The Literary Life Podcast

Welcome back to the Literary Life Podcast and our series on Sophocles' Greek drama Antigone. Thomas starts out the conversation setting up the background circumstances for this play. He talks about the different roles the main characters play in relation to each other. Angelina and Cindy share some parallels they see between Sophoclean and Shakespearean characters and dialogue. They look closely at Creon's flaws and his interaction with his son, as well as his ultimate downfall. Be sure to come back next week for our first Summer Short Story episode on "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" by Leo Tolstoy. We are excited to announce our third annual Literary Life Back to School Online Conference! This year's title is Awakening: The Pursuit of True Education, and our featured guest speaker is James Daniels. The conference will take place on August 4-7, 2021, and you can learn more and register at morningtimeformoms.com. We also will be celebrating our 100th episode hosting a LIVE Q&A episode in our Patreon group, and you can ask questions in our facebook group with hashtag #litlife100. Commonplace Quotes: All true poetry can be interpreted in manifold different ways, for it has arisen from life and it returns back to life. It hits us like sunshine no matter where we are standing. For that reason a moral precept or a relevant object lesson can be readily derived from these tales; it was never their purpose to instruct, nor were they made up for that reason, but a moral grows out of them, just as good fruit develops from healthy blossoms without help from man. Wilhelm Grimm A Dirge by Christina Rossetti Why were you born when the snow was falling? You should have come to the cuckoo's calling, Or when grapes are green in the cluster, Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster For their far off flying From summer dying. Why did you die when the lambs were cropping? You should have died at the apples' dropping, When the grasshopper comes to trouble, And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble, And all winds go sighing For sweet things dying. Book List: The Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome to the first episode in our series on Sophocles' Greek drama Antigone. After sharing a little about their background with this play, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas talk about the overall structure and the conventions of Greek Drama and Greek Tragedy. Thomas also gives an overview of the type of characters to expect in Greek Tragedy, and he highlights the ways in which Sophocles changed Greek Drama. Angelina explains the ideas of unity of time, unity of place, and unity of plot as presented by Aristotle. Thomas also summarizes the myth on which this play is based, talks about Creon's character, and expands on some of the tensions present in Antigone. Commonplace Quotes: You don't know what ideas my mind-spirit needs right now; I don't know what your mind-spirit need; and we don't know the mind-spirit needs of each child in a classroom. Vital ideas are not sold pre-measured in a bottle. Anne White She had a terror of solitary evenings, all the terror of one who did not care for books, who was soaked in superstition and loved lights and noise. Hugh Walpole When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves. The Greeks had a word for ultimate self-consciousness which I find illuminating: hubris: pride: pride in the sense of putting oneself in the center of the universe. The strange and terrible thing is that this kind of total self-consciousness invariably ends in self-annihilation. The great tragedians have always understood this, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. Madeleine L'Engle A Scot to Jeanne D'Arc by Andrew Lang DARK Lily without blame, Not upon us the shame, Whose sires were to the Auld Alliance true; They, by the Maiden's side, Victorious fought and died; One stood by thee that fiery torment through, Till the White Dove from thy pure lips had passed, And thou wert with thine own St. Catherine at the last. Once only didst thou see, In artist's imagery, Thine own face painted, and that precious thing Was in an Archer's hand From the leal Northern land. Book List: Ideas Freely Sown by Anne White The Thirteen Travellers by Hugh Walpole The Sea Tower by Hugh Walpole A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis The Oresteia by Aeschylus The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles Mythology by Edith Hamilton The Poetics by Aristotle Trojan Women by Euripides The Bacchae by Euripides Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week, your Literary Life podcast hosts, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are happy to be joined by Kelly Cumbee to talk about Edmund Spenser. They begin the conversation with Kelly giving a little biographical information on Spenser. Kelly shares how she came to read The Faerie Queene with her own children and for her education, then fell in love with it herself. Angelina talks about Spenser's style of writing and his vision for creating a medieval feel in his work. Kelly gives us a brief synopsis of the general outline of The Faerie Queene and the virtues that are the focus of each book. Some other topics they discuss are the courtly love tradition, the harmony between the court and the country, the journey of the soul pictured in the quest stories, and the levels of reading that may be applied to The Faerie Queene. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. You can find Kelly Cumbee on her blog at Landscape Plotted and Pieced. Commonplace Quotes: That best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love… William Wordsworth That men have been burnt alive willingly is a fact of no little interest to anyone who has ever put his hand in the flame of a candle. G. K. Chesterton The poem is a great palace, but the door into it is so low that you must stoop to go in. No prig can be a Spenserian. It is, of course, much more than a fairy tale, but unless we can enjoy it as a fairy tale first of all, we shall not really care for it. C. S. Lewis I chose books that I wanted to read for my own education and brought the children along with me. This made homeschooling and morning time a feast for my soul as well as theirs. Jamie Marstall Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name by Edmund Spenser One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. "Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay, A mortal thing so to immortalize; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wiped out likewise." "Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens write your glorious name: Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew." Book List: The Shepheard's Calendar by Edmund Spenser St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges and Trina Schart Hyman Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves by Edmund Spenser and Roy Maynard The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, ed. by A. C. Hamilton The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, Penguin edition Orlando Furioso by Lodovico Ariosto The Aeneid by Virgil The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis The Allegory of Love by C. S. Lewis The Last Romantics by Graham Hough A Book of Emblems by Andrea Alciati Stories from The Faerie Queene by Jenny Lang Stories from The Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod Hackett Classics Faerie Queene Collection Amoretti by Edmund Spenser Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts wrap up their series on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas open the discussion with some commentary on the wickedness in the heart of every human and the cost of courage to stand against the crowd. They examine Beatty's character and why he might have wanted to die. Angelina brings up the way in which Montag's courage convicts Faber of his own cowardice. They also talk about the detrimental effects of pleasure-seeking being the driving goal of people's existence. Other topics of discussion include the images of death and rebirth, the importance of remembrance, and having humility instead of hubris. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Previous episodes you may want to check out if you are new The Literary Life: An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis (Episodes 20-23) and "Are Women Human" by Dorothy L. Sayers (Episode 9). Commonplace Quotes: There is no such thing as low brows, only low hearts. C. S. Lewis More unsolicited advice: if you really want a well-read, well-educated child, you will stop dropping books or subjects just because he doesn't think he likes them. Education is the development of taste, not the reinforcement of a child's lack of it. Brandy Vencel People ask me to predict the future when all I want to do is prevent it. Ray Bradbury from "Four Quartets" by T. S. Elliot The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre- To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire. Book List: Selected Literary Essays by C. S. Lewis An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis 1984 by George Orwell Animal Farm by George Orwell A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Lord of the Flies by William Golding Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts continue with the second part of their series on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy dive into the topics at hand, including but not limited to the following: Clarisse's role as a Beatrice character, the gift of inspiration versus the gift of interpretation in art, living in an age of distraction, the passing down of cultural memory, and leisure as the basis of education. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Commonplace Quotes: Long and delicate maneuverings had bred in him a habit of deceit, and his success had convinced him that in politics, dishonesty was but a venial offense. J. D. Mackie "I would not have you think I was doing nothing then." He might, perhaps, have studied more assiduously; but it may be doubted whether such a mind as his was not more enriched by roaming at large in the fields of literature than if it had been confined to any single spot. The analogy between body and mind is very general, and the parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other particular. The flesh of animals who feed excursively, is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up. May there not be the same difference between men who read as their taste prompts and men who are confined in cells and colleges to stated tasks? James Boswell, quoting Samuel Johnson Interviewer: How does the story of Fahrenheit 451 stand up in 1994? Ray Bradbury: It works even better because we have political correctness now. Political correctness is the real enemy these days….It's thought control and freedom of speech control. Ray Bradbury Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. Book List: Cavalier and Puritan by J. D. Mackie The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner The Divine Comedy by Dante Leisure: the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper Range by David Epstein Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome to another episode of The Literary Life podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks! This week our hosts open a new series on Ray Bradbury's well-known novel Fahrenheit 451. They talk about the form of the dystopian novel and why it is such a popular form in the modern world. Angelina shares some background on the form, as well as some of the foremost authors and books in this genre. Then they dive into the text, starting with the images of the hearth and the salamander. Looking at the world Bradbury has created, they take note of some of the major ideas and discuss any similarities to our current culture seen in these first several chapters. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Commonplace Quotes: If someone tells you what a story is about, they are probably right. If they tell you that that is all the story is about, they are very definitely wrong. Neil Gaiman It will be a bad day for England when we have done with Shakspere; for that will imply, along with the loss of him, that we are no longer capable of understanding him. George MacDonald Libraries raised me. I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school it was during the Depression, and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for ten years. Ray Bradbury from "The Burning of the Leaves" by Laurence Binyon Now is the time for the burning of the leaves. They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke Wandering slowly into a weeping mist. Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves! A flame seizes the smouldering ruin and bites On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist. The last hollyhock's fallen tower is dust; All the spices of June are a bitter reek, All the extravagant riches spent and mean. All burns! The reddest rose is a ghost; Sparks whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild Fingers of fire are making corruption clean. Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare, Time for the burning of days ended and done, Idle solace of things that have gone before: Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there; Let them go to the fire, with never a look behind. The world that was ours is a world that is ours no more. Book List: A Dish or Orts by George MacDonald Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman Stardust by Neil Gaiman The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 1984 by George Orwell Animal Farm by George Orwell Brave New World by Aldous Huxley That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis Utopia by Thomas More Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson H. G. Wells "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis Dorothy Sayers Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts continue their discussion of The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. After sharing some commentary on their commonplace quotes for the week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas talk about the things that stood out to them as they read the second half of The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Some of the ideas they share are the following: the commonality of being ordinary, the responses people have to terminal illness, the one person who gives Ilyich comfort, and the humiliation of death. Angelina highlights the Orthodox metaphors and Christian imagery that are so prevalent in the end of this story. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Commonplace Quotes: The only inconvenience is that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection, and in the meantime the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins and the people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair. Jonathon Swift The humanities do not always make a man humane–that is, liberal, tolerant, gentle, and candid as regards the opinions and status of other men. The fault does not lie in any one of these or in any other of the disciplinary subjects, but in our indolent habit of using each of these as a sort of mechanical contrivance for turning up the soil and sowing the seed. Charlotte Mason I should be cautious of censuring anything that has been applauded by so many suffrages. Samuel Johnson O Child Beside the Waterfall by George Barker O Child beside the Waterfall what songs without a word rise from those waters like the call only a heart has heard- the Joy, the Joy in all things rise whistling like a bird. O Child beside the Waterfall I hear them too, the brief heavenly notes, the harp of dawn, the nightingale on the leaf, all, all dispel the darkness and the silence of our grief. O Child beside the Waterfall I see you standing there with waterdrops and fireflies and hummingbirds in the air, all singing praise of paradise, paradise everywhere. Book List: The Life of Samuel Johnson by Boswell School Education by Charlotte Mason The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On this week's episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks delve into part one of a two-part discussion of Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Our hosts kick things off talking about their background with Russian literature, and Thomas gives some biographical information on Tolstoy. They also talk about the concept of the "holy fool." Some ideas discussed in this episode include the characters' responses to death, the mask of respectability, and the problem of discontent. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Commonplace Quotes: Arrogance is a weed that ever grows in a dunghill. Owen Feltham To enhance the wonder, see How arch his notices, how nice his sense Of the ridiculous; . . . . he can read The inside of the earth, and spell the stars; He knows the policies of foreign lands; Can string you names of districts, cities, towns, The whole world over, tight as beads of dew Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs; All things are put to question; he must live Knowing that he grows wiser every day, Or else not live at all, and seeing too Each little drop of wisdom as it falls Into the dimpling cistern of his heart: For this unnatural growth the trainer blame, Pity the tree… Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find The playthings, which her love designed for him, Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn. Oh! give us once again the wishing-cap Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood, And Sabra in the forest with St George! The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap One precious gain, that he forgets himself. William Wordsworth, from "Prelude" [Fairy stories] never seek to criticize or moralize, to protest or plead or persuade; and if they have an emotional impact on the reader, as the greatest of them to, that is not intrinsic to the stories. They would indeed only weaken that impact in direct proportion as soon as they set out to achieve it. They move by not seeking to move; almost, it seems, by seeking not to move. The fairy-story that succeeds is in fact not a work of fiction at all; . . . It is a transcription of a view of life into terms of highly simplified symbols; and when it succeeds in its literary purpose, it leaves us with a deep indefinable feeling of truth. C. M. Woodhouse, on Animal Farm, The Times Literary Supplement, 1954 Growing Old by Matthew Arnold What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The luster of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? —Yes, but not this alone. Is it to feel our strength— Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung? Yes, this, and more; but not Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be! 'Tis not to have our life Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow, A golden day's decline. 'Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirred; And weep, and feel the fullness of the past, The years that are no more. It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain. It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion—none. It is—last stage of all— When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man. Book List: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy Resolves: Divine, Political, and Moral by Owen Feltham War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Anton Chekhov Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev Papa Panov's Special Day by Mig Holder The Giagantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy Koshka's Tales: Stories from Russia by James Mayhew The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley How Much Land Does a Man Need and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Li

On The Literary Life podcast this week, hosts Cindy Rollins and Angelina Stanford interview their friend and veteran homeschool mother of 4, Adrienne Freas. Adrienne is now the Classical Education Advisor for the K-12 Curriculum and Professional Development Project at University of Dallas Classical Education Master's Degree program at the University of Dallas, and she is active in consulting and advocating for Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy. Adrienne was a featured speaker in the 2019 Back to School Conference, available for replay at morningtimeformoms.com. Adrienne describes her young life and how the fine arts were the highlight of her childhood and her early struggles to learn to read. She shares how high school literature teachers and reading the classics whet her appetite for even more great literature. She talks about the difference it makes to have a teacher who is enthusiastic and believes the students can step up to the challenge. Cindy, Angelina and Adrienne all share their love for Charlotte Mason and her philosophy of giving children a wide and generous curriculum. Commonplace Quotes: Whenever we are called to teach, our proclamation of goodness should be so wrapped in beauty as to console. This should apply to our daily actions as well, and it is an art. Timothy Patitsas Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. Martin Luther Q (Quiller-Couch) was all by himself my college education. I went down to the public library one day when I was 17 looking for books on the art of writing, and found five books of lectures which Q had delivered to his students of writing at Cambridge. "Just what I need!" I congratulated myself. I hurried home with the first volume and started reading and got to page 3 and hit a snag: Q was lecturing to young men educated at Eton and Harrow. He therefore assumed that his students—including me—had read Paradise Lost as a matter of course and would understand his analysis of the "Invocation to Light" in book 9. So I said, "Wait here," and went down to the library and got Paradise Lost and took it home and started reading it and got to page 3 when I hit a snag: Milton assumed I'd read the Christian version of Isaiah and the New Testament and had learned all about Lucifer and the War in Heaven, and since I'd been reared in Judaism I hadn't. So I said, "Wait here," and borrowed a Christian Bible and read about Lucifer and so forth, and then went back to Milton and read Paradise Lost, and then finally got back to Q, page 3. On page 4 or 5, I discovered that the point of the sentence at the top of the page was in Latin and the long quotation at the bottom of the page was in Greek. So I advertised in the Saturday Review for somebody to teach me Latin and Greek, and went back to Q meanwhile, and discovered he assumed I not only knew all the plays of Shakespeare, and Boswell's Johnson, but also the Second Book of Esdras, which is not in the Old Testament and is not in the New Testament, it's in the Apocrypha, which is a set of books nobody had ever thought to tell me existed. So what with one thing and another and an average of three "Wait here's" a week, it took me eleven years to get through Q's five books of lectures. Helene Hanff After Reading "Antony and Cleopatra" by Robert Louis Stevenson As when the hunt by holt and field Drives on with horn and strife, Hunger of hopeless things pursues Our spirits throughout life. The sea's roar fills us aching full Of objectless desire – The sea's roar, and the white moon-shine, And the reddening of the fire. Who talks to me of reason now? It would be more delight To have died in Cleopatra's arms Than be alive to-night. Book List: The Ethics of Beauty by Timothy Patitsas The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff Macbeth by William Shakespeare Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams The Turn of the Screw by Henry James Emily Dickinson The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition by Karen Glass A History of the English-Speaking People by Winston Churchill Paradise Lost by John Milton The Divine Comedy by Dante Algieri The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie Perceval by Chretien de Troyes Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan Lenten Lands by Douglas Gresham The Betrothed: I Promesi Sposi by Alessandro Manzoni The Consolation of Philosophy by Ancius Beothius Range by David Epstien Gene Stratton Porter Elizabeth Goudge Waverly by Sir Walter Scott Reorienting Rhetoric by John D. O'Banion Unbinding Prometheus by Donald Cowan Heidi by Johanna Spyri The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fischer The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle Augustus Caesar's World by Genevieve Foster Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser The Scarl

On this week's episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are joined by James Banks to discuss the value of reading Don Quixote and how to approach the book. They talk about translations and how to choose a translation of this particular work. James shares how he first read Miguel de Cervantes' classic work and gives a little contextual background on him as an author. He also argues that Don Quixote is a romance in the tradition of Spenser and is more of a satire of modernity than of chivalry. Other ideas discussed are the comic duo, the Spanish Renaissance literature, the travel novel, and how to dive into reading Don Quixote. It's not too late to register for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 with special guest speaker Wes Callihan. Head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to sign up today! Listen to previous episodes with James Banks by going to The Literary Life podcast Episode 32 and Episode 33. Commonplace Quotes: Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. attributed to Abraham Lincoln I take it to be part and parcel of the same great process of Internalisation which has turned genius from an attendant daemon into a quality of the mind. Always, century by century, item after item is transferred from the object's side of the account to the subject's. And now, in some extreme forms of Behaviourism, the subject himself is discounted as merely subjective; we only think that we think. Having eaten up everything else, he eats himself up too. And where we 'go from that' is a dark question. C. S. Lewis Say you're an idiot. And say you're a Congressman. But I repeat myself. Mark Twain I don't like the word "allegorical." I don't like the word "symbolic." The word I really like is "mythic," and people always think that means "full of lies" when what it really means is full of a truth that cannot be told in any other way but a story. William Golding, BBC interview Clerihew by G. K. Chesterton The people of Spain think Cervantes Equal to half a dozen Dantes: An opinion resented most bitterly By the people of Italy. Book List: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis Lord of the Flies by William Golding Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens The Shadow of Cervantes by Wyndham Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts chat with Wes Callihan, founder of Schola Tutorials and primary instructor in the Old Western Culture series by Roman Roads Media. Thomas starts off our interview today asking Wes what he remembers about stories and reading as a young person. Wes shares how he came to be a teacher and how his literary life developed as he became an adult. Angelina asks Wes about his approach to challenging literature when he started out reading the great books. He shares the joy of reading aloud, even to yourself, rather than silently whenever possible. Wes also talks about how learning languages enhanced his reading as well. Find the Youtube video of Wes' personal library here. Don't forget to head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to find out all about the exciting line-up for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 for which Wes Callihan will be our keynote speaker. Commonplace Quotes: I have called this work "meadow" on account of the delight, the fragrance and the benefit which it will afford those who come across it, for the virtuous life and the habitual piety do not merely consist of studying divinity, not only of thinking on an elevated plane about things as they are here and now. they must also include the description and writing of the way of life of others. So I have striven to complete this composition to inform your love, oh child, and as I have put together a copious and accurate collection, so I have emulated the most wise bee, gathering up the spiritually beneficial deeds of the fathers. John Moschos The fact that various persons have written angrily to say that the Judas I have depicted seems to them to be a person of the utmost nobility, actuated by extremely worthy motives, confirms my impression that this particular agent of hell is at present doing his master's work with singular thoroughness and success. His exploits go unrecognized – which is just what the devil likes best. Dorothy Sayers People enter politics or the Civil Service out of a desire to exert power and influence events; this, I maintain, is an illness. It is only when one realizes that great administrators and leaders of men have all been at any rate slightly mad that one has a true understanding of history. Auberon Waugh In essence, Tolkien was trying to recover the vision of Eden, the childhood of the race, when beauty was still connected with truth. Through story–the right kind of story, including traditional legends and fairy-tales–the ability to see all things with a pure heart and in the light of heaven could be evoked. He wanted to prove that poetic knowledge, George MacDonald's "wise imagination," could be awoken even in a world apparently closed to its very possibility. Stratford Caldecott On Shakespeare. 1630 by John Milton What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a stary-pointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a live-long monument. For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art, Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. Book List: The Spiritual Meadow by John Moschos The Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George Papillon by Henri Charriere Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Paul Thoreaux Sailing the Inside Passage by Robb Keystone The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by John Mandeville The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis The Name of the Rose by Umberto Ecco The Land of Darkness by Ibn Fadlan The Travels of Ibn Battuta by Ibn Battuta Monologium by St. Anselm Cur Deus Homo by St. Anselm The Aeneid by Virgil The Iliad by Homer, trans. by Alexander Pope Pacific and Other Stories by Mark Helprin Ray Bradbury The Novels of Charles Williams G. K. Chesterton Alexander Pope Fyodor Dostoyevsky Leo Tolstoy Anton Chekhov Aleksander Solzhenitsyn The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis P. G. Wodehouse Edward Gibbon Philip Schaff Taliessin through Logres, The Region of the Summer Stars by Charles Williams Isaac Asimov Theodore Sturgeon Robert Heinlein Arthur C. Clarke Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, a

On this week's episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks wrap up their discussion of George Eliot's Silas Marner. In this episode, Angelina reveals her light bulb moment connecting this story with Shakespeare's play, The Winter's Tale. Thomas talks about the changes in Silas as he has integrated back into the community through his love for Eppie. Cindy points out the characteristics we see in Nancy as a woman who has been through suffering and come out more gracious on the other side. Don't forget to head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to find out all about the exciting line-up for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 with special guest speaker Wes Callihan. Commonplace Quotes: We are all willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship. E. M. Forster Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keep the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. Aldous Huxley The worst evil in the world is brought about not by the open and self-confessed vices but by the deadly corruption of the proud virtues. Dorothy Sayers A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating 'round the perfect trees. And make us happy in the darting bird That suddenly above the bees is heard, The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, And off a blossom in mid air stands still. For this is love and nothing else is love, To which it is reserved for God above To sanctify to what far ends He will, But which it only needs that we fulfill. Book List: Two Cheers for Democracy by E. M. Forster Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Middlemarch by George Eliot The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot The Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell The Tempest by William Shakespeare To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome to this episode of The Literary Life Podcast, in which our hosts discuss George Eliot's book Silas Marner, chapters 10-15. Thomas kicks off the discussion by highlighting the character of Dolly Winthrop. Angelina talks about Silas Marner opening himself to grace in these chapters. She also points out the way that Eliot uses Godfrey's character to point out our own potential lack of moral courage. Cindy points out the problem of addiction for Molly in causing her to neglect her own baby. Angelina also talks about the Rumpelstiltskin parallels and other fairy tale elements in the book thus far. Don't forget to head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to find out all about the exciting line-up for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 with special guest speaker Wes Callihan. Commonplace Quotes: Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge. Samuel Johnson Philosophy, like medicine, has a great number of drugs, and precious few genuine remedies. Nicolas Chamfort The feudal ownership of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of moveables is reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to the civilization of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the middle classes accreted possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty. E. M. Forster On My First Daughter by Ben Johnson Here lies, to each her parents' Ruth, Mary, the daughter of their youth; Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due, It makes the father less to rue. At six months' end she parted hence With safety of her innocence; Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears, In comfort of her mother's tears, Hath placed amongst her virgin-train: Where, while that severed doth remain, This grave partakes the fleshly birth; Which cover lightly, gentle earth! Book List: The Year of Our Lord, 1943 by Alan Jacobs The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Complete Maxims and Thoughts by Nicolas Chamfort Howard's End by E. M. Forster The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot The History of the Devil by Daniel Defoe Sir Roger de Coverley by Joseph Addison Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Middlemarch by George Eliot The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On today's episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks continue their discussion of George Eliot's Silas Marner, covering chapters 4-9. They talk about the problems facing the Cass family and their tense relationships, examine George Eliot's treatment of Silas Marner's victim-hood, reflect on the changing times of the Victorian period, and Thomas breaks out his "Cheers" accent. Don't forget to check out Angelina and Thomas' upcoming classes at HouseofHumaneLetters.com and Cindy's Discipleship for Moms on Patreon. Commonplace Quotes: Perhaps the first thing that he can learn from the artist is that the only way of "mastering" one's material is to abandon the whole conception of mastery and to co-operate with it in love: whosoever will be a lord of life, let him be its servant. Dorothy Sayers You said that we owe literature almost everything we are and what we have been. If books disappear, history will disappear, and human beings will also disappear. I am sure you are right. Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of transcendence. Some people think of reading only as a kind of escape: an escape from the "real" everyday world to an imaginary world, the world of books. Books are much more. They are way of being more fully human. Susan Sontag Just because a man is going to be hanged tomorrow it does not necessarily follow that he has anything interesting to say about it. Desmond MacCarthy Cradlesong by William Blake Sleep, sleep, beauty bright, Dreaming in the joys of night; Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep Little sorrows sit and weep. Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles. As thy softest limbs I feel Smiles as of the morning steal O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast Where thy little heart doth rest. O the cunning wiles that creep In thy little heart asleep! When thy little heart doth wake, Then the dreadful night shall break. Book List: The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers Criticism by Desmond MacCarthy Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry The Aeneid by Virgil Emma by Jane Austen Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks dig into George Eliot's Silas Marner. Today's discussion gives us an introduction to George Eliot and covers the first three chapters of the book. Thomas shares a little historical context for the setting of Silas Marner and how that affects the interpretation of this book. Angelina points out the ways in which Eliot uses some fairy tale and otherworldly elements to explore moral ideas. Don't forget to check out Angelina and Thomas' upcoming classes at HouseofHumaneLetters.com and Cindy's Discipleship for Moms on Patreon. Commonplace Quotes: A poem can be like two hands that lift you up and put you down in a new place. You look back with astonishment and find that because you have read a few lines on a printed page or listened for a couple of minutes to a voice speaking, you have arrived at somewhere quite different. Elizabeth Goudge Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new; Endless labour all along, Endless labour to be wrong… Samuel Johnson These fellow mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are. You can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wits, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people amongst whom your life is passed, that it is needful you should tolerate, pity and love. George Eliot Adlestrop by Edward Thomas Yes. I remember Adlestrop— The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June. The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came On the bare platform. What I saw Was Adlestrop—only the name And willows, willow-herb, and grass, And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, No whit less still and lonely fair Than the high cloudlets in the sky. And for that minute a blackbird sang Close by, and round him, mistier, Farther and farther, all the birds Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. Book List: Towers in the Mist by Elizabeth Goudge The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge Adam Bede by George Eliot The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot Middlemarch by George Eliot Romola by George Eliot Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings by George Eliot Silly Novels by Lady Novelists by George Eliot Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to bring some special guests in to speak to the literary life of the educator Charlotte Mason. Along with Angelina, Thomas and Cindy, we also have Donna-Jean Breckenridge and Karen Glass of the AmblesideOnline Advisory. They start off by sharing some biographical information about who Charlotte Mason was and her background. Karen also talks about how and why Mason developed her practices and philosophy and her educational foundation, the PNEU. Donna-Jean mentions the interesting ephemera belonging to Charlotte Mason housed at the Armitt Museum in Ambleside. Finally, the talk turns to how widely Miss Mason read and how important books were to her throughout her whole life. Join us next week for the beginning episode of our series on George Eliot's Silas Marner, covering chapters 1-3. Before you go, don't forget that registration is opening soon at The House of Humane Letters for the spring. You can also check out Cindy's Discipleship Group for Moms on Patreon.com. Commonplace Quotes: Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. Lord Byron, from "Manfred" God is a mystery and not a fellow conspirator. J. B. Priestley There seems good reason to believe that the limit to human intelligence arises largely from the limit to human interests. Charlotte Mason He was fortified by illimitable reading, by a present sense of a thousand possibilities that had been brought to pass, of a thousand things so wisely said that wise action was a necessary outcome. Charlotte Mason The thing is to keep your eye upon words and wait to feel their force and beauty, and when words are so fit that no other words can be put in their places, so few that none can be left out without spoiling the sense, and so fresh and musical that they delight you, then you may be sure that you are reading literature, whether in prose or poetry. Charlotte Mason The Village Schoolmaster by Oliver Goldsmith Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school; A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew: Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned; Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew — 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge; In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still, While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. Book List: In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass Know and Tell by Karen Glass Consider This by Karen Glass Literature and Western Man by J. B. Priestley Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason The Golden Thread by Norman McLeod Scientific Dialogues by Jeremiah Joyce Jacob Behmen by Alexander Whyte The Cloud of Witness The Hidden Life of the Soul by Jean Nicolas Grou Anne of Geierstein: Maiden of the Mist by Sir Walter Scott The Savior of the World by Charlotte Mason Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason The History of Pendennis by William Thackeray The Egoist by George Meredith Hard Times by Charles Dickens David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Bleak House by Charles Dickens Joan and Peter by H. G. Wells Adam Bede by George Eliot Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy Areopagitica by John Milton Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today's book discussion on The Literary Life podcast centers around the book 84, Charing Cross Road. Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks share their first experiences reading this book of letters between Helene Hanff and Frank Doel. Cindy talks about her deep identification with Helene the first time she read 84, Charing Cross Road and how much she dreamed of going to England. Angelina and Thomas talk about the characteristics of Helene as a reader and as a person seeking self-education. Come back again next week for a special guest episode look at the literary life of Charlotte Mason! After that, we dig into George Eliot's Silas Marner. Commonplace Quotes: Our Japanese soldiers who came back from overseas were a pitiful sight. They looked thin, weak, and exhausted. And some of them were invalids, drained of color and borne on stretchers. But among the returning soldiers there was one company of cheerful men. They were always singing, even difficult pieces in several parts and they sang very well. When they disembarked at Yokosuka the people who came to greet them were astonished. Everyone asked if they had received extra rations, since they seemed so happy. These men had had no extra rations, but had practiced choral singing throughout the Burma campaign. Their captain, a young musician fresh from music school, had enthusiastically taught his soldiers how to sing. It was singing that kept up their morale through boredom or hardship and that bound them together in friendship and discipline during the long war years. Without it, they would never have come home in remarkable high spirits. Michio Takeyama Men are apt to prefer a prosperous error before an afflicted truth. Jeremy Taylor Secondhand booksellers are the most friendly and most eccentric of all the characters I have known. If I had not been a writer, theirs would have been the profession I would most happily have chosen. Graham Greene Reading in Wartime by Edwin Muir Boswell by my bed, Tolstoy on my table; Thought the world has bled For four and a half years, And wives' and mothers' tears Collected would be able To water a little field Untouched by anger and blood, A penitential yield Somewhere in the world; Though in each latitude Armies like forest fall, The iniquitous and the good Head over heels hurled, And confusion over all: Boswell's turbulent friend And his deafening verbal strife, Ivan Ilych's death Tell me more about life, The meaning and the end Of our familiar breath, Both being personal, Than all the carnage can, Retrieve the shape of man, Lost and anonymous, Tell me wherever I look That not one soul can die Of this or any clan Who is not one of us And has a personal tie Perhaps to someone now Searching an ancient book, Folk-tale or country song In many and many a tongue, To find the original face, The individual soul, The eye, the lip, the brow For ever gone from their place, And gather an image whole. Book List: 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff The Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama Holy Living by Jeremy Taylor The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff The Narnian by Alan Jacobs The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell P. G. Wodehouse A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen The Dubliners by James Joyce The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals by Lord Byron Selected Letters by Jane Austen Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks discuss the importance of reading old books. They begin the conversation by addressing head on the idea that old books are irrelevant. They touch on the fact that when we use the phrase "old books" we mean not just any piece of literature from the past, but those which have stood the test of time. Don't forget to check out our brand new podcast, which has its very own feed, The Well Read Poem. The House of Humane Letters spring classes are opening for registration, so head over there to check out what is coming up! Commonplace Quotes: So, when his Folly opens The unnecessary hells, A Servant when He Reigneth Throws the blame on some one else. Rudyard Kipling I am informed by philologists that the "rise to power" of these two words, "problem" and "solution" as the dominating terms of public debate, is an affair of the last two centuries, and especially of the nineteenth, having synchronised, so they say, with a parallel "rise to power" of the word "happiness"—for reasons which doubtless exist and would be interesting to discover. Like "happiness", our two terms "problem" and "solution" are not to be found in the Bible—a point which gives to that wonderful literature a singular charm and cogency. . . . On the whole, the influence of these words is malign, and becomes increasingly so. They have deluded poor men with Messianic expectations . . . which are fatal to steadfast persistence in good workmanship and to well-doing in general. . . . Let the valiant citizen never be ashamed to confess that he has no "solution of the social problem" to offer to his fellow-men. Let him offer them rather the service of his skill, his vigilance, his fortitude and his probity. For the matter in question is not, primarily, a "problem", nor the answer to it a "solution". L. P. Jacks, Stevenson Lectures Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age. C. S. Lewis To Walter de la Mare by T. S. Elliot The children who explored the brook and found A desert island with a sandy cove (A hiding place, but very dangerous ground, For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound In the dark jungle of a mango grove, And shadowy lemurs glide from tree to tree – The guardians of some long-lost treasure-trove) Recount their exploits at the nursery tea And when the lamps are lit and curtains drawn Demand some poetry, please. Whose shall it be, At not quite time for bed?… Or when the lawn Is pressed by unseen feet, and ghosts return Gently at twilight, gently go at dawn, The sad intangible who grieve and yearn; When the familiar is suddenly strange Or the well known is what we yet have to learn, And two worlds meet, and intersect, and change; When cats are maddened in the moonlight dance, Dogs cower, flitter bats, and owls range At witches' sabbath of the maiden aunts; When the nocturnal traveller can arouse No sleeper by his call; or when by chance An empty face peers from an empty house; By whom, and by what means, was this designed? The whispered incantation which allows Free passage to the phantoms of the mind? By you; by those deceptive cadences Wherewith the common measure is refined; By conscious art practised with natural ease; By the delicate, invisible web you wove – The inexplicable mystery of sound. Book List: The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis The Giver by Lois Lowry The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts explore the popular Agatha Christie mystery novel, Death on the Nile. This discussion will contain spoilers, so if you haven't read or listened to the book yet, stop this episode! But before we get to the book chat, we want to announce that our brand new The Well Read Poem podcast is now live! Also, head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to check out the Winter Webinar Series and Kelly Cumbee's class on King Lear. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin the book discussion with a comparison of the authors known as the "Queens of Crime." They also talk about the form of detective novels and how Christie in particular plays with the form to keep readers on their toes. Thomas notes the similarities between Death on the Nile with Henry James' novel The Wings of the Dove. In addition to covering the plot of the story, our hosts walk us through the ways in which Christie writes in order to keep us guessing. If you haven't heard it before, please go and listen to Episode 3: The Importance of the Detective Novel. Commonplace Quotes: The sacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she was not asked to make them. Saki (pen name of H. H. Munro) Pious worshipers, whether or mortal or immortal artists, do their deities little honor by treating their incarnations as something too sacred for rough handling. They only succeed in betraying a fear lest the structure should prove flimsy or false. Dorothy Sayers "Once I went professionally to an archæological expedition–and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do–clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth–the naked shining truth." Hercule Poirot, Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie When We First Met by Robert Bridges When first we met, we did not guess That Love would prove so hard a master; Of more than common friendliness When first we met we did not guess. Who could foretell the sore distress, This irretrievable disaster, When first we met? -- We did not guess That Love would prove so hard a master. Book List: Beasts and Super-Beasts by Saki (H. H. Munro) The Toys of Peace by Saki The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie Agatha Christie Ngaio Marsh Margery Allingham Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers The Wings of the Dove by Henry James Leave It to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse Tim Powers Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to delve into the literary life of the mysterious Mr. Banks! But before we get started, we do want to let you know that we have posted the reading schedule for January-March, and you can view it on our Upcoming Events page. Also, Blue Sky Daisies Publishing is running a fun contest for kids involving our new Commonplace Books, so you will want to head over to their website and check that out! Finally, be looking out for The Well Read Poem podcast coming to a podcast app near you on January 18, 2021! Cindy begins the interview asking Thomas about his family background and the influence of his parents on his own reading life. He shares about many of the books he loved in childhood and how that shaped his tastes in literature. He also talks about how he approached school learning as opposed to his personal reading. Angelina asks Thomas to tell about how he fell in love with poetry and how he ended up going to college even though that was not his original goal. He also shares more about his reading as an adult, as well as his habit of commonplacing quotations. Commonplace Quotes: …but I was glad to sing again too; it had been a greater loss that I realized in that particular wintering which saw the waning of my voice. It wasn't about the vanity of being able to trill out a fine song; it was about the joy of singing for its own sake. Katherine Ma Michael explains to Adam in the last book of Milton's Paradise Lost, that tyranny exists in human society because every individual in such a society is a tyrant within himself, or at least is if he conforms acceptably to his social surroundings. Northrup Frye The Gods that are wiser than Learning But kinder than Life have made sure No mortal may boast in the morning That even will find him secure. from "A Rector's Memory" by Rudyard Kipling Time, Real and Imaginary by Samuel Taylor Coleridge On the wide level of a mountain's head, (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails out-spread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother ! This far outstripp'd the other ; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind : For he, alas! is blind! O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last. Book List: Wintering by Katherine May The Double Vision by Northrup Frye Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol Beatrix Potter books Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling Oxford Book of Children's Verse Praeterita by John Ruskin The Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J. R. R. Tolkien Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis The Saga of the Volsungs by Anonymous The Adventures of Tintin by Herge Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott Julius Caesar by Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare The Complete Poems of John Keats Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Hardy the Novelist by David Cecil The James Bond Dossier by Kingsley Amis The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Mishima 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are bringing you our year end review of our own reading lives. Angelina kicks off the conversation by asking Thomas and Cindy how they would describe their reading lives this year. They talk about their favorites and highlights in books this year, as well as a few books that fell flat for them in 2020. They share about some authors they had not read before that they enjoyed this year. Finally, they tell us how they did with their own 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge lists. Don't forget to check out the upcoming reading challenge for next year, the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! If you missed it, you will want to go back and listen to the previous episode full of ideas for each challenge category. Also, there is still time to order Literary Life Commonplace Books before the new year and begin recording your plans, progress, and favorite quotations! Commonplace Quotes: Our fathers find their graves in our short memories and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Thomas Browne "But, my, my! We don't learn easy!" he chuckled mournfully. "Not to learn how to live till we're about ready to die, it certainly seems to me dang tough!". . . "But, papa," she said, to console him, "don't you think maybe there isn't such a thing as a 'finish', after all! You say perhaps we don't learn to live till we die, but maybe that's how it is after we die, too–just learning some more, the way we do here, and maybe through trouble again, even after that." Booth Tarkington Charlotte Mason says that books are one way that we grow, not for ourselves, but beyond ourselves. Where does she suggest we start? Here's her list of suitable "Instructors of Conscience": 1.Poetry, preferably spending time with one poet 2. Shakespeare's plays 3. Novels, with characters who "become our mentors or our warnings" 4. Ever-delightful essayists 5. History, including ancient history 6. Philosophy, to allow reason to work upon knowledge 7. Theology, including the Bible 8. The things of nature 9. Science, so that "we no longer conduct ourselves in this world of wonders like a gaping rustic at a fair" (p. 101) 10. Art, approached "with the modest intention to pay a debt…" 11. Sociology and Self-Knowledge Our aim is not to become know-it-alls, but rather to gain a sense of the Ought in all this, why we owe it to God and to the world to become people who observe carefully and think clearly, "with gentle, large, and humble thoughts." And the ultimate result is not graduation, but gratitude, to the One who created "the beauty, glory, and fitness above our heads and about our feet and surrounding us on every side!" Anne White Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Lord Tennyson Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Urn Burial by Thomas Browne Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington Honest, Simple Souls: An Advent Meditation with Charlotte Mason by Anne White Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze Cover Her Face by P. D. James Margery Allingham Ngaio Marsh Towards Zero by Agatha Christie Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie Range by David Epstein The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer Poet's Corner ed. by John Lithgow The Year of Our Lord 1943 by Alan Jacobs The Narnian by Alan Jacobs Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol The Stricken Deer by Lord David Cecil Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff Stephen Fry's Greek Myths series The Centre of Hilarity by Michael Mason The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery Tenebrae by Geoffrey Hill The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Circe by Madeline Miller G. R. Stirling Taylor William Morris by Alfred Noyes The Devil Takes a Holiday by Alfred Noyes The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amos Terry Pratchett The S

Today on the podcast, your hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks take a deep dive into the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! This episode is full of ideas and book suggestions to help inspire your #LitLife192021 reading, so be sure to scroll down in your podcast app to view the comprehensive book link list! They not only give reasons behind each category and suggests for the adult reading challenge, but many titles for the kids' version of the challenge, as well! Also, don't forget that our Literary Life Commonplace Books are now available to order via Amazon! These high quality journals are perfect for recording what you are reading, as well as all your favorite quotes, and we have both adult and children's versions. Our publisher, Blue Sky Daisies, is providing us with a fun giveaway, so head over to their Facebook page, our Facebook group, or our Instagram to find the social media image to share and find all the details! Cindy's List of Literature of Honor for Boys Cindy's List of Books for Fortitude linked at The Redeemed Reader Commonplace Quotes: In anything that can be called art, there is a quality of redemption. Raymond Chandler The right teacher would have his pupil easy to please, but ill to satisfy; ready to enjoy, unready to embrace; keen to discover beauty, slow to say, "Here I will dwell." George MacDonald It is difficult for a moneylender to grow old gracefully David Mathew Christ's Nativity by Henry Vaughan Awake, glad heart! get up and sing! It is the birth-day of thy King. Awake! awake! The Sun doth shake Light from his locks, and all the way Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day. Awake, awake! hark how th' wood rings; Winds whisper, and the busy springs A concert make; Awake! awake! Man is their high-priest, and should rise To offer up the sacrifice. I would I were some bird, or star, Flutt'ring in woods, or lifted far Above this inn And road of sin! Then either star or bird should be Shining or singing still to thee. I would I had in my best part Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart Were so clean as Thy manger was! But I am all filth, and obscene; Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean. Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more This leper haunt and soil thy door! Cure him, ease him, O release him! And let once more, by mystic birth, The Lord of life be born in earth. Book List: The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald The Great Tudors ed. by Katharine Garvin The Oxford Book of English Verse ed. by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch The Classic Hundred Poems ed. by William Harmon The Top 500 Poems ed. by William Harmon Letters to An American Lady by C. S. Lewis Selected Letters of Jane Austen ed. by Vivien Jones Lord Chesterfield's Letters ed. by David Roberts The Habit of Being by Flannery O'Connor The Iliad by Homer The Odyssey by Homer D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire Mythology by Edith Hamilton Metamorphoses by Ovid Heroes by Stephen Fry Mythos by Stephen Fry From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye Silas Marner by George Eliot The Warden by Anthony Trollope Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Hard Times by Charles Dickens Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Leaf by Niggle by J. R. R. Tolkien The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad The Shooting Party by Anton Chekov Kristen Lavrensdatter Trilogy by Sigrid Undset The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Milton by Rose Macaulay Chaucer by G. K. Chesterton Churchill by Paul Johnson Napoleon by Paul Johnson The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne Joseph Pearce The Narnian by Alan Jacobs Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn The Awakening by Kate Chopin My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok The Chosen by Chaim Potok The Natural by Bernard Malamud The Brothers K by David James Duncan Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Á Kempis Edmund Burke Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler Doomsday Book by Connie Willis Characters of Shakespeare's Plays by William Hazlitt The Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Macaulay Imaginary Conversations by Walter Savage Landor Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg P. G. Wodehouse Gerald Durrell A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson How the Heather Looks by Joan Bodger The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz Paul Thoreau Travels with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson The Lawless Roads by Graham Greene The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell What I Saw in America by G. K. Chesterton The History of the Second Boer War by Winston Churchill The Heroes by Charles Kingsley A Wonder Book by Nat

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we wrap up our series on George MacDonald's Phantastes. Today Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss chapters 20-25. Thomas opens the conversations giving his impressions of the ending of this fantasy. Angelina talks more about the symbolism of death and rebirth, as well as the themes of the quest, the shadow self, and the presence of more dual images. Cindy shares some of her thoughts on this reading as well as the moment she first read the ending passages of this book. Don't forget to check out the upcoming reading challenge for next year, the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! We will be back next time with an episode full of ideas and book suggestions to help inspire your #LitLife192021 reading. Also, we are pleased to be bringing you Literary Life Commonplace Books, perfect for recording what you are reading, as well as all your favorite quotes. Commonplace Quotes: People say that life is the things, but I prefer reading. Logan Pearsall Smith A great public position may create false values, endow its holder with gifts that are not his own, and make a great philosopher out of a corrupt lawyer. Alfred Noye And yet there are people who say that Shakespeare always means "just what he says"!…He thinks that to find over and undermeanings in Shakespeare's plays is to take unwarranted liberties with them is like a man who holds the word "spring" must refer only to a particular period of the year and could not possibly mean birth, or youth, or hope. He is a man who has never associated anything with anything else. He is a man without metaphors. And such a man is not man at all, let alone a poet. Harold Goddard Joseph by G. K. Chesterton If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams Of bliss and blasphemy came true, If skies were green and snow were gold, And you loved me as I love you; O long light hands and curled brown hair, And eyes where sits a naked soul; Dare I even then draw near and burn My fingers in the aureole? Yes, in the one wise foolish hour God gives this strange strength to a man. He can demand, though not deserve, Where ask he cannot, seize he can. But once the blood's wild wedding o'er, Were not dread his, half dark desire, To see the Christ-child in the cot, The Virgin Mary by the fire? Book List: Two Worlds for Memory by Alfred Noyes The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our series on George MacDonald's Phantastes continues. Today Angelina and Cindy discuss chapters 15-19. But before they get started, they announce the upcoming reading challenge for next year, the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! Also, we are pleased to be bringing you Literary Life Commonplace Books, perfect for recording what you are reading, as well as all your favorite quotes. Angelina and Cindy open the book discussion with the idea of the "other world" structure in fantasy writing, as well as how influential MacDonald was on writers who came after him. They also go in depth with the concept of the Holy Spirit as the originator of creative thought in conjunction with MacDonald's thoughts on the imagination. Angelina gets excited about the metaphorical descent into Hades in this section of the book. She and Cindy talk about the importance of the hope of redemption, the platonic ideal versus reality, and learning to let go instead of grasp at things. They also return to the idea of true education being noble unrest introduced in last week's episode. Don't forget to check out the Advent and Christmas resources our hosts have ready for your holiday season. As mentioned before, Cindy's new edition of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel's Messiah is available now, and it is not to late to start if you purchase the Kindle version. Check our CindyRollins.net for more information. Also, Thomas and Angelina have a sale going on for an Advent Bundle of their popular webinars, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and The Poetry of Advent. Additionally, Kelly Cumbee will be teaching a webinar series called "Seeking the Discarded Image: Nature." Commonplace Quotes: Thomas Merton recognized at once when he wrote in his journal for July 18, 1964, "I began it this morning, studying it as a tract on monastic life, the myth of pilgrimage, the quest for the impossible island, the earthly paradise, the ultimate ideal," for it is above all liturgical prayer and liturgical time that provide the structure of the journey as it unfolds around the two key anchor points: the Easter cycle, spent in the environs of the island of sheep, and the Christmas cycle with the monastic community of Alba. Esther de Waal I never could believe that a man who did not find God in other places, as well as in the Bible, ever found Him there at all. To find God in other books enables us to see clearly that He is more in the Bible than in any other book or in all books put together. George MacDonald Nightingales by Robert Bridges Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long! Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams, A throe of the heart, Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, For all our art. Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day Welcome the dawn. Book List:W The Celtic Way of Prayer by Esther De Waal At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood by George MacDonald A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason Adam Bede by George Eliot Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks continue their series on George MacDonald's Phantastes, covering chapters 10-14. Angelina and Thomas open the book chat talking about disorientation and how MacDonald is using the mirror images to help us enter into Anados' feelings. Some of the topics covered in these chapters are disenchantment and demystifying the world, the child of mysterious origin, seeing and not seeing, romanticism and the dark imagination. Don't forget to check out the Advent and Christmas resources our hosts have ready for your holiday season. As mentioned before, Cindy's new edition of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel's Messiah is available now, and you can access the replay of her special live event if you visit her website. Check our CindyRollins.net for more information. Also, Thomas and Angelina have a sale going on for an Advent Bundle of their popular webinars, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and The Poetry of Advent. Additionally, Kelly Cumbee will be teaching a webinar series called "Seeking the Discarded Image: Nature." Commonplace Quotes: He extended the boundaries of the world, but he never shifted its center. Alfred Noyes "Absolute attention is prayer." When May Sarton quoted those words of Simone Weil in her journal, she went on to say, "I have used that sentence often in talking about poetry to students, to suggest that if one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. Something is given." Simone Weil, May Sarton, Esther de Waal For repose is not the end of education; its end is a noble unrest, an ever renewed awaking from the dead, a ceaseless questioning of the past for the interpretation of the future, an urging on the motions of life, which had better far be accelerated into fever, then retarded into lethargy. George MacDonald The Palm and the Pine by Heinrich Heine Beneath an Indian palm a girl Of other blood reposes; Her cheek is clear and pale as pearl Amid that wild of roses. Beside a northern pine a boy Is leaning fancy-bound. Nor listens where with noisy joy Awaits the impatient hound. Cool grows the sick and feverish calm, Relaxed the frosty twine.– The pine-tree dreameth of the palm, The palm-tree of the pine. As soon shall nature interlace Those dimly-visioned boughs, As these young lovers face to face Renew their early vows. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) William Morris by Alfred Noyes The Well at the World's End by William Morris The Celtic Way of Prayer by Esther De Waal The Imagination: Its Functions and Its Culture by George MacDonald William Morris Textiles Coloring Book Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams The Four Men by Hilaire Belloc Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carol The Arabian Nights translated by Sir Richard Burton The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and the second episode of our series on George MacDonald's Phantastes, covering chapters 5-9. Angelina and Thomas kick off the book chat sharing some thoughts on the Duessa-type character in this section. Cindy mentions the connection she made to James Russell Lowell's poem, "The Vision of Sir Launfal." They go on to discuss the parallels between this section and the Pygmalion myth. Other mythological references abound throughout the story, as we will see. Our hosts go deep exploring the themes of deception, the fall, doppelgangers and spiritual death in these chapters. Don't forget to check out the Advent and Christmas resources our hosts have ready for your holiday season. As mentioned before, Cindy's new edition of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel's Messiah is available now, and she has a live celebration even happening on November 19, 2020. Check our CindyRollins.net for more information. Also, Thomas and Angelina have a sale going on for an Advent Bundle of their popular webinars, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and The Poetry of Advent. Additionally, Kelly Cumbee will be teaching a webinar series called "Seeking the Discarded Image: Nature." Be back next week when we will cover chapters 10-14. Remember to join the discussion in our Literary Life Discussion Group. Commonplace Quotes: A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg School isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world. Richard Louv Milton's point in Paradise Lost is that free man can be instructed only by the non-compulsive forms, whether vision, parable, or drama. Hence Paradise Lost is a series of interlocking visions, Adam warned by the cathartic contrapuntal vision of satanic fall, and fall through vision of Eve. To fall is to choose an illusion, not a wrong reason. Northrup Frye When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be by John Keats When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night's starred face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv Notebooks on Renaissance Literature by Northrup Frye The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouquée Faust (Parts One and Two) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and the beginning of our series on George MacDonald's Phantastes. Before our hosts, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin the book chat, though, we wanted to let you know about some Advent and Christmas resources ready for the upcoming holiday season. As mentioned before, Cindy's new edition of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel's Messiah is available now. Also, Thomas and Angelina have a sale going on for an Advent Bundle of their popular webinars, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and The Poetry of Advent. Cindy shares a little about her past reading of many of MacDonald's books and the effect they had on her. Angelina and Cindy also give some pertinent biographical information about MacDonald and put him in his Victorian context. Angelina brings out the connections between Spenser's The Faerie Queene and MacDonald's Phantastes, including the questing element. In answer to Cindy's question about the German word "Maerchen", Thomas shares some ideas about what sorts of stories are included in that term. In this discussion, Angelina points out all the big themes of fairy tales and stories in general that we see right away in this story. Cindy highlights the role of the grandmother in this and other MacDonald stories. In light of the Faerie Queene connections, Thomas wonders if there will be a true woman and a false woman in this story. Angelina and Cindy go on to explore so many more of the ideas and themes presented in these chapters. Be back next week for chapters 5-9. Commonplace Quotes: There is no truth, however overpowering and clear, but men may escape from it by shutting their eyes. Cardinal John Henry Newman Hurry is a sort of violence on the soul. John Mark Comer I should have been shocked in my teens if anyone had told me that what I learned to love in Phantastes was goodness. But now that I know, I there was no deception. The deception is all the other way round–in that prosaic moralism which confines goodness to the region of Law and Duty, which never lets us feel in our face the sweet air blowing from "the land of righteousness," never reveals that elusive Form which if once seen mus inevitably be desire with all but sensuous desire–the thing (in Sappho's phrase) "more gold than gold." C. S. Lewis Maerchen by Walter de la Mare Soundless the moth-flit, crisp the death-watch tick; Crazed in her shaken arbour bird did sing; Slow wreathed the grease adown from soot-clogged wick: The Cat looked long and softly at the King. Mouse frisked and scampered, leapt, gnawed, squeaked; Small at the window looped cowled bat a-wing; The dim-lit rafters with the night-mist reeked: The Cat looked long and softly at the King. O wondrous robe enstarred, in night dyed deep: O air scarce-stirred with the Court's far junketing: O stagnant Royalty — A-swoon? Asleep? The Cat looked long and softly at the King. Book List: Amazon affiliate links are used in this content. The Princess and The Goblin by George MacDonald Lilith by George MacDonald Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins The Christmas Stories and Poems of George MacDonald by George MacDonald The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer George MacDonald by C. S. Lewis The Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald Hard Times by Charles Dickens Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert Adam Bede by George Eliot The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis The Purple Island by Phineas Fletcher Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins tackle the topic of fairy stories, discussing the what, why and how of reading them. Angelina shares the distinctive characteristics of fairy stories in contrast to other types of stories, such as myths. They deal with the question of whether fairy tales are "escapist", the influence of the Grimm brothers scholarly work on interpreting fairy stories, and allowing the story to unveil its deeper truths without forcing meaning onto it. Angelina gives an illustration of how to see the gospel messages in fairy tales by talking us through the story of Sleeping Beauty. She refutes the ideas that fairy tales are about human romance or are misogynistic. She also highlights some of the Enlightenment and Puritan responses to fairy tales that still linger with us today. Cindy and Angelina also discuss some common concerns such as the magical, weird, or scary aspects of fairy tales. Angelina also makes a distinction between folk tales, literary fairy tales, and cautionary tales. Be sure to be back next week for the beginning of our series on George MacDonald's Phantastes. Commonplace Quotes: After a certain kind of sherry party, where there have been cataracts of culture but never on word or one glance that suggested a real enjoyment of any art, any person, or any natural object, my heart warms to the schoolboy on the bus who is reading Fantasy and Science Fiction rapt and oblivious of all the world beside. C. S. Lewis Children are not deceived by fairy tales. They are often and gravely deceived by school stories. Adults are not deceived by science fiction. They can be deceived by stories in women's magazines. C. S. Lewis Both fairy stories and realistic stories engage in wish fulfillment, but it is actually the realistic stories that are more deadly. Fairy stories do awaken desires in children, but most often it is not a desire for the fairy world itself. Most children don't really want there to be dragons in modern England. Instead, the desire is for they know not what. This desire for something beyond does not empty the real world, but actually gives it new depths. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods. The reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. C. S. Lewis Ancient History by Siegfried Sassoon Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; 'He was the grandest of them all—was Cain! 'A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire; 'Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain, 'Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.' Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair— A lover with disaster in his face, And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair. 'Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? … 'God always hated Cain' … He bowed his head— The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) The World's Last Night by C. S. Lewis An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" by C. S. Lewis The Princess and The Goblin by George MacDonald Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts Angelina and Cindy chat with Cindy's longtime friend and, according to her, the "smartest woman on the internet," Wendi Capehart. Wendi is an adventurous mom of many and has lived throughout Asia. Now she lives the life of an at home librarian caring for her disabled daughter and spending time with her 15 grandchildren. She also serves on the AmblesideOnline Advisory board. Angelina starts off the conversation asking Wendi about her reading life beginning with her childhood memories of reading. Wendi talks a little about how books helped her survive and heal from the trauma of living in an abusive situation. They also discuss what the difference was for Wendi in leisurely reading and reading for school. Wendi shares some of the reasons she began homeschooling her own children, as well, and how she kept reading voraciously even after she became a mother. Angelina and Wendi talk about the brain and changing your reading habits to digest and enjoy more challenging books. Wendi shares how she built a library while one a military budget and moving frequently. They talked about too many things to mention in this summary, but you can scroll down for the many book titles mentioned in this episode! Commonplace Quotes: "We're all fools," said Clemens, "all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly." Ray Bradbury Where science does not teach a child to wonder and admire it has perhaps no educative value. Charlotte Mason Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with tremendous difference–that it really happened–and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's myth, where the others are men's myths. That is, the pagan stories are God expressing himself through the minds of poets, using such images as he found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through real things. C. S. Lewis If Only I Were King by A. A. Milne I often wish I were a King, And then I could do anything. If only I were King of Spain, I'd take my hat off in the rain. If only I were King of France, I wouldn't brush my hair for aunts. I think, if I were King of Greece, I'd push things off the mantelpiece. If I were King of Norroway, I'd ask an elephant to stay. If I were King of Babylon, I'd leave my button gloves undone. If I were King of Timbuctoo, I'd think of lovely things to do. If I were King of anything, I'd tell the soldiers, "I'm the King!" Book List: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas Gene Stratton Porter The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton Jane Austen The Little Prince by Antione de Saint-Exupéry The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson The Heroes by Charles Kingsley The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham Kim by Rudyard Kipling The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis The Rescuers by Marjorie Sharp The Borrowers by Mary Norton Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome Booth Tarkington Ben Hur by Lew Wallace The Bears of Blue River by Charles Major Thornton W. Burgess Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life Podcast we have our final installment of the series on C. S. Lewis' masterpiece Til We Have Faces. This week, our hosts finish up with Part 2, Chapters 1-4. Opening the conversation, Angelina shares some of her feelings on just having finished the book. She points out the importance of understanding the Cupid and Psyche myth. Cindy brings up the concept of a "sin-eater" in relation to Orual's taking on of Psyche's trials. They talk about the ways in which Orual begins to see more clearly and remember things differently at this point in the story. The theme of selfish love versus self-sacrificing love comes full circle as the book closes. Orual's symbolic death and rebirth are key topics, and the allusions to Christ and the Gospel throughout this story are truly exciting. Join us next week for a special interview with Wendi Capehart on her literary life! Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes: I can't say I learned nothing, at St. Charles Borromeo. I learned bladder control; which is good for women, useful in later life. The second thing I learned was that I had got almost everything terribly wrong. Hilary Mantel We read Dante for his poetry and not for his theology because we have already met the theology elsewhere. W. H. Auden In the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measured, and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee away, vanish, leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed. And since that contact cannot be avoided for long, and since it means either bliss or horror, the business of life is to learn to like it. That is the first and greatest commandment. C. S. Lewis from "Autumn Journal" by Louis Macneice In a week I return to work, lecturing, coaching, As impresario of the Ancient Greeks Who wore the chiton and lived on fish and olives And talked philosophy or smut in cliques; Who believed in youth and did not gloze the unpleasant Consequences of age; What is life, one said, or what is pleasant Once you have turned the page Of love? The days grow worse, the dice are loaded Against the living man who pays in tears for breath; Never to be born was the best, call no man happy This side death. Conscious – long before Engels – of necessity And therein free They plotted out their life with truism and humour Between the jealous heaven and the callous sea. And Pindar sang the garland of wild olive And Alcibiades lived from hand to mouth Double-crossing Athens, Persia, Sparta, And many died in the city of plague, and many of drouth In Sicilian quarries, and many by the spear and arrow And many more who told their lies too late Caught in the eternal factions and reactions Of the city state. And free speech shivered on the pikes of Macedonia And later on the swords of Rome And Athens became a mere university city, And the goddess born of the foam Became the kept hetaera, heroine of Menander, And the philosopher narrowed his focus, confined His efforts to putting his own soul in order And keeping a quiet mind. And for a thousand years they went on talking, Making such apt remarks, A race no longer of heroes but of professors And crooked business men and secretaries and clerks Who turned out dapper little elegiac verses On the ironies of fate, the transience of all Affections, carefully shunning the over-statement But working the dying fall. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoire by Hilary Mantel The Dyer's Hand by W. H. Auden The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs Descent into Hell by Charles Williams The Private Memoires and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast! This week, our hosts are covering chapters 16-21 of C. S. Lewis' masterpiece Til We Have Faces. Also, to celebrate Cindy's re-release of her book Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel's Messiah, she is doing a social media giveaway over the next four weeks. To enter to win a copy, post about the book release with hashtag #hallelujahadvent. They begin the conversation about Til We Have Faces with an examination of Lewis' personal journey and its similarity to Orual's own in this story. This opens up a discussion of education, Lewis's schooling, and Charlotte Mason's philosophy. Angelina then goes on to talk about the three types of veils worn by Orual, and Cindy and Thomas explore the idea of veils and their role in relationship and power. Orual's friendships with Bardia and the Fox further highlight her continued blindness to her own disordered affections. Join us next week for the last installment in our series on Til We Have Faces. The following episode will be a special interview with Wendi Capehart on her literary life! Commonplace Quotes: Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophesy, and religion. All is one. John Ruskin Since then I have always been addicted to something or other, usually something there's no support group for. Semicolons, for instance, I can never give up for more than two hundred words at a time. Hilary Mantel The two hemispheres of my mind were in the sharpest contrast. On the one side, a many-islanded sea of poetry and myth; on the other, a glib and shallow "rationalism." Nearly all that I loved, I believed to be imaginary. Nearly all that I believed to be real, I thought grim and meaningless. C. S. Lewis Moonlight by Walter de la Mare The far moon maketh lovers wise In her pale beauty trembling down, Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes, A strangeness not their own. And, though they shut their lids to kiss, In starless darkness peace to win, Even on that secret world from this Her twilight enters in. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoire by Hilary Mantel The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life, our hosts discuss chapters 12-15 of C. S. Lewis' masterpiece Til We Have Faces. Don't forget that Thomas will be teaching a mini-class series on Shakespeare's Roman Plays in October. You can find out more and register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. We are giving away one spot in the class to someone who shares about the class publicly on social media and tag it #houseofhumaneletters. The winner will be announced on October 2, 2020 on the House of Humane Letters Facebook page! Angelina opens the discussions with the point that Lewis changes the story of Psyche throughout the book, especially in this section. Cindy shares how the last couple of chapters in this week's reading made her feel and the tension of wanting to choose sides. In these scenes, we see again the theme of disordered loves and the rift in the relationship between Orual and Psyche, as well as Orual's descent further into self-deception. Be back next time when we cover chapters 16-21. Commonplace Quotes: This is what I recommend to people who ask me how to get published. Trust your reader, stop spoon-feeding your reader, stop patronizing your reader, give your reader credit for being as smart as you at least, and stop being so bloody beguiling: you in the back row, will you turn off that charm. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Hilary Mantel He had an outstanding gift for attracting hatreds. Rene Pichon The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship, from a corkscrew to a cathedral, is to know what it is–what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used. C. S. Lewis The Laws of God, The Laws of Man by A. E. Houseman The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn, Yet when did I make laws for them? Please yourselves, say I, and they Need only look the other way. But no, they will not; they must still Wrest their neighbor to their will, And make me dance as they desire With jail and gallows and hell-fire. And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made. They will be master, right or wrong; Though both are foolish, both are strong. And since, my soul, we cannot fly To Saturn nor to Mercury, Keep we must, if keep we can, These foreign laws of God and man. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoire by Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis Paradise Lost by John Milton God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life, we continue our series on C. S. Lewis' masterpiece Til We Have Faces, and our hosts discuss chapters 8-11 today. Before we get started, we want you to know there is still time to sign up for Cindy's Morning Time Q&A on September 23. Register at CindyRollins.net today! Also, Thomas will be teaching a mini-class series on Shakespeare's Roman Plays in October, and you can find out more and register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. Angelina starts off the conversation asking for everyone's impressions of this section of reading, and Thomas and Cindy bring up the melancholy nature of much of this story. Themes discussed in this episode include: seeing and not seeing, reason's response to faith, the dream motif, the similarities with the story of Iphigenia, baptism and crossing the river, and the ways relationships change over time. Another topic our hosts highlight is the tension between mysticism and rationalism and the truth that transcends the inadequacy of these. Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes: "Self-consciousness is a great barrier to faith. A. B. Simpson It is a mark of true folklore that even the tale that is evidently wild is eminently sane. G. K. Chesterton The poet's job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always takes place. Northrup Frye Requiescat by Matthew Arnold Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too! Her mirth the world required; She bathed it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be. Her life was turning, turning, In mazes of heat and sound. But for peace her soul was yearning, And now peace laps her round. Her cabin'd, ample spirit, It flutter'd and fail'd for breath. Tonight it doth inherit The vasty hall of death. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies by Robert Kirk St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast our hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss chapters 6-7 of C. S. Lewis' mythical retelling Til We Have Faces. Before we get started, we want you to know about Cindy's Morning Time Q&A on September 23. Register at CindyRollins.net. They open the discussion this week talking about Lewis' writings on love and jealousy. Angelina points out similarities to this story and other classical myths and even Spenser's Faerie Queene. They also talk about Orual's desires as opposed to Psyche's expectations. Cindy mentioned Peter Kreeft's talk on Til We Have Faces a couple of times. Here is the link to that audio for those who are interested in listening to that. Commonplace Quotes: The stage is an epitome, a better likeness of the world, with the dull part left out. William Hazlitt The motto was Pax, but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Pax: peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort, seldom with a seen result; subject to constant interruptions, unexpected demands, short sleep at nights, little comfort, sometimes scant food; beset with disappointments and usually misunderstood; yet peace all the same, undeviating, filled with joy and gratitude and love. "It is My own peace I give unto you." Not, notice, the world's peace. Rumer Godden If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. . . . I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; . . . I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. C. S. Lewis A Woman Homer Sung by William Butler Yeats If any man drew near When I was young, I thought, "He holds her dear,' And shook with hate and fear. But O! 'twas bitter wrong If he could pass her by With an indifferent eye. Whereon I wrote and wrought, And now, being grey, I dream that I have brought To such a pitch my thought That coming time can say, "He shadowed in a glass What thing her body was.' For she had fiery blood When I was young, And trod so sweetly proud As 'twere upon a cloud, A woman Homer sung, That life and letters seem But an heroic dream. Book List: Affiliate links are used in this content. In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden Christian Behavior by C. S. Lewis The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis Oedipus Rex by Sophocles The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome back to our series on C. S. Lewis' mythical retelling Til We Have Faces here on The Literary Life Podcast. Today Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss chapters 3-5. Angelina opens the book chat with an exploration of the tensions that are becoming evident in this first part of the book. Cindy talks about the character of the Fox and our changing perspective on him as the story develops. Thomas highlights the priest and the ways that we as moderns struggle with the religion presented here. Another topic expounded upon is the relationship between the sisters and the affects jealousy as the story progresses. Angelina also brings up the idea of terrifying holiness as presented in these chapters. Our hosts share their thoughts on the tension between the elevation of logic and reason and the devaluation of superstition and mystery. (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Commonplace Quotes: Riddle: I have eaten the Muses, yet I have profited nothing. Answer: A bookworm. Symphosius He insists upon the point: under no circumstances will he leave his home or violate his routines in order to facilitate an investigation. The exceptions are few and remarkable. Instead of spreading the principles of order and justice throughout his society, Wolfe imposes them dogmatically and absolutely within the walls of his house–the brownstone on West Thrity-fifth Street–and he invites those who are troubled by an incomprehensible and threatening environment to enter the controlled economy of the house and to discover there the source of disorder in their own lives. The invitation is extended to readers as well as to clients. J. Kenneth Van Dover In our culture of betrayal, we are quick to impose our own views on layers of established systems. Thus, even a work of art is to be distrusted. Rather than trying to "under-stand" the work, we stand over it and dismiss it as unreadable. Or worse yet, we impose a critical ideology upon it without first allowing the work to affect us. Makoto Fujimura Selection from "Ode to Psyche" by John Keats Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain, With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign, Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same: And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in! Book List: Refractions by Makoto Fujimura The Hundred Riddles of Symphosius by Symphosius At Wolfe's Door: The Nero Wolfe Novels of Rex Stout by J. Kenneth Van Dover Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis by Peter Schakel The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On this week's episode of The Literary Life, our hosts Angelina, Thomas and Cindy have a special guest on the podcast. Gina Dalfonzo is an author whose work has been featured in First Things, The Atlantic, Christianity Today, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Gospel Coalition, and more! Gina has written a new book called Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis which is the topic of discussion on today's episode. Angelina opens the conversation asking Gina to share how she came to write this book exploring the relationship between Lewis and Sayers. (Affiliate links are used in this content.) Other topics explored in this episode are the following: the influence of Oxford in Dorothy Sayers' life and work, how Dorothy and Jack finally met one another, Lewis' personal distaste for detective novels, and his praise for Sayers' other work. They also talk at length about how Sayers and Lewis support each other in pushing the boundaries of their literary careers. Find Gina Dalfonzo: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ginadalfonzo.author Twitter: https://twitter.com/ginadalfonzo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gina.dalfonzo/ Dickensblog: https://dickensblog.typepad.com/ Commonplace Quotes: For life in general, there is but one decree: youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret. Benjamin Disraeli There's always surrender to humiliation and crucifixion, an emptying, before the glory. There's no way around it. For my own part, I wish there were. Emptiness comes before fullness. We have to empty ourselves of anything that crowds out the life or grace of God in our lives. When we cooperate with the Spirit in this way, we become receptacles of grace. Marlena Graves People of former times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral. Heinrich Heine When the pioneers of university training for women demanded that women should be admitted to the universities, the cry went up at once: "Why should women want to know about Aristotle?" The answer is NOT that all women wwould be the better for knowing about Aristotle–still less, as Lord Tennyson seemed to think, that they would be more companionable wives for their husbands if they did know about Aristotle–but simply: "What women want as a class is irrelevant. I want to know about Aristotle. It is true that most women care nothing about him, and a great many male undergraduates turn pale and faint at the thought of him–but I, eccentric individual that I am, do want to know about Aristotle, and I submit that there is nothing in my shape or bodily functions which need prevent my knowing about him. Dorothy L. Sayers They Told Me Heraclitus by William Johnson Cory They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of grey ashes, long long ago at rest, Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; For Death, he taketh all away, but these he cannot take. Book List: Dorothy and Jack by Gina Dalfonzo The Gospel in Dickens by Gina Dalfonzo The Way Up is Down by Marlena Graves Writing for the Masses by Christine A. Colón The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay Are Women Human by Dorothy Sayers Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers Phantastes by George MacDonald Letters to an American Lady by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, we begin our new series on C. S. Lewis' masterpiece, Til We Have Faces. (Affiliate links are used in this content.) This week, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks cover the first two chapters and share their observations as they reread this oftentimes challenging book. To help us gain a framework for this novel, Thomas summarizes the myth of Cupid and Psyche, the first telling of which is found in The Golden Ass by Apuleius. Angelina shares about some similarities in this myth with several familiar fairy tales. Cindy points out how Lewis changes some key pieces of the story to make it less mythical and more tethered to historical time and place. In opening the first chapter, Angelina tells her theory about this being a story about a character finding her identity as she looks back on her life. Our hosts talk about the strange nature of the paganism in Glome and also the interesting role of The Fox. They point out many of the classical Greek references that we need to pay attention to as we read this story. Tune in next week for a special interview episode with the author of Dorothy and Jack, Gina Dalfonzo. Following that, we will be back with chapters 3-5 of Till We Have Faces. Commonplace Quotes: A good carpenter is known by his chips. Jonathan Swift All too often, the legends old men tell are closer to the truth than the facts young professors tell. The wildest fairy tales of the ancients are far more realistic than the scientific phantasms imagined by moderns. Hilaire Belloc Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes… Elizabeth Barrett Browning Song by John Donne Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No where Lives a woman true, and fair. If thou find'st one, let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go, Though at next door we might meet; Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three. Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins are having a conversation about why everyone ought to read myths. Angelina begins by explaining what a myth is in terms of literary genre. She talks about the characteristics that run through myths, such as explanations of origins and natural phenomena, common characters, and a universe that hangs together. Cindy poses a question about why we have come to interpret the word myth to mean something untrue since the time of the Enlightenment. Angelina helps parents feel more confident about their children's ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy. Cindy talks about how knowing mythology is a key to understanding other stories and literature. Unfolding a portion of church history, Angelina explains how early Christians wrestled with pagan stories and Old Testament stories at the same time. When we go looking only for morality tales in the Bible, Cindy points out, then we miss the main idea. Getting a bit more practical, Angelina gives some examples of the role of pre-Christian storytellers who pointed to the Truth. Be sure to be back next week for the beginning of our series on Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, in which we will be covering chapters 1 and 2. (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Commonplace Quotes: The imagination of man is made in the image of the imagination of God. Everything of man must have been of God first; and it will help much towards our understanding of the imagination and its functions in man if we first succeed in regarding aright the imagination of God, in which the imagination of man lives and moves and has its being. George MacDonald Those who do not know that this great myth became fact when the Virgin conceived are, indeed, to be pitied. But Christians also need to be reminded–we may thank Corineus for reminding us–that what became fact was a myth, that it carries with it into the world of fact all the properties of a myth. God is more than a god, not less; Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about "parallels" and "pagan Christs": they ought to be there–it would be a stumbling block if they weren't. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome. If God chooses to be mythopoeic–and is not the sky itself a myth–shall we refuse to be mythopathic? For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: perfect myth and perfect fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher. C. S. Lewis from "Mythopoeia" by J. R. R. Tolkien The heart of Man is not compound of lies, but draws some wisdom from the only Wise, and still recalls him. Though now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed. Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned, his world-dominion by creative act: not his to worship the great Artefact, Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind. Though all the crannies of the world we filled with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build Gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right (used or misused). The right has not decayed. We make still by the law in which we're made. Book List: A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald "Myth Became Fact" by C. S. Lewis The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis Wings and the Child by Edith Nesbit Paradise Lost by John Milton The Aeneid by Virgil The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri 50 Famous Stories by James Baldwin English Literature for Boys and Girls by H. E. Marshall D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths Tanglewood Tales and A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorn Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On this week's episode of The Literary Life with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks continue their discussion of J. R. R. Tolkien's short story "Leaf by Niggle". If you missed the Back to School 2020 Conference when it was live, you can still purchase access to the recordings at CindyRollins.net. Angelina opens the book chat highlighting Tolkien's mirroring of Dante's Divine Comedy with Niggle's journey, and our hosts move through a recap of the story. The questions we should be asking as we read are whether this story deals with the recovery of our vision and whether it ends with a eucatastrophe. Cindy brings out more of the autobiographical nature of this story for Tolkien. Angelina tosses around the idea that Parish and Niggle may be doubles and be a picture of Tolkien's two selves. Thomas talks about what Niggle has to do in the "purgatory" section of the story. They also talk about the themes of art and the artist, sub-creation, and redemption. Come back next week to hear a discussion about why we ought to read myths. Commonplace Quotes: It is when a writer first begins to make enemies that he begins to matter. Hilton Brown Kill that whence spring the crude fancies and wild day-dreams of the young, and you will never lead them beyond dull facts—dull because their relations to each other, and the one life that works in them all, must remain undiscovered. Whoever would have his children avoid this arid region will do well to allow no teacher to approach them—not even of mathematics—who has no imagination. George MacDonald There were people who cared for him and people didn't, and those who didn't hate him were out to get him. . . But they couldn't touch him. . . because he was Tarzan, Mandrake, Flash Gordon. He was Bill Shakespeare. He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Deidre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees. Joseph Heller On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet by Samuel Johnson Condemned to Hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts, or slow decline, Our social comforts drop away. Well tried through many a varying year, See Levet to the grave descend; Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend. Yet still he fills Affection's eye, Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind; Nor, lettered Arrogance, deny Thy praise to merit unrefined. When fainting Nature called for aid, And hovering Death prepared the blow, His vigorous remedy displayed The power of art without the show. In Misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh, Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan, And lonely Want retired to die. No summons mocked by chill delay, No petty gain disdained by pride, The modest wants of every day The toil of every day supplied. His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void; And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employed. The busy day, the peaceful night, Unfelt, uncounted, glided by; His frame was firm, his powers were bright, Though now his eightieth year was nigh. Then with no throbbing fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Rudyard Kipling by Hilton Brown A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald Catch-22 by Joseph Heller When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis Paradise Lost by John Milton Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome to another episode of The Literary Life with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks. Both this week and next, our hosts will be discussing J. R. R. Tolkien's short story "Leaf by Niggle". When this episode goes live, Cindy, Angelina and Thomas will be in the thick of the second annual Back to School Online Conference, happening August 3-8, 2020. It's not too late to register at CindyRollins.net for access both this week and later on! Angelina sets the stage with a little historical background on Tolkien's writing of this story as well as some thoughts on allegory and how to read a fairy tale. She talks about this story as an exploration of the struggle of the ideals and demands of art against the demands of practical life and the question of whether or not art is useful. Cindy shares her ideas about the importance of the Inklings for Tolkien to get his work out into the world. Angelina shares about the type of journey on which the main character, Niggle, is called to go on in this story. As you read, we encourage you to look for how Tolkien harmonizes the different tensions within the story. Commonplace Quotes: Here are some of the points which make a story worth studying to tell to the nestling listeners in many a sweet "Children's Hour";––graceful and artistic details; moral impulse of a high order, conveyed with a strong and delicate touch; sweet human affection; a tender, fanciful link between the children and the Nature-world; humour, pathos, righteous satire, and last, but not least, the fact that the story does not turn on children, and does not foster that self-consciousness, the dawn of which in the child is, perhaps, the individual "Fall of Man." Charlotte Mason The essay began by noting that total war was underway, with fighting not only "in the field and on the sea and in the air," but also in "the realm of ideas." It said: "The mightiest single weapon this war has yet employed" was "not a plane, or a bomb or a juggernaut of tanks"–it was Mein Kampf. This single book caused an educated nation to "burn the great books that keep liberty fresh in the hearts of men." If America's goal was victory and world peace, "all of us will have to know more and think better than our enemies think and know," the council asserted. "This was is a war of books. . . Books are our weapons." Molly Guptill Manning, quoting from the essay "Books and the War" In everything I have sought peace and not found it, save in a corner with a book. Thomas à Kempis Milton by Edward Muir Milton, his face set fair for Paradise, And knowing that he and Paradise were lost In separate desolation, bravely crossed Into his second night and paid his price. There towards the end he to the dark tower came Set square in the gate, a mass of blackened stone Crowned with vermilion fiends like streamers blown From a great funnel filled with roaring flame. Shut in his darkness, these he could not see, But heard the steely clamour known too well On Saturday nights in every street in Hell. Where, past the devilish din, could Paradise be? A footstep more, and his unblinded eyes Saw far and near the fields of Paradise. Book List: Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis Planet Narnia by Michael Ward The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer Smith of Wooten Major by J. R. R. Tolkien Farmer Giles of Ham by J. R. R. Tolkien Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War by Joseph Loconte Spirits in Bondage by C. S. Lewis Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life podcast, we will be discussing J. R. R. Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories". Tune in again over the next two weeks as we continue the conversation with Tolkien's short story "Leaf by Niggle". Cindy, Angelina and Thomas are also excited to announce the second annual Back to School Online Conference, happening August 3-8, 2020. Register today at CindyRollins.net for access both live and later. Angelina sets the stage for this discussion by orienting us to the context for the essay by Tolkien as a critique of what is considered a fairy story. She points out the difference between cautionary tales like those by Charles Perrault and the German folk and fairy tales collected by the Grimm Brothers. Our hosts highlight Tolkien's definition of true fairy stories, ones that take place in the "perilous realm" and involve a journey element. He critiques Andrew Lang as including many stories as fairy tale that are not truly fairy stories. They also discuss topics from the essay including sub-creation, magic and spells, suspension of disbelief, and children's responses to fairy stories. Commonplace Quotes: One should forgive one's enemies, but only after they are hanged. Heinrich Heine The German folk soul can again express itself. These flames do not only illuminate the final end of the old era. They also light up the new. Never before have the young men had so good a right to clean up the debris of the past. If the old men do not understand what is going on, let them grasp that we young men have gone and done it. The old goes up in flames. The new shall be fashioned from the flame of our hearts. Joseph Goebbles Human beings are not human doings. Nigel Goodwin Into My Heart an Air That Kills by A. E. Houseman Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows; What are those far remembered hills, What spires, what towns are those? That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot go again. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning Culture Care by Makoto Fujimura Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum David Copperfield by Charles Dickens The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare Bandersnatch by Diana Pavlac Glyer The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis Phantastes by George MacDonald Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts Angelina and Cindy chat with Emily Raible. First, though, they announce our #20for2020LitLife reading challenge giveaway winners! If you were one of our winners, please email Cindy at Rollinsfamily11(at)gmail(dot)com to give her your contact information and get your prize! Also, coming up August 3-7, 2020, we will be having our second annual Back to School Online Conference. This year's featured speaker will be Karen Glass. Register at CindyRollins.net to get access live or later! Our guest today is Lit Life "superfan" Emily Raible. Emily is a homeschool mom, an avid reader, birdwatcher, baker and probably Angelina's most loyal student. In telling the story of her reading life, Emily talks about her childhood and how she was not a reader as a young person. She shares how she finally started getting interested in reading through Janette Oke and Hardy Boys books. Then she tells about borrowing books from a local family's home library and starting to fall in love with true classics. After getting married to an avid reader, Emily started going through her husband's own library during her long hours at home alone. Even after she became of lover of reading, Emily still didn't define herself as a real reader. Emily shares her journey to becoming a homeschooling parent, how she learned about Charlotte Mason and classical education, and her first time meeting Angelina and Cindy. They continue the conversation expanding on the feast of ideas, what it means to be a "reader," and how we learn and enter into the literary world throughout our lives. Stay tuned next week when we will be discussing Tolkein's essay "On Fairy Stories", followed by a conversation about his short story "Leaf by Niggle" for the next two weeks. Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes: But the object of my school is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see, if he can spur himself to the single activity of seeing. G. K. Chesterton Time can be both a threat and a friend to hope. Injustice, for example, has to be tediously dismantled, not exploded. This is often infuriating, but it is true. Makoto Fujimura The poet is traditionally a blind man, but the Christian poet, and story-teller as well, is like the blind man whom Christ touched, who looked then and saw men as if they were trees but walking. This is the beginning of vision, and it is an invitation to deeper and stranger visions than we shall have to learn to accept if we are to realize a truly Christian literature. Flannery O'Connor Armies in the Fire by Robert Louis Stevenson The lamps now glitter down the street; Faintly sound the falling feet; And the blue even slowly falls About the garden trees and walls. Now in the falling of the gloom The red fire paints the empty room: And warmly on the roof it looks, And flickers on the back of books. Armies march by tower and spire Of cities blazing, in the fire;— Till as I gaze with staring eyes, The armies fall, the lustre dies. Then once again the glow returns; Again the phantom city burns; And down the red-hot valley, lo! The phantom armies marching go! Blinking embers, tell me true Where are those armies marching to, And what the burning city is That crumbles in your furnaces! Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Tremendous Trifles by G. K. Chesterton Culture Care by Makoto Fujimura Rascal by Sterling North Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Poppy Ott by Leo Edwards Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare The Once and Future King by T. H. White The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan Agatha Christie James Patterson Tom Clancy Harry Potter series Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Howards End by E. M. Forster The Divine Comedy by Dante (trans. by Dorothy Sayers) Illiad and Odyssey by Homer Dorothy L. Sayers The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf Why Should Businessmen Read Great Literature? by Vigen Guroian The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy Arabian Nights Are Women Human? by Dorothy Sayers Confessions by Augustine Beatrix Potter Treasury Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Babe the Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the b

Welcome to our 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge Check-In episode! Before we dig into the content, Angelina announces Thomas' next webinar coming up this summer, "The Fable: From Aesop to Brer Rabbit." Sign up at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to find out when registration opens! After a brief discussion on the merits of reading fiction, our hosts begin listing what they have read in each category of the 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge so far. This episode is brimming over with book references, so be sure to scroll down to the book list any titles you might have missed! Enter our 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge giveaway! Take a photo of your reading stack or your printed list with titles you are reading and post it to Instagram or Facebook with the tag #20for2020LitLife. We will announce our winners on the next episode of the podcast! We can't wait to see what you are reading for the challenge! Commonplace Quotes: To know God therefore as He is, is to frame the most beautiful idea in all worlds. He delighteth in our happiness more than we, and is of all others the most lovely object. Thomas Traherne And often my father would read us things that he loved, without a single word of 'explanation'. Of these the Ancient Mariner stands out beyond the rest. O happy living things! Why do people murder them by explanations? M. V. Hughes The mere fact that a story is a work of fiction, however, does not prevent its having a deep and significant truth of its own. We find, then, that the distinction between true stories and works of pure imagination, though convenient, is not quite essential. For fiction may be just as true, in the higher sense of the word, as history, or travel or any other record of actual experience. George Lyman Kittredge I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day, But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away! I remember, I remember, The roses, red and white, The vi'lets, and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light! The lilacs where the robin built, And where my brother set The laburnum on his birthday,— The tree is living yet! I remember, I remember, Where I was used to swing, And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing; My spirit flew in feathers then, That is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool The fever on my brow! I remember, I remember, The fir trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky: It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from heav'n Than when I was a boy. Book List: Amazon affiliate links are used in this content. A London Child of the Seventies by M. V. Hughes Centuries of Meditations by Thomas Traherne The Mother Tongue by George Lyman Kittredge The Darkest Hour (film) The Winter's Tale by Shakespeare Two Gentlemen of Verona by Shakespeare The Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare MacBeth by Shakespeare A Question of Proof by Nicholas Blake Simon Serraille Mystery Series by Susan Hill Ian Rutledge Mystery Series by Charles Todd The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill Dorothy Sayers Agatha Christie Ngaio Marsh Margery Allingham The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Treasures of the Snow by Patricia St. John Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher Koshka's Tales: Stories from Russia by James Mayhew Plainsong by Kent Haruf Munich by Robert Harris Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett Taras Bulba by Nicolai Gogol This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling The Collected Stories of Caroline Gordon Penhally by Caroline Gordon The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Paul Elie Jeremy Taylor by Hugh Williamson Holy Living and Dying by Jeremy Taylor Swinburne by Harold Nicolson Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon The Terrible Speed of Mercy by Jonathan Rogers The Bark of the Bog Owl by Jonathan Rogers The Path of Loneliness by Elisabeth Elliot Reflections on the Psalms by C. S. Lewis Anatomy of Criticism by Northrup Frye Bandersnatch by Diana Pavlac Glyer The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer The Personal Heresy by C. S. Lewis and E. M. Tillyard The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Ibn Fadlan and The Land of Darkness by Ibn Fadlan The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima An Anthology of Invective and Abuse by Hugh Kingsmill Penmarric by Susan Howatch The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spencer The Impo

This week on The Literary Life, our hosts talk about their favorite poems and poets. Cindy starts off by sharing the early influences on her developing a love of poetry. Thomas also shares about his mother reading poetry to him as a child and the poetry that made an impression on him as a child. Angelina talks about coming to poetry later in life and how she finally came to love it through learning about the metaphysical poets. Cindy and Thomas talk about the powerful effect of reading and reciting poetry in meter. Thomas also brings up the potential of hymn texts as beautiful, high-ranking poetry. From classic to modern, they share many poems and passages from their most beloved poetry, making this a soothing, lyrical episode. If you want to learn more, check out Thomas' webinar How to Love Poetry. Next week our hosts will be checking in with their 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge progress, and we hope you will share your progress on Instagram and Facebook, too. Hint: there will be giveaways! Affiliate links are used in this content. Commonplace Quotes: The knowledge-as-information vision is actually defective and damaging. It distorts reality and humanness, and it gets in the way of good knowing. Esther Lightcap Meek Perhaps it would be a good idea for public statues to be made with disposable heads that can be changed with popular fashion. But even better would surely be to make statues without any heads at all, representing simply the "idea" of a good politician. Auberon Waugh When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock–to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you use large and startling figures. Flannery O'Connor Reading in War Time by Edwin Muir Boswell by my bed, Tolstoy on my table; Thought the world has bled For four and a half years, And wives' and mothers' tears Collected would be able To water a little field Untouched by anger and blood, A penitential yield Somewhere in the world; Though in each latitude Armies like forest fall, The iniquitous and the good Head over heels hurled, And confusion over all: Boswell's turbulent friend And his deafening verbal strife, Ivan Ilych's death Tell me more about life, The meaning and the end Of our familiar breath, Both being personal, Than all the carnage can, Retrieve the shape of man, Lost and anonymous, Tell me wherever I look That not one soul can die Of this or any clan Who is not one of us And has a personal tie Perhaps to someone now Searching an ancient book, Folk-tale or country song In many and many a tongue, To find the original face, The individual soul, The eye, the lip, the brow For ever gone from their place, And gather an image whole. Book List: A Little Manual for Knowing by Esther Lightcap Meek The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake The Book of Virtues by William Bennett Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne Now We are Six by A. A. Milne Emma by Jane Austen Oxford Book of English Verse Immortal Poems of the English Language ed. by Oscar Williams Motherland by Sally Thomas Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome to the second part of our discussion of Euripides' The Trojan Women here on The Literary Life podcast. This week Angelina, Cindy and Thomas really get into the meat of the play. If you missed last week's introduction episode, you will want to go back and listen to that first to set the stage, so to speak. Cindy and Angelina talk about how much emotion is evoked by Euripides' portrayal of these women and their situation. Thomas brings in some of the surrounding myths that connect to the characters in this play, as well. Angelina and Cindy highlight the characteristics of Hecuba and Andromache amidst such trying circumstances. In discussing Helen's role in the play, Cindy mentions a short story C. S. Lewis wrote about Helen of Troy called "After Ten Years." It can be found in The Dark Tower: and Other Stories and Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. Our hosts share their emotional responses to the utter heartbreak of the mothers on top of the demise of Troy itself. (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Commonplace Quotes: There are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen. Vladimir Lenin While affording some secrets of 'the way of the will' to young people, we should perhaps beware of presenting the ideas of 'self-knowledge, self-reverence, and self-control.' All adequate education must be outward bound, and the mind which is concentrated upon self-emolument, even though it be the emolument of all the virtues, misses the higher and the simpler secrets of life. Duty and service are the sufficient motives for the arduous training of the will that a child goes through with little consciousness. Charlotte Mason Perhaps the surest measure of O'Connor's sense of calling was her willingness to be misunderstood. Jonathan Rogers All the World's a Stage by William Shakespeare All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms; And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin'd, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. Book List: The Trojan Women by Euripides Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason The Terrible Speed of Mercy by Jonathan Rogers As You Like It by William Shakespeare Agamemnon by Aeschylus Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripedes The Illiad by Home The Aeneid by Virgil The Trojan Women (film) starring Katharine Hepburn The Dark Tower: and Other Stories by C. S. Lewis Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome to the first episode in our series on Greek drama and The Trojan Women by Euripides. Classicist Thomas Banks will be leading the discussion with Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins asking questions and adding their own thoughts along the way. If you enjoy these podcasts, you can also check out the HouseofHumaneLetters.com for the summer intensive on Classical Greek Drama. Thomas begins with some background on the development on Greek drama in history. He also explains the role of the chorus in typical Greek plays in contrast to how Euripides uses it in this play. He then gives us a little biographical information on Euripides and places him, along with the other Greek dramatists, in the context of history. He also talks about the questions of theodicy that come up in The Trojan Women and other of Euripides' works. Thomas points out some resources to give readers background on Greek mythology and characters you will see in these plays. He continues with a brief overview of the Trojan War. Our host wrap up with some thoughts on the prologue of The Trojan Women. Commonplace Quotes: This the story of my life, that while I lived it weighed upon me and pressed against me and filled all my senses to overflowing and now is like a dream dreamed…..This is my story, my giving of thanks. Wendell Berry Sophocles is wise, Euripedes is wiser, but Socrates is wisest of them all. The Oracle of Delphi The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley The Wife of Flanders by G. K. Chesterton Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered, Where I had seven sons until to-day, A little hill of hay your spur has scattered. . . . This is not Paris. You have lost your way. You, staring at your sword to find it brittle, Surprised at the surprise that was your plan, Who, shaking and breaking barriers not a little, Find never more the death-door of Sedan — Must I for more than carnage call you claimant, Paying you a penny for each son you slay? Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment For what you have lost. And how shall I repay? What is the price of that red spark that caught me From a kind farm that never had a name? What is the price of that dead man they brought me? For other dead men do not look the same. How should I pay for one poor graven steeple Whereon you shattered what you shall not know? How should I pay you, miserable people? How should I pay you everything you owe? Unhappy, can I give you back your honour? Though I forgave, would any man forget? While all the great green land has trampled on her The treason and terror of the night we met. Not any more in vengeance or in pardon An old wife bargains for a bean that's hers. You have no word to break: no heart to harden. Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Trojan Women by Euripides The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles The Oresteia by Aeschylus The Bacchae by Euripides Mythology by Edith Hamilton Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On this week's episode of The Literary Life podcast, our hosts have a converation about Simone Weil's essay "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God". Angelina Stanford opens this discussion talking about stories as a lens to see other perspectives, rather than our own. Thomas Banks gives some biographical information on Simone Weil. Cindy Rollins highlights the connections she made from this essay to Charlotte Mason and Stratford Caldecott, especially in regards to attention and remembrance. They talk about the problems of being counter-cultural in education, pride versus humility as an end of education, and training of the will. Cindy and Angelina emphasize the importance of the work of education over "making the grade." Thomas reads a quote from Weil on keeping periods of focused work brief, and Cindy expounds on how this concept was also very important to Charlotte Mason. Angelina talks about her own conviction in reading Weil's words about learning from those subjects which do not come easily for us. The conversation wraps up with our hosts talking about waiting on God instead of trying to force results, in all areas of our lives. Until next time, check out our Upcoming Events page to view our summer schedule and see what we will be reading together next! Don't forget to check out the summer courses and webinars that Angelina and Thomas have coming up over at HouseofHumaneLetters.com! Commonplace Quotes: When we think of a friend, we do not count that a lost thought, though the friend never knew of it. John Donne Oxford is, Lewis said, a "dangerous place for a book lover. Every second shop has something you want." According to Warren Lewis, his brother soon learned to discipline such inclinations: "In his younger days he was something of a bibliophile, but in middle and later life very seldom bought a book if he could consult it in the Bodleian: long years of poverty, self-inflicted but grinding, had made this economical habit second nature to him—a fact that contributed, no doubt, to the extra-ordinarily retentive character of his memory." Clyde Kilby Children are always seeking out new experiences, and they find them in stories when adults do not spoil these stories by superimposing concepts or rules over the narrative. Vigen Guroian Peace by Henry Vaughn My Soul, there is a country Afar beyond the stars, Where stands a winged sentry All skillful in the wars; There, above noise and danger Sweet Peace sits, crown'd with smiles, And One born in a manger Commands the beauteous files. He is thy gracious friend And (O my Soul awake!) Did in pure love descend, To die here for thy sake. If thou canst get but thither, There grows the flow'r of peace, The rose that cannot wither, Thy fortress, and thy ease. Leave then thy foolish ranges, For none can thee secure, But One, who never changes, Thy God, thy life, thy cure. Book List: (Affiliate links are used in this content.) C. S. Lewis: Images of His World by Douglas R. Gilbert and Clyde Kilby Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian Phantastes by George MacDonald Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott Range by David Epstein Love in the Void by Simone Weil Trojan Women by Euripedes Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas wrap up their discussion of C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce with the final chapters 11-14. Before starting their talk about the book, Cindy shares about her upcoming Summer Discipleship Program, Morning Time for Moms. Angelina and Thomas also have some exciting summer courses coming up on Classical Greek Drama and Flannery O'Connor. Also, this Thursday, May 21, 2020, Thomas is giving a webinar on George Orwell. Cindy and Angelina talk about the dangers of familial love becoming the end-all-be-all, as well as Lewis' exploration of Dante's idea of sin. They go in depth with this exploration of sin as a distortion of something that might naturally seem good and the way Lewis pairs people to demonstrate that in these chapters. Angelina talks about the medieval view of ordered man versus the disordered man and how that relates to the man with the horse. They wrap up with the importance of stories in depicting truth in a veiled way, instead of only theological argument and discourse, in helping us live out our faith in a properly ordered way. Until next time, check out our Upcoming Events page to view our summer schedule and see what we will be reading together next! Commonplace Quotes: We chose from the library shelves any book of Tales for the Young, and took much pleasure in prophesying the events. We could rely on Providence to punish the naughty and bring to notice the heroism of the good, and generally grant an early death to both. Why was there a bull in a field? To gore the disobedient. Why did cholera break out? To kill the child who went down a forbidden street. The names told us much: Tom, Sam, or Jack were predestined to evil, while a Frank could do nothing but good. Henry was a bit uncertain: he might lead his little sister into that field with bravado, or he might attack the bull to save her life at the cost of his own. We had bettings of gooseberries on such points. M. V. Hughes Exaggeration is one of art's great devices. J. B. Priestley Hell is inaccurate. Charles Williams There is a Pleasure in the Pathless Woods by Lord Byron There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Book List: Amazon affiliate links are used in this content. A London Child of the Seventies by M. V. Hughes Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry Paradise Lost by John Milton A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis The Allegory of Love by C. S. Lewis A Woman of the Pharisees by François Mauriac Perelandra by C. S. Lewis That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks discuss chapters 7-10 of C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Angelina points out the way in which Lewis uses the "newcomer" character to explain the world he has created. They discuss the various personalities Lewis presents who choose not to take the journey to heaven, sharing how these sketches often hit a little too close to home. They also talk about the influence of George MacDonald on Lewis and his role in this story. Thomas helps us make some connections with Lewis and Virgil, as well as explaining some of the references made by MacDonald's character. Cindy points out how our loves can be entryways into either heaven or hell. Join us again next week as we finish up our discussion of The Great Divorce together! (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Commonplace Quotes: Meanwhile, you will write an essay on self-indulgence. There will be a prize of half a crown for the longest essay, irrespective of any possible merit. Evelyn Waugh Shame belongs, rather, to the bookish recluse who knows not how to apply his reading to the good of his fellows or to manifest its fruit to the eyes of all. Cicero It is simply my lifelong experience—that men are more likely to hand over to others what they ought to do themselves, and women more likely to do themselves what others wish they would leave alone. Hence both sexes must be told "Mind your own business," but in two different senses! C. S. Lewis To The Skylark by William Wordsworth Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still! Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine; Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine; Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home! Book List: Letters to an American Lady by C. S. Lewis Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh Pro Archia Poeta by Cicero Farmer Giles of Ham by J. R. R. Tolkien The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams George MacDonald Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis Psychomachia by Prudentius Holy Living and Dying by Jeremy Taylor Satires of Circumstance by Thomas Hardy Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks discuss chapters 2-6 of C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Angelina reminds us as we begin this exploration of Lewis' narrative not to read too much theology into the details of this dreamlike world he creates. Cindy points out the similarities between these chapters and his descriptions at the end of The Last Battle. Thomas highlights the passage on Napoleon from chapter 2, showing what Lewis envisioned hell to be like. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas talks about the description of the land near heaven, the various characters' responses, as well as the weight of the actual environment and Lewis' picture of those who people it. (Affiliate links are used in this content.) Commonplace Quotes: We long for paradise because we were created for paradise. We were created to live in an environment that cooperates with, not fights against, our desires. We were created for Eden, a place we've never been, and so we desire a perfect life full of healthy relationships. Julie Sparkman Anyone who puts himself forward to be elected to a position of political power is almost bound to be socially or emotionally insecure, or criminally motivated, or mad. Auberon Waugh "The secret is not to dream," she whispered. "The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and now I am real. I know where I come from and where I'm going. You cannot fool me anymore. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine." Terry Pratchett The Stricken Deer by William Cowper I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since; with many an arrow deep infixt My panting side was charg'd, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. There was I found by one who had himself Been hurt by th' archers. In his side he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars. With gentle force soliciting the darts, He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live. Since then, with few associates, in remote And silent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene; With few associates, and not wishing more. Here much I ruminate, as much I may, With other views of men and manners now Than once, and others of a life to come. I see that all are wand'rers, gone astray Each in his own delusions; they are lost In chace of fancied happiness, still wooed And never won. Dream after dream ensues, And still they dream that they shall still succeed, And still are disappointed; rings the world With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind, And add two-thirds of the remainder half, And find the total of their hopes and fears Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay As if created only like the fly That spreads his motley wings in th' eye of noon To sport their season and be seen no more. Book List: Unhitching from the Crazy Train by Julie Sparkman Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis The Personal Heresy by C. S. Lewis and E. M. Tillyard East of Eden by John Steinbeck The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis Tramp for the Lord by Corrie Ten Boom Paradise Lost by John Milton The Brook Kerith by George Moore Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB