Youthful Folly

[s~Z]

"It is never safe to identify Folly, not even when she is using her third
voice, with Erasmus, who might always have been more prudent were he not
projecting his view through Folly's mouth. Nor can we use the satire as a
guide to Erasmus's world, which Folly caricatures. Careful literary analysis
reveals only ambiguity in the continuously varying relationship between
Folly and Erasmus. Indeed, since we know how often and carefully Erasmus
corrected his text, it is clear that Folly's inconsistencies are
deliberately exploited in the interests of achieving the extraordinary
control of satirical nuance and ambiguity that Erasmus required."


    -- Intro to Penguin pbk version of _Praise of Folly_ by Erasmus