The Ship of Fools | Page 4

and posterity alike has
declared the superstructure to be worthy of its supports.
The following admirable notice from Ersch and Grüber (Encyclopädie)
sums up so skilfully the history, nature, and qualities of the book that
we quote at length:--"The Ship of Fools was received with almost
unexampled applause by high and low, learned and unlearned, in
Germany, Switzerland, and France, and was made the common
property of the greatest part of literary Europe, through Latin, French,
English, and Dutch translations. For upwards of a century it was in
Germany a _book of the people_ in the noblest and widest sense of the
word, alike appreciated by an Erasmus and a Reuchlin, and by the
mechanics of Strassburg, Basel, and Augsburg; and it was assumed to

be so familiar to all classes, that even during Brandt's lifetime, the
German preacher Gailer von Kaiserberg went so far as to deliver public
lectures from the pulpit on his friend's poem as if it had been a
scriptural text. As to the poetical and humorous character of Brandt's
poem, its whole conception does not display any extraordinary power
of imagination, nor does it present in its details any very striking sallies
of wit and humour, even when compared with older German works of a
similar kind, such as that of Renner. The fundamental idea of the poem
consists in the shipping off of several shiploads of fools of all kinds for
their native country, which, however, is visible at a distance only; and
one would have expected the poet to have given poetical consistency to
his work by fully carrying out this idea of a ship's crew, and sailing to
the 'Land of Fools.' It is, however, at intervals only that Brandt reminds
us of the allegory; the fools who are carefully divided into classes and
introduced to us in succession, instead of being ridiculed or derided, are
reproved in a liberal spirit, with noble earnestness, true moral feeling,
and practical common sense. It was the straightforward, the bold and
liberal spirit of the poet which so powerfully addressed his
contemporaries from the Ship of the Fools; and to us it is valuable as a
product of the piety and morality of the century which paved the way
for the Reformation. Brandt's fools are represented as contemptible and
loathsome rather than _foolish_, and what he calls follies might be
more correctly described as sins and vices.
"The 'Ship of Fools' is written in the dialect of Swabia, and consists of
vigorous, resonant, and rhyming iambic quadrameters. It is divided into
113 sections, each of which, with the exception of a short introduction
and two concluding pieces, treats independently of a certain class of
fools or vicious persons; and we are only occasionally reminded of the
fundamental idea by an allusion to the ship. No folly of the century is
left uncensured. The poet attacks with noble zeal the failings and
extravagances of his age, and applies his lash unsparingly even to the
dreaded Hydra of popery and monasticism, to combat which the
Hercules of Wittenberg had not yet kindled his firebrands. But the
poet's object was not merely to reprove and to animadvert; he instructs
also, and shows the fools the way to the land of wisdom; and so far is
he from assuming the arrogant air of the commonplace moralist, that he

reckons himself among the number of fools. The style of the poem is
lively, bold, and simple, and often remarkably terse, especially in his
moral sayings, and renders it apparent that the author was a classical
scholar, without however losing anything of his German character."
Brandt's humour, which either his earnestness or his manner banished
from the text, took refuge in the illustrations and there disported itself
with a wild zest and vigour. Indeed to their popularity several critics
have ascribed the success of the book, but for this there is no sufficient
authority or probability. Clever as they are, it is more probable that they
ran, in popularity, but an equal race with the text. The precise amount
of Brandt's workmanship in them has not been ascertained, but it is
agreed that "most of them, if not actually drawn, were at least
suggested by him." Zarncke remarks regarding their artistic worth, "not
all of the cuts are of equal value. One can easily distinguish five
different workers, and more practised eyes would probably be able to
increase the number. In some one can see how the outlines, heads,
hands, and other principal parts are cut with the fine stroke of the
master, and the details and shading left to the scholars. The woodcuts
of the most superior master, which can be recognized at once, and are
about a third of the whole, belong to the finest, if they are not, indeed,
the