The Praise of Folly愚人颂.docVIP

Reading report of the Praise of Folly What 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 Erasmus’s 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 book The 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 author Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) 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