The Praise of Folly is a satire, and more specifically, a satirical eulogy. A eulogy is a speech or a piece of writing that praises some individual in highly formal and poetic language. Generally, a eulogy is written on behalf of an illustrious and well-respected figure. In The Praise of Folly, however, the absurd goddess Folly praises herself in a lengthy and ironic eulogy. At the beginning of her speech, Folly explains her motivations for eulogizing herself:
Here, by the way, I wonder at the ingratitude, or perhaps the negligence, of men: although all of them studiously cherish me and freely acknowledge my benefits, not a one has emerged so far in all the ages to celebrate the praises of Folly in a grateful oration. In the meantime, there has been no lack of those who at great expense of lamp-oil and of sleep have extolled, in elegant eulogies, Busiruses, Phalarises, quartan fevers, flies, baldness, and pests of that sort.
Folly complains about the “ingratitude” or “negligence” of men who have failed to praise her sufficiently in the past despite enjoying the “benefits” of folly, another word for foolishness. Meanwhile other poets, she notes, have presented “elegant eulogies” to a range of topics including mythological figures, diseases, bugs, and even the concept of “baldness.”
The absurdity of Folly’s eulogy, however, highlights Erasmus’s satirical intentions in this essay. First, a eulogy is generally written on behalf of someone else, not the writer themself. Second, Folly fails to recognize that these other eulogies, written on behalf of such banal topics as “flies,” were ironic rather than serious. The opening lines of the essay, then, underscore its status as a satirical eulogy in line with previous examples of the genre.
