Billy Budd vs Discipline and Punish: Which Should You Read?

Billy Budd Herman Melville · 1900 ★★★☆☆ 3.2 208 pages · ≈ 3 h 51 m · Challenging

“In the time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a stroller along the docks of any considerable seaport would occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed mariners, man-of-war's men or merchant sailors in holiday attire, ashore on liberty.”

TRIALS OF THE HANDSOME SAILOR Aboard the warship Bellipotent, the young orphan Billy Budd was called the Handsome Sailor. Billy was tall, athletic, noble looking; he was friendly, innocent, helpful and ever-cheerful. He…

Discipline and Punish Michel Foucault · 1975 ★★★★☆ 4.1 333 pages · ≈ 6 h 10 m · Challenging

“On 2 March 1757 Damiens the regicide condemmed 'to make the amende honorable before the main door of the Church of Paris', where he was to be 'taken and conveyed in a cart, wearing nothing but a a shirt, holding a torch of burning wax weighing two pounds'; then, 'in the said cart, to the place de Greve, where, on a scaffold that will be erected there, the flesh will be torn from his breasts, arms,”

English version of "Surveiller et punir: naissance de la prison"