Old books

Sometimes it helps to go back to the original.

Our tutoring consultant recently read Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly.  It is one of a fairly large number of works that more people know about than have actually seen in person.  Students doing their History unit on the Renaissance and Reformation will place it as a scathing attack on the Roman Catholic Church, but not many will read it.  Which is a pity.  Part of it is indeed an attack on the abuses of the Church, including the practices of Popes and cardinals.  We wonder why Erasmus was allowed to get away with such things, and indeed had he written it later, when the Church was seriously threatened, he would have gotten into serious trouble.

But there is much more to it.  Erasmus pointed out how just about every institution and powerful person was acting foolishly, and went on to describe (possibly tongue-in-cheek) how men could only be happy by being fools, and folly indeed had its positive place among men as they were.  It’s a more subtle, complicated and gentle work than most accounts make it out to be.  In this case going back to the source is well worthwhile.

We must admit that it’s not always a good idea.  There are authors who are not very good at explaining themselves, and so are best absorbed at second-hand, through the work of someone who has already put in the necessary effort.  And long or technical works (say, Ptolemy or Copernicus) may not be very accessible.

But we do encourage a return to the original as a general rule.  One may find unexpected things, as with Erasmus, and often the summaries in secondary works are oversimplified or leave things out entirely.  And the originals are very often literature of the first order; there are reasons why they’re well-known.

There are, however, two dangers with a wholehearted hunt for the original.  The first is that there’s so much of it; one may spend a great deal of time and still have lots waiting.  This is especially true since one work often refers to another.  For this reason we won’t attempt to present even a preliminary list of known-about works here.

The other is that one may lose patience with the simplified versions.  Our tutor, for instance, sometime has to stop himself from correcting people about works he’s actually read and they haven’t.  On these occasions it simply isn’t worth it to complicate matters.

But even with the danger of becoming pedantic or chasing down literary rabbit-holes, we do recommend at least an occasional return to the original.  What works do you just know about?