Author: MIKE YIU

Montaigne was an artist of life with astute observations of daily life. He examined “how to live” and revisited while writing the essays during the course of twenty years until his death. He witnessed or experienced more deaths in his family than did any well-known writers alike. He gave his readers a detailed account of his personal observations or third-party accounts of what happened elsewhere. In contrast to the ancient philosophers, in Of cannibals, Montaigne argues for an ethical standpoint that one custom is not superior or inferior to another and that consuming dead bodies seems less barbaric than torturing people while they are still alive. On the contrary, cremating corpses or burying and letting the worms consume the deceased are easily viewed as cruel.

The Book of the City of Ladies strikes me as the oldest feminist piece I’ve ever encountered. It’s interesting to note that Pizan starts off by describing the social status of women as the lowest of all except for that of childbearing. She subsequently brings up several mythologies to showcase women’s abilities. Women are as strong and clever as men. In the latter part of the Book, the Amazonian nation was so strong and dominant that even the male presence was not necessary for women’s existence and success.

Augustine reveals his sinful acts in the books leading to conversion. He describes how beauty in the lower goods in sinful. The beginning of each book starts with a prayer in his intimate dialogue between Augustine and the supreme being corresponds throughout the text to the biblical references reasoning his justifications to his sins. It is not just impactful on religious readers. Augustine simply informs us of human development from infancy to adolescence which he deems sinful. He raises a philosophical question of what constitutes a criminal psyche. The turning point in the confession is the incident of the pearl stealing which resulted from “pleasure from doing something forbidden without getting punished.”