4,5

Oxuyarkən çox zövq aldım. Artıq Erasmus'u tanıdığıma və onun satirik dillə qələmə aldığı bu kitabı oxuduğuma çox sevinirəm.

Kitabda Erasmus özünü "axmaqlıq" olaraq tanıdır və özünə "təriflər" yağdırır. Axmaqlığın əslində həyatı xoşbəxt və hüzurlu yaşamaq üçün yeganə vasitə olduğunu və biliyin insana bədbəxtlik gətirdiyindən, onu hər şeyi sorğulamağa sürüklədiyindən və bu səbəbdən də ömrünü daha da qısaldaraq şanssızıq içində başa vurmasını tez-tez xatırladır.

Yazar bir çox peşə sahiblərinin, dövlət adamlarının, papaların və digər din xadimlərinin, həmçinin avam xalq dediyi insanların əməllərini sayır və onların axmaqlıqdan necə istifadə etdiyini və bunun onlara necə sərf etdiyini qeyd edir. Kitabın sonu xüsusilə maraqlı idi, çünki fanatikcəsinə dinə bağlı olan insanların özlərini dünyəvi olan hər şeydən məhrum etməklə sonsuz səadətə çatacaqlarına inanmaqlarını və bu üzdən gözlərinin önündə olan heç bir şeyi görmədiklərini, daha doğrusu görmək istəmədiklərini vurğulayır.

Kitabda bir-iki yerdə tam qatılmadığım düşüncəsi də oldu yazarın. Özəlliklə, qadınlar barəsində dedikləri(ola bilsin onun sözlərini yanlış da anlayım, çünki satirik dillə danışarkən, ciddimi yoxsa kinayə iləmi dediyindən hələ də əmin deyiləm bu sözləri) və hüquqçuları fırıldaqçı kimi qələmə verdiyi hissə(içlərində elələri var düzdü, amma işini vicdanla yerinə yetirməyə çalışanlar və ciddiyə alanlar da var, bu fikri hədsiz ümumiləşdirilmiş kimi gəldi sadəcə).

Qısacası, bu əsərlər mütləq tanış olmalısız

LA VERA FOLLIA

Non è forse che tutto ciò che crediamo sia normale è follia e la follia in verità altro non è che normalità? Forse i folli hanno una vita migliore rispetto ai sapienti. Forse la superbia, l'adulazione, la superstizione sono follie. Forse Dio stesso è folle!

In questo saggio di grande qualità retorica e fine umorismo, Erasmo ci mostra come la follia fa parte dei pilastri della nostra società e che non si può fare a meno di essere un po' folli se vogliamo vivere bene.

Nu știu dacă ar trebui să mă sperie faptul că am ajuns în punctul în care am râs citind această carte.

De veți găsi cumva că am trăncănit vrute și nevrute ori că mi-a scăpat vreun porumbel din gură, amintiți-vă,
rogu-vă, că aceea ce v-a împuiat capul a fost Prostia, o femeie așadar. Dar mai țineți minte încă un proverb grec: "Prostului i se mai întâmplă să spună lucruri înțelepte". Doar de nu credeți cumva că femeile ar trebui scoase de la socoteală.

'Praise of Folly' is a satirical essay in which the 'writer' (Folly) praises itself and despises wisdom and wise men. Thus Erasmus draws the readers' attention to and criticises the numerous human weaknesses flourishing in different spheres of social and professional life.
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'Wisdom makes men weak and apprehensive, and consequently you'll generality find the wise associated with poverty, hunger, and the reek of smoke, living neglected, inglorious, and disliked. Fools, on the other hand, are rolling in money and are put in charge of affairs of state; they flourish, in short, in every way.'
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'Life is nothing but one continued interlude of Folly.'
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'Briefly, no society, no association of people in this world can be happy or last long without my help; no people would put up with their prince, no master endure his servant, no maid her mistress, no teacher his pupil, no friend his friend, no wife her husband, no landlord his tenant, no soldier his drinking-buddy, no lodger his fellow-lodger -unless they were mistaken, both at the same time or turn and turn about, in each other.'
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'But I make such good use of human ignorance and imbecility, playing sometimes on forgetfulness of evils and other times on hope of good, sprinkling in a bit of pleasure here and there, that I bring mankind some relief from their accumulated woes.'

In praising Folly, Desiderius Erasmus is challenging all of us to recognize the folly in each of us. With a sharp wit that is informed by an ethic of humanistic compassion, Erasmus in his essay In Praise of Folly (1511) combines thoughtful philosophic meditation with trenchant social criticism, all in a manner that is extraordinarily fun to read.

Desiderius Erasmus himself is a fascinating individual with whom to spend some time. A Dutchman (his full name, in Latin, was “Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus,” or “Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam”), he is one of Holland’s first great writers – a philosopher and theologian whose work resonates with extraordinary intellectual breadth and depth.

A Roman Catholic priest, Erasmus embodied the ideas of Christian humanism – the concept that Christianity, rather than following the medieval habit of despising everything human as weak and sinful and grotesque, could draw from the values of the then-new Renaissance, and could celebrate what is good and noble in humankind. He was called “the Prince of the Humanists,” and his friends within the Northern Renaissance included fellow humanists like Sir Thomas More.

Erasmus dedicated In Praise of Folly to his friend More, asking, with evident amusement, “[W]hat injustice is it that when we allow every course of life its recreation, that study [of folly] only should have none?” (p. 3). He adds, in a jab at some Church officials, that “you’ll meet with some so preposterously religious that they will sooner endure the broadest scoffs even against Christ Himself than hear the Pope, or a prince, be touched in the least” (p. 4). Anticipating perhaps that his essay might hit too close to home with some of his readers, Erasmus adds that “he that spares no sort of men cannot be said to be angry with anyone in particular, but with the vices of all. And therefore, if there shall happen to be anyone that shall say he is hit, he will but discover either his guilt or his fear” (p. 5).

In Praise of Folly proper is spoken by a personified Goddess of Folly, who asks the reader, “[W]ho can set me out better than myself, unless perhaps I could be better known to another than to myself?” (p. 7) Here, Erasmus is having great fun with a literary trope that had already become tiresome and well-worn by the end of the medieval era, though people were still writing in this vein as late as John Bunyan in 1678’s Pilgrim’s Progress: the allegorical representation of the pursuit of a virtuous life through personification of virtues and vices – Christina Chastity triumphing over Lydia Lust, and so on. Subtle, it is not.

Erasmus’ Folly works in that vein, but in a spirit of mischievous fun, as opposed to Bunyan’s stern, Puritanical, and oh-so-earnest didacticism – urging the reader to have a bit of fun seeing the folly in everyone. Sometimes, Folly sounds almost Franklinian in her fondness for pithy, Poor Richard’s Almanack-style proverbs, as when she informs us that “Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old age far off” (p. 16). Duly noted, ma’am.

At other points, Folly defends herself in a manner that would make one think that she’s been reading Quintilian’s treatises on classical rhetoric – as if she were preparing to defend herself in a Roman court. She asks the reader, in Jupiter’s name, “[W]hat part of man’s life is that that is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be seasoned with pleasure – which is to say, folly?” (p. 14) Beyond that, she suggests that Folly has positive and substantial benefits, breeding tolerance for one’s own faults and for those of others: “[I]f you should exclude me, there’s no man but would be so far from enduring another that he would stink in his own nostrils, be nauseated with his own actions, and himself become odious to himself” (p. 25). Thus doth Folly mellow us all, and make us more accepting. By contrast, “Invite a wise man to a feast, and he’ll spoil the company, with either morose silence or troublesome disputes” (p. 29).

Erasmus even pokes fun at the rationalism that was so characteristic of Renaissance thinkers like himself, particularly when his Goddess of Folly suggests that there is a sort of symbiotic relationship between knowledge and folly: “[T]here are two main obstacles to the knowledge of things – modesty that casts a mist before the understanding, and fear that, having fancied a danger, dissuades us from the attempt. But from these folly sufficiently frees us, and few there are that rightly understand of what great advantage it is to blush at nothing and attempt everything” (p. 32). Folly, it seems, sets us free; folly gives us courage.

I thought of Shakespeare when I heard Erasmus say, “And what is all this life but a kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in one another’s disguises and act their respective parts, till the property-man brings them back to the attiring house” (p. 29). How quickly, when I read those words of Erasmus, my mind turned to William Shakespeare’s play As You Like It (c. 1601), in which the melancholy philosopher Jaques – just the kind of out-of-sorts “wise man” whom Erasmus’ Folly regularly denounces for excessive seriousness – states that “All the world’s a stage,/And all the men and women merely players;/They have their exits and their entrances;/And one man in his time plays many parts…” Interesting to wonder if Shakespeare might have read In Praise of Folly, either during his education in Stratford-upon-Avon or after finding it in a London bookshop.

At the same time, In Praise of Folly is not all fun-and-games satire, as Erasmus demonstrates when his Goddess of Folly talks about how she is worshipped as a goddess. While it’s true that no one has built a temple to her, and that no one burns incense or sacrifices a goat on her behalf, Folly states confidently that “I conceive myself most religiously worshipped when everywhere, as ’tis generally done, men embrace me in their minds, express me in their manners, and represent me in their lives, which worship of the saints is not so ordinary among Christians” (p. 56).

It is at this point that Erasmus proceeds to some of the serious subject matter of his satirical essay, pointing out problems that he sees occurring at that time in the practices of the Catholic Church that he serves:

How many there are that burn candles to the Virgin Mother, and that too at noonday when there’s no need of them! But how few are there that study to imitate her in pureness of life, humility, and love of heavenly things, which is the true worship and most acceptable to heaven!...Nor am I yet so foolish as to require statues or painted images, which do often obstruct my worship, since among the stupid and gross multitudes those figures are worshipped for the saints themselves. (p. 56)

Erasmus, with his thorough classical education, would have known that candles had been an important part of the worship of pagan deities like Isis and Apollo in pre-Christian Rome; and it clearly troubles him to see Christians of his time paying more attention to the candles that are burned for Mary of Nazareth than to the moral example of her life – or more reverence to statues of saints than to the way those saints lived.

Similarly, Erasmus also little patience with the rhetoricians of his time; like the Sophists in Plato’s dialogues, they seem more interested in using technique to win arguments than in seeking the truth. The Goddess of Folly says of these rhetoricians that “if they want hard words, they run over some worm-eaten manuscript and pick out half a dozen of the most old and obsolete to confound their reader, believing, no doubt, that they who understand their meaning will like it better, while they who do not will admire it the more by how much the less they understand it” (p. 9).

Erasmus and his Goddess of Folly are equally impatient regarding the self-important disputation that they see going on among the learned clerics of early-16th-century Europe. More that 300 years before, Saint Thomas Aquinas had won fame and renown for reconciling Church teachings with the philosophy of Aristotle; but after Aquinas’ time, lesser thinkers had developed Scholasticism into a self-important, technique-focused mode of disputation on abstruse questions that would do nothing to help the average Christian believer – how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, that sort of thing. Hence the emphasis with which Erasmus’ Goddess of Folly denounces these Scholasticists:

Here they erect their theological crests and beat into the people’s ears those magnificent titles of illustrious doctors, subtle doctors, most subtle doctors, seraphic doctors, cherubin doctors, holy doctors, unquestionable doctors, and the like; and then throw abroad among the ignorant people syllogisms, majors, minors, conclusions, corollaries, suppositions, and those so weak and foolish that they are below pedantry. (p. 77)

For all the protests that he lodges, however humorously, against practices that he sees in the Catholic Church of his time, Erasmus was no Protestant, even though he lived and wrote in a time when the intellectual energies of the Reformation were stirring (Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses at Wittenberg just six years after Erasmus wrote In Praise of Folly). Like his friend Sir Thomas More, Erasmus remained faithful to the Catholic faith to which he had dedicated his life, and sought to reform the church from within.

Yet the questing intellectual energy that informs In Praise of Folly says much about the questioning spirit of the time in which it was written, and about Erasmus’ rigorous humanism. Enjoy the humor of it, but remember as you read that Erasmus was deeply concerned about serious issues of his time, as most great satirists are.

... Eramus's reflections on human actions, decisions, placed in a bit of a humurous light ...

Impecable la erudición de Erasmo. Te invita a una gran reflexión sobre las conductas humanas . Tan vigente como hace 500 años. Es una lectura relativamente corta , se lee muy bien, se aprende bastante porque nos entrega muchos nombres de la mitología griega. Sin duda muy recomendable.

„Даже да имах уста и езици по сто, не ще можех всички породи глупаци сама да опиша със думи, ни имената да кажа на всичките видове глупост.” (По „Енеида“, VI, 625–627)

„Възхвала на Глупостта” е критика на времената, в които е написан този текст, но и на почти всичко що е съществувало дотогава. Казваме „Добре, че е шегата, че да си кажем истината”, а в този случай – глупостта. Тя е превърната в богиня, която дава оправдание и извинение за всички слабости на хората, а и на боговете. В нея намират решение всички терзания и съмнения кой избор е по-добрият – на мъдростта или на глупостта. Глупостта бива избирана във всички случаи и е подкрепена с всички нужни доводи и аргументи. Всъщност една тъжна действителност, но наистина – действителност…
Еразъм е доловил есенцията на живота, но той не е бил от „избраните” за дара на глупостта. Всъщност той е една от най-интелигентните и просветени личности в историята. Пленник на мъдростта и заради това по природа плах човек, това не го е спряло да изрази своя бунт срещу пошлостта, фалша, лицемерието и несправедливостта именно чрез тази „възхвала на глупостта”.
Това не е лесно четиво, тъй като произлиза във време, когато древногръцката и римската култура и език биват възраждани (затова и е написано изцяло на латински). Написано е с много остър ум и сатира, с много препратки към историята и митологията, а стилът е лек и звучи като основоположник за Волтеровия.
Еразъм е създал произведение, което може да се чете и като съвременните книги за самопомощ, но без натрапваното чувство, че това е цялата и единствена истина.

Оставям няколко цитата:

„Никой обаче не благодари, че се е освободил от глупостта си. Толкова приятно нещо е човек да няма разум, та смъртните ще се молят да бъдат освободени от всичко друго, но не и от глупостта си”

„Природата мрази всяко разкрасяване и най-хубаво е това, което не е развалено от никаква наука и изкуство.

„ …нищо не било по-нещастно от човека, тъй като всички други живи същества били доволни от даденото им от природата, а само човек се опитвал да излезе от границите на своята съдба.”

„Но ето че ми говорят: заблуждаването е нещастие. Напротив, най-голямо нещастие е да не се заблуждава човек”

„Човешката душа е така устроена, че много по-лесно се пленява от лъжата, отколкото от истината.”

„Сърцето на мъдрите е там, където има скръб, а сърцето на глупавите е там, където има веселие.“

„Който умножава знанието си, умножава и скръбта си, а в многото разбиране има и много недоволство.“

„Колкото е по-бездарен човек, толкова повече намира почитатели, изобщо най-негодното довежда тълпата до най-голямо възхищение, понеже по-голямата част от хората, както казахме, са служители на глупостта. Ако по-простият човек е по-приятен на себе си и повече зачитан от другите, защо да се стремим към истинска ученост, добивана с голям труд, носеща със себе си скромност и плахост и накрай ценена съвсем от малцина?!”

You know, before I read this, I imagined it was satire.

I couldn't have been more wrong! Indeed, after listening to Dame Folly, goddess extraordinaire, I think I will convert myself wholeheartedly to her teachings.

There has never been a more persuasive tract in literature. Hide thy wisdom, folks! There is no greater treasure than to proclaim just how much folly you possess!


It's especially good for churchmen and writers. The former generally do not know they are being made fun of and the latter can derive a sort of sick satisfaction that they, more than any other breed of fools, exemplify the teachings of Dame Folly.

For who else could go about the rest of their lives putting words down for nothing more than faint praise, outright scorn, and little to no money for their extensive efforts?

Exactly.

:)

предговор драгана стојановића који посветљава сваку нијансу и прелив текста и сензибилитета ће мени заувек ићи уз саму похвалу као да су диптих, нераздвојиви

Děsivě aktuální zůstává Erasmus i dodnes.

در ستایش دیوانگی اثری از یک راهب هلندی به نام‌ اراسموس است. این کتاب از جمله آثار کلاسیک نهضت اصلاح دین در اروپا است.
در ستایش دیوانگی را به پیشنهاد کسی نخواندم. عنوان کتاب برایم جذاب بود این که فردی در ستایش دیوانگی بنویسد به گمانم می‌تواند برای مخاطب جالب باشد.
در این کتاب نویسنده به اوضاع اجتماعی، استبداد و بیداد مقامات مذهبی مسیحی در قالب تفتیش عقاید انتقاد می‌کند. او تمامی دستگاه پاپ و فرقه‌های پرقدرت مسیحی را با زبان طنز و شوخی مورد انتقادی صریح و شکننده قرار می‌دهد!
نکته‌ی جالب کتاب نیز همین زبان طنز نویسنده است که خواندن کتاب را برای خواننده خسته‌کننده نمی‌کند! این که چگونه دیوانگی می‌تواند باعث شادمانی مردم گردد نکته اصلی کتاب بود! آیا دیوانگی به این آسانی است؟ آیا واقعاً دیوانگی می‌تواند آدمیان را به خوشبختی برساند؟! به گمانم خود اراسموس نیز در پایان کتاب دچار تردیدی در بیان مفهوم دیوانگی شده است چرا که می‌گوید: " دیوانگی حتی در میان دیوانگان تا چه حد بد نام است" اما گویا اراسموس نیز چون مولانا چاره‌ای نمی‌بیند جز دیوانگی: "چاره‌ای کو بهتر از دیوانگی"!