Tumblr crosspost (1 May 2020)

[anghraine]

I reblogged this quote, which I had earlier posted in August of 2018—

These erudites seem to me more pitiable than happy, since they are assiduous self-torturers. They change, they interline, they erase something and put it back in, they rewrite the whole thing, after rephrasing a passage they show it to their friends and after all they closet up the manuscript for nine years but without ever satisfying themselves—and this for an empty reward of praise from a mere handful of critics.

—Desiderius Erasmus, "The Praise of Folly" (1510)

—and added:

adjkdf;kajf this call-out remains 100% valid

#this is about academic writers but he has some choice words for popular writers too #renaissance blogging #it should be early modern blogging bc renaissance is Problematic but i don't want to change my tag

Comments

[dragoness_e]

Hey, now, you can't talk about Erasmus and Renaissance blogging without mentioning the epic flamewar between Erasmus and Martin Luther!

[anghraine]

Heh, well, this was more about Erasmus reminding me of my personal writing angst! Thanks, Erasmus.