Erasmus of Rotterdam. Praise for stupidity

"Praise of Foolishness" ("Praise of Foolishness"; "Moriae Encomium, sive Stultitiae Laus") is one of the central works of Erasmus of Rotterdam. The book was written in 1509 and published in 1511. In total, about 40 lifetime editions of this satire were published. The "praise of stupidity" owes much of its existence to Erasmus' long journey through Europe. The idea of ​​writing such a work matured on his way to England, and upon arrival to his beloved friend, More, Erasmus practically in a few days brought his plan to life. The satire was written in the genre of an ironic panegyric, which was due to a combination of two tendencies characteristic of the Renaissance: an appeal to ancient authors (therefore a panegyric) and the spirit of criticism of the social way of life (therefore an ironic). It should be noted that Erasmus used a rather widespread image of stupidity in the late Middle Ages. Suffice it to recall the "festivities of fools" that took place, carnival processions with a masquerade, which served as a relaxation of social and psychological tension. Erasmus himself looked at this work of his as a literary trinket - but he owes his literary celebrity and his place in history to this trinket, at least to no less extent than to his multivolume scientific works. Most of the latter, having served in their time, rested long ago in book depositories, under a thick layer of age-old dust, while Praise of Foolishness continues to be read to this day, relatively few in the Latin original, but, one might say, all in translations available at the present time in all European languages, and thousands of educated people continue to read this ingenious joke of the wittiest of scientists and the most learned of the witty people, which only the history of world literature knows. Since the advent of the printing press, this was the first case of truly colossal success in the printed work.