The Praise of Folly

By: Erasmus

Narrated by: Joe Gomez

The Praise of Folly is a hilarious satirical essay on various superstitions and irrational beliefs held by European society and the Roman Catholic Church at the time of Desiderius Erasmus. The narrator is Folly and her attendants include Philautia (Self Love), Kolakia (Flattery), Lethe (Forgetfulness), and Anoia (Imbecility).

The Praise of Folly is considered one of the most noteworthy works of the Renaissance which was a contributing factor to the Protestant Reformation.

Public Domain (P)2018 Museum Audiobooks

Very clever- The brilliant and contrarian" spirit of Erasmus shows through well.

The delivery was a bit staccatto for the subject matter - there's lots of clever, "pointed" remarks and witticisms that would be easier to appreciate at a slower pace. A foreword with some hiistorical context would have helped me, as a modern reader.

The Praise of Folly

It is necessary to update the language of the text as well as add notes to clarify the context of Erasmus’ remarks.

Horrible translation and subpar narration

There are so many grammatical errors in the translation that it is overly difficult to follow the story. Perhaps this is a word-for-word translation of the original Latin, but trying to understand what is being said took quite an effort.

The narrator did fairly well reading each awkward sentence (I followed along with the text in hand). Unfortunately, he mispronounced so many names that it became a distraction.

Overall, I found my purchase of this version to be big regret. Fortunately, it wasn't too expensive...perhaps you get what you pay for.