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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Erasmus marvels that present-day ears can bear to hear only what?
(a) Honorific titles.
(b) Pedantic poetry.
(c) Music.
(d) Serious prose.

2. Who said, "Happy the states where either philosophers are kings or kings are philosophers"?
(a) Plato.
(b) Aristotle.
(c) Homer.
(d) Lucian.

3. Where was Folly born?
(a) A hollow cave.
(b) The Island of Troy.
(c) Wandering Delos.
(d) The Islands of the Blest.

4. Whom does Folly consider more foolish than men?
(a) Women.
(b) Nymphs.
(c) Gods.
(d) Animals.

5. Which soldier was "as cowardly in battle as he was skilled in speech-making"?
(a) Cicero.
(b) Demosthenes.
(c) Erasmus.
(d) Quintilian.

6. What does Folly say would be rampant without her?
(a) Divorce.
(b) Babies.
(c) Friendship.
(d) Learning.

7. What does Folly state is necessary for friendship?
(a) Folly.
(b) Reason.
(c) Honesty.
(d) Wisdom.

8. How does Folly claim she is delivering her speech?
(a) With great emotion.
(b) With intentionality and serious thought.
(c) Extempore, or unprepared.
(d) Quickly.

9. By Stoic definition, what does folly mean?
(a) Moved by the passions.
(b) Belonging to women.
(c) Given to frivolity.
(d) Without wisdom.

10. Whom did Erasmus make the narrator of his book?
(a) Folly.
(b) The pope.
(c) Virgil.
(d) More.

11. Erasmus answers the charge that he is too sarcastic by saying that ________ has always enjoyed freedom to exercise their wit on the common life of man.
(a) Jesters.
(b) The insane.
(c) The intelligent.
(d) Noblemen.

12. Erasmus remembers that someone wrote the last will and testament of the piglet Grunnius Corocotta, as mentioned by whom?
(a) Homer.
(b) St. Jerome.
(c) The Apostle Paul.
(d) Ovid.

13. Erasmus states that jokes can be handled in such a way that a reader finds more reward in them than in a what?
(a) A play.
(b) A treatise.
(c) A riddle.
(d) An argument.

14. According to Folly, to whom does life owe its beginning?
(a) Folly.
(b) Jupiter.
(c) God.
(d) Pallas.

15. To whom did Erasmus dedicate The Praise of Folly?
(a) Thomas More.
(b) Martin Luther.
(c) Henry VIII.
(d) Homer.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who speaks at the beginning of The Praise of Folly?

2. Which two nymphs nursed Folly?

3. What does Zeus have to put aside in order to make a child?

4. Folly claims that all emotions belong to whom?

5. Orators prepare long speeches to do what Folly does with her what?

(see the answer keys)

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