I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
He that died o’Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ’Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll...
APART FROM THE charred papyrus fragments recovered in Herculaneum, there are no surviving contemporary manuscripts from the ancient Greek and Roman world.
Without prizing either learning or debate, monks nonetheless became the principal readers, librarians, book preservers, and book producers of the Western world.
To entertain the thought that the sun is only one star in an infinite universe; to live an ethical life without reference to postmortem rewards and punishments; to contemplate without trembling the de...
Monasteries were extremely difficult to reach—their founders had built them in deliberately remote places, in order to withdraw from the temptations, distractions, and dangers of the world.
All monks were expected to know how to read. In a world increasingly dominated by illiterate warlords, that expectation, formulated early in the history of monasticism, was of incalculable importance.
Working with knives, brushes, and rags, monks often carefully washed away the old writings—Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Seneca, Lucretius—and wrote in their place the texts that they were instructed by their...
We have only to look attentively at the world around us to grasp that many of the most intense and poignant experiences of our lives are not exclusive to our species.
To spend your existence in the grip of anxiety about death, he wrote, is mere folly. It is a sure way to let your life slip from you incomplete and unenjoyed. He gave voice as well to a thought I had...
There is no single explanation for the emergence of the Renaissance and the release of the forces that have shaped our own world.
The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. (4.1.179–81)
The monk in the grip of acedia would find it difficult or impossible to read. Looking away from his book, he might try to distract himself with gossip but would more likely glance in disgust at his su...
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, For suff ’rance is the badge of all our tribe. (1.3.105–6)
Jaques’ vision in the same comedy of the whining schoolboy with his satchel / And shining morning face, creeping like snail / Unwillingly to school
It is an heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in’t. (2.3.114–15)
In . . . Menenius Agrippa, Shakespeare draws a deft portrait of a successful conservative politician, altogether in the camp of the rich but adept at presenting himself as the people's friend.
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
How does a figure like Richard III or Macbeth ascend to the throne? Such a disaster, Shakespeare suggested, could not happen without widespread complicity. His plays probe the psychological mechanisms...
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, one of these curses runs, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all...