John Lyly

readers that the religious writer, the devotee of philosophia Christi, therefore deserves the best part of their attention.At least an equal share is being directed to the satirist, the wi critic of contemporary weaknesses.This is well in that students are led to discover, in the first place, some of Erasmus's most readable and lovable pages.Moreover, Dr. Sowards does not present satire as an end in itself but as a means to an end, that end being moral and i religious uplift.He does, nevertheless, move away from Bainton's radical emphasis on Eras mus's spiritualism.It may not do full justice to Erasmus if the Praise of Folly, the Colloqm and also the Ciceronianus are presented primarily as satirical works.But then, how many incomprehensible, or at least unreadable, essays have been produced in an attempt to capti his complexity?One would certainly expect that Dr. Sowards's book will lead many readei to the point of developing their own approaches to Erasmus.The careful formulation of many brief statements makes it clear that a good deal more might be said on the point in question.For example, we read, and by the very formulation are invited to qualify, that "Erasmus had no very great interest ... in visual art" and also "no very strong sense of history.""His works are bare of descriptions of nature

Art · Historical Philosophy and Science · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies