestilent that it corrupts all mens manners, so unjust that it is best executed by the worst of men, so wicked that it has no agreement