The writings of a medieval criminal as he looks back on his life, and the general situation of 15th century France. It is a pleasure to read his testament, which gives evidence of striking honesty and a witty mind. All the hardship he has experienced didn't break his sense of freedom and humor. Very positive.

Written over a period of a quarter of a century, de Vigny's final collection of poetry was published the year after his death, but probably in the order he intended. It is primarily concerned with poetry and metaphysics, with some political satire thrown in. The metaphysical poems, especially "Le Mont des Oliviers", made it clear that he was the kind of agnostic that Christians love -- the kind that takes religion seriously, despairs that he can't believe, and converts on his deathbed. The attitudes toward colonialism and women are as backwards as one could imagine. The poetry about poetry is better, but entirely Romantic. (In case you haven't guessed, I have a prejudice against Romanticism.) Now on to Balzac . . .

It’s astonishing how immediate and relevant these late 17th century observations, anecdotes, and character sketches are, applied to today. I think anyone capable of reading literature critically will find a friend in La Bruyère. He’s guided by an intense awareness of the folly of reputation and popularity. The best men aren’t leading society and the most attractive women work too hard at it.
In our hopeless age we’ve confused this. Beauty itself is never at question. It’s that we turn beauty into a popularity contest that’s what’s so wrong about it. Supposedly beauty should never be claimed because it’s too subjective. But it exists whether we like it or not. The problem is when we try and claim it. This requires fascination. And that’s when politics and rhetoric enter into the equation. (Is there anything more rhetorical in the world than the words “I love you”? Another English translation for La Bruyère’s observation has “despotic” for “subjective”.) Meanwhile, beauty stands above opinion. Not unlike how poetry does, aided by those few poets who know how to claim it. And from whom.

Bruckner's overarching idea is that our constant quest for happiness has become a burden of anxiety. He divides this lecture into two parts: the first part focuses on Christian Europe's concern for salvation. The lecture's second part focuses on contemporary society's injunction to be happy.

A must-read critique of Old Criticism or "The institution's criticism." He goes on greatly explaining what an alternative criticism should be (concerned with meaning) rather than the regular criticism that is concerned with forms and language philologically.
Barthes writes at the end: "To read is to desire the work, to want to be the work, to refuse to echo the work using any discourse other than that of the work." He adds later: "Criticism is only a moment in the period of history which is beginning and which leads us to unity - to the truth of writing."

What makes Barthes great—among many, many things—is his willingness and ability to allow rational thought to break down into ambiguity during moments that can’t be quantified, verbalized. This is when Barthes truly shines, as he always manages to pull out a thread of insight—analytical, visceral, or otherwise—that significantly illuminates the issue at hand. It is no wonder, then, why he turned to music at the end of his life, as the abstractness and visceral nature of music requires the critic to be at home with ambiguity and that which can’t always be clearly captured with words.

It's about the meaning of being happy and how this connects to being unhappy. Also themes like ageing, death, loneliness. All in a really beautiful and sad way.

Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. The Penseés is a collection of philosohical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in pscyhological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God's grace

A collection of 26 philosophical novels and tales by Voltaire.