Ebrietatis Encomiumor, the Praise of Drunkenness

Published in 1714, this audacious mock-encomium takes dead aim at the prim moralizing of the early Enlightenment, arguing with relentless wit and cascading irony that drunkenness is not merely pleasurable but positively virtuous. Sallengre deploys classical learning with comic precision, invoking ancient philosophers, Stoic sages, and revered churchmen to build his case that intoxication has been humanity's secret companion throughout history. The pleasure lies watching a scholar with obvious intellectual gifts argue, with perfect seriousness, that wine reveals truths obscured by sobriety, that sorrow flees the glass, and that the austere critics of drink are merely joyless prigs missing the obvious blessings of Bacchus. This is not mere ribaldry; it is sophisticated satirical craft, part of a venerable tradition that includes Erasmus and Rabelais, using the formal apparatus of learned panegyric to subvert rather than celebrate. The deadpan tone makes the absurdities funnier, the historical citations stranger, the whole enterprise irresistibly cheeky.