ABSTRACT
Cave detects a similarity in Desiderius Erasmus: 'The name of Erasmus figures in many of his writings the Praise of Folly, the Ichthyophagia as an ironically paraded self, a special instance of that mirror-image, according to the theory of oratio as speculum animi, is to be composed by the text'. 'praise of folly' becomes an ironic praise of the name of More/morias, in whose house Erasmus stayed, recovering from illness, while writing the text. Donne's praise of divinity is a praise of morias/folly; and paradox is at the root of the writing: faith lies in 'crossing' oneself, in 'infidelities' which threaten the sense of personal transcendent individuality. Folly becomes the medium through which the divinity is revealed or 'betrayed'. Erasmus's ironic presentations of rhetorical exegesis clarify and offers one rationale for the kind of rhetorical criticism. Donne's praise of folly is instrumental in producing theologically valid historical action, a mode of attaining health through the 'sickness' of folly in exegesis.
