Book chapter 1728 views
The Ship of Fools
Geraint Evans 
Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain
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...
| Published in: | Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain |
|---|---|
| ISBN: | 978-1-118-39698-8 |
| Published: |
Oxford
Wiley Blackwell
2017
|
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa36318 |
| 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. |
|---|---|
| Keywords: |
printing; satire; medievalism; Sebastian Brant; Albrecht Dürer |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |