Behind the middle Nut
Foolsbible, Ship of Fools and Praise of Folly – a comparison
In short
Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools (Basel, 1494) parades over a hundred fools, each with a vice; Erasmus’s Praise of Folly (1511) lets Folly praise herself; Joel Pfadenhauer’s Foolsbible (2026) sets one Fool against the Wise One, in three phases.
Three books of fools
| Ship of Fools | Praise of Folly | Foolsbible | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Sebastian Brant | Erasmus of Rotterdam | Joel Pfadenhauer |
| Published | 1494, Basel | 1511, Paris | 2026, Switzerland |
| Form | German verse | Latin prose | German and English editions |
| Fools | over a hundred, one vice each | Folly as speaker | a single Fool who mocks himself too |
| Counter-voice | the moralist | none; irony | the Wise One, antiphonally |
| Aim | instruction | mockery and self-mockery | transformation of the reader |
All three use the fool as a mirror. Brant’s mirror shows what is wrong; Erasmus’s shows that the mocker is foolish too; the Foolsbible’s shows the very difference between fool and sage beginning to dissolve.
Questions
Is the Foolsbible related to the Ship of Fools?
It belongs to the same tradition of fool literature but is built differently: one Fool, one counter-voice and three phases rather than a parade of vices.
When was the Ship of Fools published?
In 1494 in Basel.