Book chapter 1259 views
‘The Ship of Fools’ in Sian Echard and Robert Rouse, eds., The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain
Geraint Evans 
Swansea University Author:
Geraint Evans
Abstract
The ship of fools is an allegory of human frailty in which a ship, or a fleet of ships, is adrift on the sea of life without direction or purpose. This image is the structural conceit of a satire on the varieties of human sin and folly by the German writer Sebastian Brant (1457-1521). Translated int...
| ISBN: | 978-1-118-39698-8 |
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| Published: |
Oxford
Wiley Blackwell
2017
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa36318 |
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| Abstract: |
The ship of fools is an allegory of human frailty in which a ship, or a fleet of ships, is adrift on the sea of life without direction or purpose. This image is the structural conceit of a satire on the varieties of human sin and folly by the German writer Sebastian Brant (1457-1521). Translated into many of the major languages of Europe, and into English by Alexander Barclay (c.1476-1552), The Ship of Fools was one of the most popular printed books of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. |
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| Keywords: |
printing; satire; medievalism; Sebastian Brant; Albrecht Dürer |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |