Literary notes about frailty (AI summary)
The word "frailty" has been employed across literary genres to capture the delicate interplay between human weakness and vulnerability. In classic works, it serves as a metaphor for inherent imperfection, as in Shakespeare’s exploration of human emotions and susceptibility ([1], [2]), while other authors, like Montaigne, highlight its effects on personal disposition and judgment ([3], [4]). At times, writers have even linked frailty with gendered expectations, evident in the provocative remark “Frailty, thy name is woman” ([5]) and its later variant in Milton’s verse ([6]). In addition, the term has been used to describe the transient, often disappointing state of worldly possessions and emotional restraint ([7], [8]), and to capture the nuances of both physical decay and moral inconsistency ([9], [10]). This diversity in usage reveals that "frailty" not only articulates the limitations of the human condition but also serves as a versatile symbol in the literary investigation of human nature.
- And have not we affections, Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
— from Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare - I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?
— from Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare - “He can neither be affected with favour nor indignation, because both these are the effects of frailty.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne - “It did not become him, that spoke so big, to confess his frailty when he came to the test.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne - Then he murmured the words of the English poet, “‘Frailty, thy name is woman.’
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - Nor shouldst thou have trusted that to womans frailty E're I to thee, thou to thy self wast cruel.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton - But they are younger, and have reflected less on the frailty of our worldly possessions."
— from Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812 by Emperor of the French Napoleon I - When we desire life for the attainment of an object, we recognize the frailty of its texture.
— from Mosses from an old manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne - A careless hand or human frailty shows.—MR FRANCIS.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding - O how great is the frailty of man, which is ever prone to evil!
— from The Imitation of Christ by à Kempis Thomas
