About the product
Encomius "Praise of Folly" of Rotterdam was written in 1509. The work is presented on behalf of Stupidity and is a criticism of the way of public and private life of European society. The author focuses on beliefs, traditions, superstitions, as well as church life and customs of his contemporaries.
To prepare for a literature lesson, we recommend reading online a summary of “In Praise of Stupidity” on our website. A retelling of the satire will also be useful for the reader’s diary.
The material was prepared jointly with the highest category teacher Lyubov Alexandrovna Koroshchup.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 30 years.
Summary
Chapters 1–10
Stupidity doesn’t care what “rude mortals” talk about it. With her mere presence she is able to amuse “gods and people.” This time she wants to speak to the public, imitating “those ancient Greeks who, avoiding the shameful nickname of sages, preferred to be called sophists.” Stupidity begins to praise itself - “Bragging yourself if people don’t praise you.” And there is a reason for this - people have been diligently taking advantage of its benefits for many centuries.
The Father of Stupidity is Plutos - “the only and true father of gods and men.” According to Stupidity, at all times, at the will of this god, “everything has happened and is happening - both sacred and secular.” Those whom he favors need not be afraid of Jupiter himself with his lightning and thunder. Stupidity was born on “those Happy Islands where they neither sow nor plow, but gather into granaries.” In those places there is no old age, no disease, no exhausting labor.
Stupidity was nurtured by two beautiful nymphs - Mete (Intoxication) and Apedia (Bad manners). In the retinue of Stupidity you can find Kolakiia (Flattery), Leta (Oblivion), Misoponia (Laziness), Hedone (Pleasure), Anoia (Madness), Trife (Gluttony), and also included in this round dance Cosmos (Revelry) and Negretos Hypnos (Enduring dream). Thanks to his faithful retinue, Stupidity subjugates the entire human race and gives orders to the emperors themselves.
Chapters 11–21
Stupidity claims that only thanks to it and its faithful assistants do people agree to create families, give birth and raise children. If men and women thought carefully before getting married, it is unlikely that they would decide to take this step.
Stupidity is also sure that only thanks to it, childhood and adolescence are the most beautiful times in the life of every person. This is because “wise nature has enveloped babies in an attractive veil of stupidity, which, charming parents and educators, rewards them for their efforts, and gives the little ones the love and care they need.” Even old age has a special charm, which has much in common with childhood - “the same white hair, toothless mouth, short stature, addiction to milk, tongue-tiedness, talkativeness, stupidity, forgetfulness, rashness.”
Only Stupidity can give happiness and fun, thanks to it, men like women, friends turn a blind eye to the shortcomings of their comrades, spouses make peace after a quarrel. In a word, Stupidity is the basis of any human society. Without it, “no community, no everyday connection would be pleasant or lasting.”
Chapters 22–30
Stupidity is sure that not a single person can live without it. If you reject it, then “not only will all other people become unbearable to you, but each of you will become vile and hateful to yourself.”
According to Stupidity, war is an absurd “competition, during which each side necessarily suffers much more inconvenience than it gains.” It is only thanks to her that wars occur on earth.
Stupidity creates states, feeds power, courts, religion. In fact, all life is a game of Stupidity.
Chapters 31–39
According to Stupidity, all sciences appeared “through the fault of those from whom all our misfortunes come, namely, through the fault of demons.” She considers the golden age to be the period when “the human race, not armed with any sciences, lived following the instructions of nature alone.” Among people, the happiest are fools and holy fools. They do not strive to be gods, they are not afraid of death and other dangers, they have no purpose in life. Madness is a true gift from the gods.
Chapters 40–54
Even Stupidity is amazed by those people who “believe in magical amulets and incantations, invented by some pious deceiver for fun or profit, and flatter themselves with hopes of wealth, honors, pleasures, abundance in everything, ever-blooming health, long life, vigorous old age and, finally, a place in the kingdom of heaven closer to Christ himself.”
Stupidity includes actors, singers, speakers, and poets as a special category of people. Many of them are completely devoid of talent, but at the same time they are filled with vanity. Stupidity states the fact that “the more mediocre such a person is, the more admirers he has.”
Stupidity gives the palm among self-righteous fools to lawyers. Next come the sophists, dialecticians, philosophers, and theologians. The latter consider themselves “residents of heaven, and look at other mortals with contempt and some kind of pity, as if at cattle swarming in the mud.” Most of all, they care about not being like each other. They see their task “not in becoming as much like Christ as possible, their goal, but in being as different as possible from the monks of other orders.”
Chapters 55–60
Folly is discussed with great pleasure by kings and noble courtiers. Their life would be extremely boring and sad if they “had even half an ounce of common sense.” If we talk about court nobles, then “there is, perhaps, nothing more servile, more groveling, more vulgar and more vile than them.” They strive to be the first in everything, but at the same time they are complete nonentities. By decorating themselves with gold, precious stones and purple, they try to somehow justify their own worthlessness, but to no avail. “Popes, cardinals and bishops” compete with noble nobles and the sovereigns themselves in pomp. At the same time, hardly anyone will remember that “the very word “bishop” means work, care and diligence.”
Chapters 61–68
Stupidity denies the value of wisdom for humanity. The sages live in poverty, in dirt, in hunger. Few people respect or love them, but “money goes to fools, they hold the helm of government in their hands and generally prosper in every possible way.”
As proof of its validity, Stupidity cites popular proverbs and sayings of pundits. She explains “what a great blessing is stupidity, if even its deceptive shadow and simple imitation have received such praise from the lips of learned people.”
Tickets. Option 3. Ticket 19. Erasmus of Rotterdam. Praise for Stupidity.
To the beginning of the siteTicket 19. Erasmus of Rotterdam. Praise for Stupidity.
Erasmus of Rotterdam brought worldwide fame to Dutch humanism. This is the pseudonym of Gert Gertsen (1466 - 1536), who wrote in Latin and was one of the best masters of Latin prose of the Renaissance.
Erasmus was a citizen of the world (cosmopolitan), he lived and studied in different European countries: France and England, Switzerland and Germany; he was one of the leaders of pan-European humanism, and for German humanism he was of exceptional importance.
In 1500, Erasmus’s collection “Proverbs” was published in Paris - a book of sayings and parables of ancient authors, biblical texts, and “fathers of the church.”
This book was supplemented by collections of ancient aphorisms “Parabola” and “Apophthegmata”.
The main works of the mature Erasmus are as follows: the satirical masterpiece “In Praise of Stupidity”, a large volume of dialogues on a variety of topics “Easy Conversations” (another name for “Home Conversations”), treatises “Education of a Christian Prince”, “Language, or On the Use of Language for the Good and harm". His book “The Christian Warrior” was an extraordinary success.
In 1517, Erasmus for the first time published the Greek text of the New Testament with scholarly commentaries in parallel with his own new translation into Latin, significantly refined in comparison with the previous ones.
All his works are truly priceless, but the writer’s main success fell to the share of a small book, which he himself considered a cute trifle. It was this trifle that brought him literary immortality, moreover, relevance in reading circles for all times. We are talking about “The Praise of Folly,” written in 1509, in which, with indescribable humor, society is examined in all its manifestations, the essence of life, happiness, knowledge, and faith is revealed.
It is at once a work of art, a philosophical treatise, a psychological and theological work. Compositionally, “In Praise of Stupidity” is a strict example of oratory, a brilliant parody of scholasticism and, unexpectedly for a Latin scholar, a highly poetic text.
Of course, everything in it is ridiculed - from bed to faith. It's clear. And the conclusion? And the conclusion is this: man is dual - half from God, half from the devil, which means that the way out for him is in the symbiosis of stupidity and wisdom, which can only be achieved by an enlightened soul, using its bodily organs at its discretion, for nothing human is alien to it.
1) E. as a representative of Christian humanism. See ticket 1.
2) Ancient and folk tradition in “In Praise of Stupidity”. The folk tradition is the tradition of books about fools (the folk book about Till Eulenspiegel), carnival processions of fools led by the Prince of Fools, the Fool-Papa and the Foolish Mother, etc. The ancient tradition is a form of panegyric.
3) Image of Stupidity. The main thesis here is the transition of stupidity into wisdom and vice versa. Based on this, try to understand the following.
In the first part of the “Laudatory,” the thought is paradoxically sharpened: Stupidity irrefutably proves its power over all life and over all its blessings. All ages and all classes, all feelings and all interests, all forms of connections between people and all worthy activities owe their existence and their joys to her. It is the basis of all prosperity and happiness. And here the question involuntarily arises: is this a joke or serious? But the whole appearance of the humanist Erasmus, in many ways a prototype of Rabelais' Pantagruel, excludes a joyless view of life as a concatenation of stupidities.
The satirical image of the “sage” runs through the entire first “philosophical” part of the speech, and the characteristic of this antipode of Stupidity highlights the main idea of Erasmus. Repulsive and wild appearance, hairy skin, dense beard, the appearance of premature old age (chapter 17). Strict, big-eyed, sharp-eyed for the vices of his friends, gloomy and unpleasant in friendship (chapter 19). At the feast he is sullenly silent and confuses with inappropriate questions. His very appearance spoils the public's pleasure. If he intervenes in a conversation, he will scare the interlocutor, no worse than a wolf. If you need to buy or do something, he’s a stupid blockhead, because he doesn’t know the customs. In discord with life, hatred of everything around him is born (chapter 25). The enemy of all sensitivity, a kind of marble likeness of a person, devoid of all human properties. Not that monster, not that ghost, knowing neither love nor pity, like a cold stone. Supposedly nothing escapes him, he is never mistaken, he weighs everything according to the rules of his science, he knows everything, he is always satisfied with himself, he alone is free, he is everything, but only in his own thoughts. He condemns everything that happens in life as if it were madness. He does not grieve for his friend, because he himself is no one’s friend. Here is the image of a perfect sage! Who would not prefer the last fool from the common people to him (chapter 30)
This is a complete image of a scholastic, a medieval armchair scientist, made up according to the literary tradition of this speech - as an ancient sage - a Stoic. This is a rational pedant, a rigorist and a doctrinaire, a principled enemy of human nature. But from the point of view of living life, his bookish, dilapidated wisdom is rather absolute stupidity.
The whole diversity of human interests cannot be reduced to one knowledge, especially abstract, bookish knowledge divorced from life. And if reason opposes itself to life, then its formal antipode - stupidity - coincides with every beginning of life. Erasm's Moria is therefore life itself. It is synonymous with genuine wisdom, which does not separate itself from life, while scholastic “wisdom” is synonymous with genuine stupidity.
Moria of the first part is Nature itself, which does not need to prove its rightness “with crocodiles, sorites, horned syllogisms and other dialectical intricacies” (chap. 19). People owe love, friendship, peace in family and society to the desire to be happy. The warlike, gloomy “sage” who is put to shame by the eloquent Moria is, in its own way, a highly developed pseudo-rationalism of medieval scholasticism, where reason, placed at the service of faith, pedantically developed a complex system of regulation and norms of behavior. The wretched reason of the scholastics is opposed by Moria, a new principle of Nature put forward by the humanism of the Renaissance.
For Erasmus, pleasure and true wisdom go hand in hand. The praise of Stupidity is the praise of the intelligence of life. The sensual principle of nature and the wisdom of reason in the integral humanistic thought of the Renaissance do not oppose each other. The elemental materialistic sense of life already overcomes the Christian ascetic dualism of scholasticism.
and excitement guides, serves as a whip and spurs of valor and motivates a person to every good deed.
Morya, as “the amazing wisdom of nature” (chapter 22), is life’s trust in itself, the opposite of the abstract wisdom of the scholastics, who impose their prescriptions on life. Therefore, not a single state accepted Plato's laws, and only natural interests (for example, the thirst for fame) formed public institutions.
The Moria of nature actually turns out to be the true reason of life, and the abstract “reason” of official teaching is recklessness, sheer madness. Moria is wisdom, and official “wisdom” is the worst form of Moria, true stupidity. The senses that deceive us, according to the philosophers, lead to reason; practice, not scholastic writings, leads to knowledge; passion, not stoic dispassion, to valor. In general, “Stupidity leads to wisdom” (chapter 30). Already in the title and in the dedication (where Moria and “so far from her essence” Thomas More, Folly and humanistic wisdom are brought together), the whole paradox of the “Eulogy” is revealed, based on the dialectical view of the author, according to which all things are in themselves opposite and “ have two faces."
The second part of the “Eulogy” is devoted to “various types and forms of Stupidity. But it is easy to notice that here not only the subject changes imperceptibly, but also the meaning invested in the concept of “stupidity”, the nature of laughter and its tendency. The very tone of the panegyric also changes dramatically. Stupidity forgets its role, and, instead of praising itself and its servants, it begins to be indignant at the servants of Moria, become indignant, expose and castigate the “Morins”. Humor turns into satire.
Moria there therefore coincided with Nature itself and was only conditional Stupidity - stupidity from the point of view of the abstract mind. But everything has its measure, and the one-sided development of passions, like dry wisdom, turns into its opposite. Already Chapter 34, glorifying the happy state of animals that do not know any training, any knowledge and “submit to nature alone,” is ambiguous. Does this mean that a person should not strive to “push the boundaries of his lot”, that he should become like animals? Doesn't this just contradict Nature, which endowed him with intelligence? Therefore, the happy state in which fools, holy fools and weak-minded people reside does not convince us to follow the “bestial nonsense” of their existence (chapter 35). “In Praise of Stupidity” imperceptibly moves from a panegyric to nature to a satire on ignorance, backwardness, and rigidity of social mores.
passions: mania of hunters, for whom there is no greater bliss than the singing of horns and yelping dogs, mania of alchemists, gamblers (chap. 39), superstitions, pilgrims to holy places (ch. 40), etc. Here Moria of life is already shown with such companions as Anoia (Madness), Misoponia (Laziness), Komos (Revelry), Nigretos - Hypnos (Endless Sleep), Truffé (Gluttony), etc. (Chapter 9). And now we remember that even in the introduction she was introduced as the daughter of parasitic Wealth and ignorant Youth, the fruit of lust, conceived in a state of hangover at a feast of the gods (chapter 7), suckled by the nymphs Drunkenness and Bad manners (chapter 8).
In the first part of the speech, Morya, as the wisdom of nature, guaranteed life a variety of interests, movement and comprehensive development. There she corresponded to the humanistic ideal of the “universal” person. But insane one-sided stupidity creates fixed, inert forms and types of human life: the class of well-born cattle who boast of their nobility of origin (chap. 42), or merchants - hoarders, “the breed of all the stupidest and nastiest” (chap. 48), bankrupt quarrels or hired warriors who dream of getting rich in war, mediocre actors and singers, orators and poets, grammarians and jurists. Philautia, the sister of Stupidity, now shows her other face. It gives rise to the complacency of different cities and peoples, the vanity of stupid chauvinism and self-delusion (chap. 43). Happiness is deprived of its objective basis in the nature of all living things; it now “depends on our opinion about things... and rests on self-deception” (chap. 45). Like mania, it is already subjective and everyone goes crazy in their own way, finding their happiness in it. As the imaginary “stupidity” of nature, Moria was the connection of every human society; now, as the genuine stupidity of prejudice, it, on the contrary, corrupts society. Churchmen especially get it in this part.
4) Features of laughter. Laughter = folk-carnival laughter + satire (about satire, see above, it is in the second part of the work). Folk carnival laughter is in the first. Folk carnival laughter is not aimed at discrediting, but at comically doubling the world.
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History of creation
Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote “In Praise of Folly” while traveling from Italy to England. The writer was forced to idle on the road, so he decided to start creating a new work. The work was edited in the house of Thomas More , a friend of Erasmus. It was he who encouraged Rotterdamsky to take up writing.
The author of the work “In Praise of Stupidity” quickly became popular. The satirical text was translated into different languages and republished several times, but the creator considered his own work weak and outright trifle. He valued his scientific works more.
In the modern world, the encomium of Rotterdam does not lose its relevance. True fans read the text in the original Latin, but others can enjoy the translation. The author put his humanistic ideas and views into the work, which is why the work remains popular to this day.
