Talk:Ship of fools

There seem to be some historical accounts of "undesirables" moved around by ship during the middle ages, but not in the way Foucault suggests. Can anyone provide any information on this?Mrowney (talk) 18:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Foucault's account of the Ship of Fools was erroneous (i.e. no ship of fools existed outside of allegorical art). Am I wrong?

Reversion performed 10 Sept 2007
At least it is 10 Sept my local time. Prefatory remark: I am amazed that an article this old and with this many editors has had NO genuine discussion! Only the one remark above. Also, never before on a Wikipedia discussion page have I seen a remark lacking both a date and a username.

The reverted edits were made by 121.45.199.173 on 22 Aug 2007 and by 121.45.199.136 on 27 Aug 2007. Scrutiny of the edits and of the version history combine to strongly suggest that these two users are actually the same.

The user(s) has defended their work (by restoring it) despite refusing to acknowledge criticisms and refusing to respond to the criticisms. That is, the user is imposing their wishes while ignoring substantive criticism, and that is misbehavior in society at large, not just in Wikipedia.

I wish to second the criticisms hinted at by Euryalus and to specify them.

The reverted edits massively violate major Wikipedia policies: they're unsourced, they are very much advocacy pieces -- when not mysticist rants (see below). The English is broken English: not only is it brimming with misspellings and bad grammar, but in places it is not even intelligible. The reverted edits are sometimes incoherent logically (contentwise), even when intelligible grammatically. This user(s) -- this unlogged-in user -- has kept old content even when his/her contributions are unsupported by the old content; unsupported in that the user's edits either are nonsequiturs or they clash with the old content.

There is a strong possibility that the reverted edits represent previously unpublished points of view. For example, at one point the following statement was attached to an old paragraph. "The allegorical mind of Michel Foucault was to see in the theme of the ship of fools a symbol of the consciousness of sin and evil alive in the medieval mind." Nowehere in the article is there anything to justify this claim that Foucault had in mind "consciousness of sin and evil in the medieval mind" -- not in this user's own edits, not in other people's edits.

Here's another example of a passage this user attached to an old paragraph. "We might say that the cultural mofiff [sic] of the ship of fools elaborates the theme of the false church, which the true church has always had as its enemy (c.f Augustines 'City of God against the heathens'), through a characture of the theme of the ark of salvation (such as the protectorate of the church was styled)." But the old paragraph made no mention of the institutional Christian church in European history (in fact, the old paragraph made no mention of religion at all). Note here also the misspellings and the writer's ignorance in confusing "character" with "caricature".

The user "121.45.199.173" later on added more edits which suffer from the same flaws. The same user undid the first reversion of their work. Five days later, a user signing in using a different name, "121.45.199.136" undid the second reversion. Hurmata 06:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Copy-edit tag
I am not sure who tagged this as in need of a copy-edit. Some have happened. I think there needs to be actual rewriting of the content of this article before a copy-edit can be of any use. I am by no means an expert on the history of or allegorical use of the Ship of Fools, but at least part of this article sounds like original research. It is definitely undercited. Without the citations and a significant editing of the parentheses, I am loathe to copy-edit, for fear of incorrectly editing. --LKAdriaan 09:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

FROM THE AUTHOR
I AM THE AUTHOR OF THIS DISPUTED ARTICLE. It was never meant to be complete: all that was important for me was that the content of this subject reflected the  historical revision of the literal and mythical significane of its thematic and leave it to other to engage and transform it (this includes correcting spelling and perfecting grama- clearly I do not subsrcibe to standardized orthography). I did promise myself that I would submit a more finished article as the subject demands: I still dont believe that I have abandoned that side project but will take it up later in its proper place; but maybe I can play a role right now in engaging this material in the way it is come to be handled particularly in the hands of Michael Foucault in his capacity as a historical revisionist.

The question was raised: did these mythical ships ever set sail? or are they simply and purely the product of the symbolic imagination? these question, it needs to be pointed out in the context in which they are raised, cannot be seperated from questions like this one-: because the church of israel was styled an ark of salvation on pilgramige through babylon does this mean that we can say that the church 'set sail' on the oceans of time? We could easily answer, "Yes", but qualify it with "in a sense more properly mythical than literal". An interesting question raised by this historical theme is that which inquires into the distinction drawn by it between myth and reality in the first place, in recognition of the fact that the theme of the Narrenschiff is delirium (here we can refer to Foucaults writtings on the symbolic wanderings of Don Quixoti to which he would later establish a thematic connection), and the fact that myth has been equated in a literary culture such as ours has become with delirium. This last point I believe is sufficiently important that I allowed my article to stagger in the fixidness of its meaning under the weight of them.

I suggest restoring the most complete version of this article I submitted, because it built upon what preceeded it and it made reference to the historiographical text (namely, 'Rewriting the history of madness') which address the disputes which have arisen here such as those which concern the historical reality of the myth, and deliver it up to an uncertain fate....

Contension of Scholarship
I have read 'Rewritting the History of Madness' and agree with the above author that this book does address many of the concerns which they would like this subject to reflect, specifically, the contention about a certain statement which Michel Foucault made on the subject in his Madness and Civilization which seemed to say that these 'mythic vessels' did set sail, and could be seen drifting through the many rivers of Europe. This statement of Foucaults (I would like to reproduce it here but havent got the text at hand) is the primary source of contention in present histiographical dispute. I agree with the above author, if I understand his muddled speech correctly, that many of the criticisms raised by historians against Foucaults rereading and rewriting of this episode in European history are naive. Let me qualify what I mean. What seems to me, as an amateur Historian, to be happening here in this dispute (both the one surrounding foucaults work and the work of the above author) is a kind of confrontation between two very different styles of History. We may, provisionally, distinguish these two styles as History and Mythistory. I also agree that, as subtle as this confrontation is, it is important to recognise it and reflect it here (which is what I understand the above author as trying to say). What I dont see is this confrontation made clear in any texts written on the subject. It seems that this revision of history is still too close to use for us to get any kind of perspective upon it that would allow us to summerise it... \

As for the statement:

"Michel Foucault, who wrote Madness and Civilization, saw in the ship of fools a symbol of the consciousness of sin and evil alive in the medieval mindset and imaginative landscapes of the Renaissance"

I would certainly agree that this is the significance we are to accord this 'cultural motif'. It would be difficult to site sources, however, to establish this meaning clearly. The works the author cites by Erasmus and Brandt are certainly the best place to look.

All I can say for certain is that I will be interested to watch this subject unfold... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.56.233.124 (talk • contribs) 03:33, 8 April 2008

Ship of fools and Ark of Salvation
O.k. I really only have one point and it is crucial to make and it is this: any understanding which does not relate the allegorical figure of the ship of fools to the allegorical figure of the ark of salvation, must of necessity be found wanting. Once this is realized, I believe, the relationship between them will become clearer....

This is a kind of historical guide post. We will find many clues, as I wrote above, in the literary and artistic productions of the 15th and 16 th centuries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.110.33.87 (talk) 07:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup
This article appears now cleaned up. I've quickly scrounged some online references which cover everything currently in the article (from my reading through it a couple of times), and I will add them.

Please be advised: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place for metaphysical essays or personal reflections upon the topics in question. Anything not referenced to independent reputable sources will be removed. Thanks. T L Miles (talk) 02:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

So what is it?
Is this an allegory or was it a real phenomenon? i know i could look it up, but thats what this article is for. I believe we cannot call an historical fact an allegory, though the event may be considered allegorical, and of course it may have been used allegorically.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 03:47, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * both 184.166.117.76 (talk) 20:39, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Parts of this article have been copied into The Imaginary Sea Voyage
Be careful! As of December 2013, there is a self-published book


 * James J. Bloom. The Imaginary Sea Voyage: Sailing Away in Literature, Legend and Lore (McFarland:2013) (Google Books)

Chapter 11 of this book contains an extended paraphrase of this Wikipedia article, including the reference to the phrase "ark of salvation" and the same exact José Barchilon quotation. However, since Bloom's book was first published in 2013, I'm pretty confident that Bloom is paraphrasing Wikipedia rather than the reverse. Therefore, Bloom's (unsourced) paragraphs are not an acceptable citation for the "ark of salvation" or Foucalt/Barchilon memes. We still need reputable original sources for those. --Quuxplusone (talk) 01:43, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ship of Fools (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 04:18, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Cultural references?
Songs by Grateful Dead, World Party, Robert Plant, novels etc Maurizio689 (talk) 19:30, 19 November 2023 (UTC)