This is a short transcript excerpt from a podcast/video where Oso Trava discusses fascination with human foolishness, citing Renaissance works that satirize or explore human absurdity (Erasmus's In Praise of Folly, Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy) and a dream-journey Renaissance text (referred to as Voyage of Polyphalus / Hypnaro). The speaker also references a modern Mexican writer (named here as Carlos Moniz) as someone who treats the humorous/absurd side of life. The excerpt frames human folly as a kind of artworthy, perennial subject.
Chapters
Who is fascinated by human foolishness. What does he mean by that? If you can read a Renaissance classic by Erasmus of Rotterdam called In Praise of Folly, It describes a lot about the crazy things that humans do. This was in the 10th century. It's one of the three books that impressed me the most at that time. In praise of folly by erasmus and in anatomy of melancholy by burton. It's a fabulous book, like a 10th century psychiatrist, a psychologist. It's an incredible book for its time and perhaps fun to read. You can read it anywhere. And some of the things they say are very wise and others are full of nonsense. And then there's another book that I really like called the Voyage of Polyphalus, which is also a Renaissance book written in Florence, which is supposedly an erotic journey of dreams. That's the title. What's the title? Hypnaro. Magic Hypnaro. I don't know what it is. It's like him. In his dreams he finds Greek goddesses and they wander through forests and meadows and it's a charming book. Are there any other works of his that could perhaps fit into this tale of the joke on society and human foolishness? Ah, well, many, especially in English literature. And in yours here in Mexico. I greatly admired Carlos Moniz. He was very much in this style, right, of how to see the humorous side of everything, the funny side, the incredibly absurd side. Everything is so absurd, isn't it, Maestro? How do you see it? Yeah.
