Ship of Fools

In the satirical and didactic poem "The Ship of Fools", the 15th-century German satirist Sebastian Brant gives people a mirror so that they can recognize themselves among fools and, gaining wisdom, become better. Seeking to put an end to vices, these fruits of idiocy, in one fell swoop, the author in the poem builds a ship on which he puts fools, that is, all kinds of personified stupidities, and takes them to the country of Narragonia - Durland. Along the way, he mocks the fools, condemns them, reprimands them, and mocks them in every way in the hope that they will come to their senses and become better. And all this, in his own words, he does "for the sake of benefit and good instruction", "for the sake of ... encouraging wisdom and ... eradicating stupidity and in the name of correcting the human race.