“Erasmus dramatizes a well-established political position: that of the fool who claims license to criticize all and sundry without reprisal, since his madness defines him as not fully a person and therefore not a political being with political desires and ambitions. The Praise of Folly, therefore sketches the possibility of a position for the critic of the scene of political rivalry, a position not simply impartial between the rivals but also, by self-definition, off the stage of rivalry altogether.”

— J.M. Coetzee

“Erasmus’s Praise of Folly: Rivalry and Madness,” Neophilologus 76 (1992), p. 1

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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J.M. Coetzee 61

South African writer 1940

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