The Praise of Folly

A Latin satire first published in 1511, written by Desiderius Erasmus and dedicated to his friend Thomas More — whose name puns on the Greek moria, folly. The conceit is a mock oration delivered by Folly herself, praising her own indispensability: nothing human gets done without her, marriage and friendship and war all require self-deception, and the people most deluded are the ones most certain they are not. The second half turns the joke on the institutional church — the theologians, monks and popes — which is why the book became one of the most consequential texts of the Northern Renaissance despite its author never leaving Catholicism.

Why it’s on the list: Assigned in the University of Austin’s Renaissance and Reformation course. It is the clearest single demonstration of what Christian humanism was doing before Luther: attacking clerical corruption with classical rhetoric and Greek learning from inside the church rather than out of it, and doing it as a joke, which is a different and harder move than doing it as a thesis.

Where I saw it: On the University of Austin’s Fall 2025 reading list, “65 Texts Our Students Are Reading”, November 13 2025, saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 65-text curriculum is transcribed on UATX Fall Reading List.

Connections

• UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this is assigned in.
• Erasmus — the author.
• Humanism · Renaissance — the movement it belongs to.
• Rhetoric — the form is a classical mock encomium, deployed on the church.