classics digests, reflections and reviews
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, Some exit on their sick-bed, some on the battlefield, others, like Socrates and Thomas More, were executed by the state they had loved and served. Thomas More lived in late 15th and early 16th century Europe, in the time of the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. Peter Ackroyd’s sympathetic and […]
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The Insufficiency of Humanism Tribulation generally signifies nothing else but some kind of grief, either pain of the body or heaviness of the mind. All the wit in the world cannot bring about that the body should not feel what it feels. But that the mind should not be grieved with either bodily pain or occasions of heaviness pressed unto the soul, this thing the philosophers laboured very much about. […]
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More’s erudition, great sense of humour, witty and lucid style make Utopia an enjoyable read. He draws upon ancient Greek philosophy and Utopian literature, most notably Plato’s Republic and Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, and weaves a fascinating, though controversial, account of an ideal state. Among other things, there is a governing principle which has appealed to me since my youth and I think is necessary for a just and vibrant society. Another […]
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