# What Folly of Pedantry means in Hudibras

> The protagonist Hudibras and his squire Ralpho embody empty learning and false intellectualism, using jargon, logic-chopping, and pseudo-scholarship to justify foolish actions and absurd beliefs.

## Explanation

The protagonist Hudibras and his squire Ralpho embody empty learning and false intellectualism, using jargon, logic-chopping, and pseudo-scholarship to justify foolish actions and absurd beliefs.

The canto mocks Hudibras's excessive learning—his logic, rhetoric, and polyglot speech—as useless and comical.

The narrator's digression on the pace of the horses (tollutation vs. succussation) and the learned debate on whether tops and balls are animals mock scholarly pretension.

The opening debate between Hudibras and Ralpho mocks scholastic logic and the reliance on rules over truth, exemplifying the folly of pedantic learning.

The knights' absurd debate over the semantics of oath-breaking exemplifies the folly of over-intellectualizing moral questions.

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