The Literary Life Podcast

Episode 251: Why Literature Still Matters with Dr. Jason Baxter Nov 19, 2024

This week on The Literary Life Podcast we are pleased to bring you a conversation hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks had with Dr. Jason Baxter, author of the new book Why Literature Matters from Cassiodorus Press. You can find out more about Dr. Baxter and his other books at JasonMBaxter.com. Together they discuss how this book came about and the importance of knowing who your audience is. They share some hopes for this book to reach those who don’t understand why literature is still worthwhile in our current culture. Angelina brings up the challenges of reading in this fast-paced, consumeristic age. Jason uses metaphors of gardening and learning a piece of music to think about reading and understanding as a process requiring time and perseverance.

Please visit our website for complete show notes including commonplace quotes, book links, and this week's poem at https://theliterary.life/251/.

Episode 250: "Best of" Series Replay - "The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis" with Dr. Jason Baxter Nov 12, 2024

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast! Due to a scheduling conflict, this week we are re-airing a previous episode with Dr. Jason Baxter, author of the new book Why Literature Matters from Cassiodorus Press. Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks sit down for a special conversation with Jason Baxter. Jason is a speaker, writer, and college professor who writes primarily on medieval thought and is especially interested in Lewis' ideas. You can find out more about him and his books at JasonMBaxter.com.

Our hosts and Jason discuss a wide range of ideas, including the values of literature, the sacramental view of reality, why it is important to understand medieval thought, the "problem" of paganism in Lewis' writings, and how to approach reading ancient and medieval literature.

To see all the books and get the full show notes for today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://www.theliterary.life/250/.

Episode 249: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by S. T. Coleridge, Part 2 Nov 05, 2024

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and the wrap up of our series on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Today Angelina and Thomas cover the second half of the poem, beginning with some more discussion about the Romantic poets and what they were trying to do through their work. They talk at some length about the importance of imagination and fantasy in response to the focus on realism and science. After this, Thomas reads aloud some of the most important passages in this section of the poem. Angelina brings up the importance of understanding Deism in relation to Romanticism.

To see all the books and get the full show notes for today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://www.theliterary.life/249/.

Episode 248: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by S. T. Coleridge, Part 1 Oct 29, 2024

On today’s episode of The Literary Life, Angelina and Thomas discuss the first half of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. They review some of the ideas covered last week, particularly Romanticism and the harkening back to the medieval tradition in contrast to the Neo-Classicism that preceded this period. Thomas sets up the plot with an explanation of the “frame tale,” then reads several of the opening stanzas, pausing frequently for commentary and discussion with Angelina. They talk about the symbolism of the albatross, plus so much more!

To see all the books and get the full show notes for today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://www.theliterary.life/248/.

Episode 247: Introduction to "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Oct 22, 2024

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks begin their newest series, this time discussing Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. First, Thomas and Angelina speak to the question of different editions of this poem, then they dive into the background on Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and the lyrical ballads. They discuss the artistic and cultural moment in which Coleridge is writing, particularly the Romantic period in literature. Angelina talks about the Romantics and why they used so much medieval language and used allegory so heavily. She shares some examples of the writers in this vein seeking to rediscover and return to ancient tradition and stories. Thomas also considers Coleridge as a poet and a person. Finally, they give some helpful information and tips for those approaching this text for the first time.

To see all the books and get the full show notes for today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://www.theliterary.life/247/.

Episode 246: “Best of” Series – “Are Women Human” by Dorothy L. Sayers, Ep. 9 Oct 15, 2024

Today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast is one in our “Best of The Literary Life” series. This week’s remix is a conversation from 2019 between Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins in which they discuss Dorothy L. Sayers’ essay “Are Women Human?“ They explore the ideas that Sayers wrestles with in the essay, including: the Victorian view of women, the significance of the industrial revolution, the human need for meaningful occupation, and the early feminist movement and women’s suffrage.

Angelina and Cindy also discuss the history of women’s work inside and outside of the home and how they have been impacted by industry and our production-consumption culture. They take a fascinating look at the effects of the Enlightenment on women in the modern western world, as well as the problem of over-generalization and categorizing people according to classes. Finally, Cindy and Angelina highlight the importance of asking yourself the question: “Who am I supposed to be as a mother and a woman?”

To see all the books and links mentioned in today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://www.theliterary.life/246/.

Episode 245: “Murder Must Advertise” by Dorothy Sayers, Ch. 17-End Oct 08, 2024

Today on The Literary Life podcast, hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks wrap up their series on Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers. To begin the conversation, Thomas shares his reaction on finishing this book. Angelina then dives into her discoveries of Alice in Wonderland references throughout all of Sayers' detective books. They talk about how the cricket game relates to the whole story arc, review the descent and parody imagery ideas from last episode, and look at Lord Peter's arrest and its significance in the form of the romance. More topics they cover in these final chapters include the ascent imagery, Tallboy's confession, the act of justice in the detective novel, and how the ending of this book is actually quite fitting. We hope you have enjoyed this series and will be picking up more Sayers novels soon!

To see all the books and links mentioned in today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://theliterary.life/245/.

Episode 244: "Murder Must Advertise" by Dorothy Sayers, Ch. 12-16 Oct 01, 2024

Today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast picks up our series on Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers with a discussion of chapters 12-16. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina and Thomas begin by talking about whether Sayers is “too accomplished” to be writing detective stories and the decline and resurgence of the genre. Angelina makes more connections between the medieval romance and Murder Must Advertise, as well as the images that parallel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland scenes and the purpose they serve. They also talk about the many masks of Lord Peter, the “hellish hunt”, the ad world and the drug world, and so much more.

To see all the books and links mentioned in today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://theliterary.life/244/.

Episode 243: “Murder Must Advertise” by Dorothy Sayers, Ch. 6-11 Sep 24, 2024

1On The Literary Life podcast this week, we continue our series on Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers, covering chapters 6-11. Angelina and Thomas begin the discussion talking about authors and their own thoughts on their best books versus those which readers seem to like best. Angelina shares some of the things she has learned about the drug trade in the early 20th century and in relation to this story. Thomas points out some of the allusions and references to other literature in these chapters. Angelina also expands on Lord Peter’s disguises and the role of the harlequin in the literary tradition. For an entertaining side note, Thomas reads some bad reviews of Sayers’ novels.

To see all the books and links mentioned in today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://theliterary.life/243/.

Episode 242: "Murder Must Advertise" by Dorothy L. Sayers, Intro and Ch. 1-5 Sep 17, 2024

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and the beginning of our series on Dorothy L. Sayers' classic detective novel, Murder Must Advertise. Beginning with the Golden Age of the detective novel and the backdrop of World War I, Angelina and Thomas give some historical background to provide a setting for this novel. Angelina also shares some biographical information about Dorothy Sayers and her literary education and advertising work. As they dig into the opening chapters of this novel, our hosts talk about Lord Peter Wimsey, his name and character. They also talk at some length about the "Bright Young Things" circle and their place in society during the post-WWI era.

To see all the books and links mentioned in today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://theliterary.life/242/.

Episode 241: Why Read Dante with Jason Baxter Sep 10, 2024

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to bring you a new conversation with hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks and their guest Dr. Jason Baxter. They open the discussion with some thoughts on why Dante has had renewed popularity in recent days. Jason talks about the big questions that poets seek to answer, and what some of the obstacles modern readers might have when approaching Dante for the first time. Thomas asks whether Dante had a precedent for making himself a character in his own epic. Angelina brings up the question of what it means that The Divine Comedy is poetry rather than some other genre. Other topics they discuss are Dante’s cosmology, his psychological precision, how to approach The Divine Comedy for the first time, and Jason’s own translation work.

To see all the books and links mentioned in today's episode, visit our website for the complete show notes here: https://theliterary.life/241/.

Episode 240: "Best of" Series - The Importance of Detective Fiction, Ep. 3 Sep 03, 2024

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, we bring you another episode from the vault, this time to prepare you for our upcoming discussion of Dorothy L. Sayers' detective novel Murder Must Advertise. In this conversation, Angelina and Cindy talk all things related to the detective novel. Why do we love detective fiction so much? What are the qualities of a good detective novel? What is the history of detective fiction, and how did World War I bring about the Golden Age of the genre? Angelina and Cindy answer all these questions and more. Be sure to visit the shownotes page for this episode for links to all the books and authors mentioned in this episode here -->> https://theliterary.life/240/.

Episode 239: “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Jone Rose, Ep. 135 Aug 27, 2024

Welcome to another remix episode of The Literary Life podcast with this popular “Literary Life of…” interview episode with Angelina, Cindy and their guest Jone Rose. Jone is a “super-fan” of the podcast and is a homeschool mom living in North Carolina. Today Angelina starts off the interview asking about Jone’s childhood reading life and school experience. Jone shares how her own adult literary education didn’t start until after she had been homeschooling her own children for several years. In addition to discussing the redemption of Jone’s own education, they talk about what Jone’s reading life looks like now, how narration helps make connections and increase understanding, asking better questions, and so much more!

To get see all the books and links mentioned in this episode, please view the full show notes on our website at https://www.theliterary.life/239.

Episode 238: Why Read Biographies Aug 20, 2024

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford, Thomas Banks, and Cindy Rollins. Thomas starts the conversation with some general thoughts on the biography as a branch of literature and as an art form. He also mentions some types of biography he does not care to read at all. Cindy brings up the tension between white-washing historical figures and dragging out every piece of their dirty laundry in biographical treatments. Angelina poses a question about the place of biographies in children's education.

To get a list of all the books mentioned and any other links mentioned in this episode, visit https://www.theliterary.life/238/.

Episode 237: “Best of” Series – “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” Pt. 2, Ep. 106 Aug 13, 2024

This week on The Literary Life Podcast, we continue our remix of a past discussion of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. If you missed last week’s episode, you will want to go back and catch Part 1. Angelina kicks of the book chat with a look at the format of the story and how it keeps us in suspense. Thomas brings up the idea of forbidden knowledge found in this book and the similarities between it and Frankenstein. Some other topics covered in this episode include the dangers of dehumanizing victims of crime, the nature of sin and addiction, the Renaissance idea of the well-ordered man, and the mythic qualities of this story.

For a complete booklists and links to everything mentioned in this episode, including ways to connect with our hosts, please visit https://theliterary.life/237.

Episode 236: “Best of” Series – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by R. L. Stevenson, Part 1 (Ep. 105) Aug 06, 2024

Welcome to today’s episode and another “Best of” remix on The Literary Life Podcast! Today our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks explore Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. After their commonplace quote discussion, each cohost shares some personal thoughts on Robert Louis Stevenson. Be aware that this episode will contain some spoilers, though we will not spoil the full ending. Thomas shares some biographical information about R. L. Stevenson. Angelina points out the mythic quality of this story and the enduring cultural references inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She and Thomas also discuss some of the differences between early and late Victorian writers. They also begin digging into the first section of the book.

Join us again next week for the second part of this discussion. Check out our Upcoming Events page for if want to know what we will be reading and talking about on the podcast next!

Don’t forget to check out our sister podcast, The Well Read Poem, as well as Cindy’s new podcast, The New Mason Jar!

Commonplace Quotes:

I would rather (said he) have the rod to be the general terrour to all, to make them learn, than tell a child, if you do thus, or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there’s an end on’t; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other.

Samuel Johnson, as quoted by James Boswell

Do not talk about Shakespeare’s mistakes: they are probably your own.

G. M. Young

The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn… They disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we see it for ourselves, but with a singular change–that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, struck out.

Robert Louis Stevenson R L S

by A. E. Houseman

Home is the sailor, home from sea: Her far-borne canvas furled The ship pours shining on the quay The plunder of the world. Home is the hunter from the hill: Fast in the boundless snare All flesh lies taken at his will And every fowl of air.

‘Tis evening on the moorland free, The starlit wave is still: Home is the sailor from the sea, The hunter from the hill.

Book List:

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Daylight and Champaign by G. M. Young

“Books Which Have Influenced Me” by Robert Louis Stevenson

David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Ryder Haggard

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel

Robert Louis Stevenson by G. K. Chesterton

God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Body-Snatcher and Other Stories 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 235: “Harry Potter” Book 1, Ch. 13-End Jul 30, 2024

This week on The Literary Life, Angelina and Thomas wrap up their series on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter: Book 1. Angelina and Thomas begin the episode with some thoughts on their Aristotelian approach to literature as seen in this series of episodes. After sharing their commonplace quotes, they dive into their discussion of the last few chapters of the book. Some of the ideas they consider are how the entire plot is a series of symbols, alchemy and the allegory of the soul, and the figure of the “wildman” in the literary tradition. They also go over the characters of the centaurs, the significance of the unicorn, more references to Greek mythology, how Harry exemplifies the “chest” of the well-ordered man, and the great importance of the philosopher’s stone as a Christ symbol.

Visit HouseofHumaneLetters.com for classes with Angelina, Thomas, and other members of their teaching team.

Commonplace Quotes:

There is a sort of wild fairy interest in these tales which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken and soften the heart of childhood that the “good boy” stories which have been in later years composed for them. In the latter case their minds are, as it were, put into the stocks…and the moral always consists in good conduct being crowned with temporal success. The truth is, I would not give one tear shed over Little Red Riding Hood for all the benefit to be derived from a hundred histories of Jimmy Goodchild.

Sir Walter Scott, from a letter to a friend

“I believe in God, not magic.” In fact, Rowling initially was afraid that if people were aware of her Christian faith, she would give away too much of what’s coming in the series. “It I talk too freely about that,” she told a Canadian reporter, “I think the intelligent reader–whether ten [years old] or sixty–will be able to guess what is coming in the books.”

Michael Nelson, quoting J. K. Rowling, from “Fantasia: The Gospel According to C. S. Lewis“ A Selection from “The Inferno”, Canto XII

By Dante Alighieri, trans. by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O blind cupidity, O wrath insane, That spurs us onward so in our short life, And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!I saw an ample moat bent like a bow, As one which all the plain encompasses, Conformable to what my Guide had said.And between this and the embankment’s foot Centaurs in file were running, armed with arrows, As in the world they used the chase to follow.Beholding us descend, each one stood still, And from the squadron three detached themselves, With bows and arrows in advance selected;And from afar one cried: “Unto what torment Come ye, who down the hillside are descending? Tell us from there; if not, I draw the bow.” Book List:

Studies in Classic American Literature by D. H. Lawrence

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

Unlocking Harry Potter by John Granger

Harry Potter’s Bookshelf by John Granger

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

The Sacred and The Profane by Mircea Eliade

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis

Mythos by Stephen Fry

Metamorphoses by Ovid

Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 234: “Harry Potter” Book 1, Ch. 8-12 Jul 23, 2024

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and our series on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter: Book 1. After sharing some thoughts on detective fiction as it relates to Rowling, our hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks discuss chapters 8-12. Some of the ideas they share are the following: Homeric echos and classical allusions in this book, the identity quest, the significance of characters’ names, the four houses and the bestiary, the three parts of the soul, the Christian influence on Rowling’s stories. Angelina also seeks to teach something about symbolism and structure of literature and art as seen through the Harry Potter books.

Visit HouseofHumaneLetters.com for updates on classes with Angelina, Thomas, and other members of their teaching team.

Previous episodes mentioned in this podcast:

The Importance of the Detective Novel (Episode 3/174)

Series on Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (Episodes 4-8)

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (Episode 79)

Commonplace Quotes:

The wise man combines the pleasures of the senses and the pleasures of the spirit in such a way as to increase the satisfaction he gets from both.

W. Somerset Maugham, from The Narrow Corner

For it is through symbols that man finds his way out of his particular situation and “opens himself” to the general and the Universal. Symbols awaken individual experience and transmute it into a spiritual act, into metaphysical comprehension of the world.

Mircea Eliade, from The Sacred and the Profane The Fairies

By William Allingham

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen,We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men;Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together;Green jacket, red cap, And white owl’s feather!Down along the rocky shore Some make their home,They live on crispy pancakes Of yellow tide-foam;Some in the reeds Of the black mountain lake,With frogs for their watch-dogs, All night awake.High on the hill-top The old King sits;He is now so old and gray He’s nigh lost his wits.With a bridge of white mist Columbkill he crosses,On his stately journeys From Slieveleague to Rosses;Or going up with music On cold starry nightsTo sup with the Queen Of the gay Northern Lights.They stole little Bridget For seven years long;When she came down again Her friends were all gone.They took her lightly back, Between the night and morrow,They thought that she was fast asleep, But she was dead with sorrow.They have kept her ever since Deep within the lake,On a bed of flag-leaves, Watching till she wake.By the craggy hill-side, Through the mosses bare,They have planted thorn-trees For pleasure here and there.If any man so daring As dig them up in spite,He shall find their sharpest thorns In his bed at night.Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen,We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men;Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together;Green jacket, red cap, And white owl’s feather! Book List:

Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

The Odyssey by Homer

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J. K. Rowling

The Book of Beasts trans. by T. H. White

The Once and Future King by T. H. White

Fabulous Tales and Mythical Beasts by Woody Allen

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 233: “Harry Potter” Book 1, Ch. 3-7 Jul 16, 2024

On today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks continue their series on Harry Potter: Book 1 by J. K. Rowling. This week we are covering chapters 3-7. Angelina opens the book discussion with an overview of the literary motifs used by Rowling in the Harry Potter books to help modern readers better understand these kinds of stories. One of the motifs she highlights is the identity quest and how we see Harry on a journey of the soul. She also shares some thoughts on the fairy tale “magic” of these stories in contrast to actual witchcraft as well as the symbolism used to show us that this is a fairy world.

Thomas and Angelina talk about the characters we meet in these chapters, including the symbolism of some of their names. Other ideas discussed in this episode include the importance of alchemy, the Gothic literary tradition, the layers of the quest, the rise of the fantasy genre, and so much more!

Visit HouseofHumaneLetters.com for updates on classes with Angelina, Thomas, and other members of their teaching team.

The Literary Life series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Commonplace Quotes:

It is very often a man’s digressions that reveal his true character and interests.

T. R. Glover, from Springs of Hellas

I am not suggesting that all works of literature are much the same work or fit into the same general scheme. I am providing a kind of resonance for literary experience, a third dimension, so to speak, in which the work we are experiencing draws strength and power from everything else we have read and may still read. And, second, the strength and power do not stop with the work out there, but enter into us.

Northrop Frye Walking Away

By Cecil Day-Lewis

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –A sunny day with leaves just turning,The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you playYour first game of football, then, like a satelliteWrenched from its orbit, go drifting awayBehind a scatter of boys. I can seeYou walking away from me towards the schoolWith the pathos of a half-fledged thing set freeInto a wilderness, the gait of oneWho finds no path where the path should be.That hesitant figure, eddying awayLike a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,Has something I never quite grasp to conveyAbout nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorchingOrdeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.I have had worse partings, but none that soGnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughlySaying what God alone could perfectly show –How selfhood begins with a walking away,And love is proved in the letting go. Book List:

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy

Enid Blyton

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

MacBeth by William Shakespeare

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 232: “Harry Potter” Book 1, Introduction and Ch. 1-2 Jul 09, 2024

On today’s episode on The Literary Life podcast, we begin our much-anticipated series on Harry Potter: Book 1 by J. K. Rowling, with hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks. After sharing a little on their own backgrounds as teachers and their commonplace quotations for the week, Angelina and Thomas open the book discussion with some introductory information on this book and series. They address the controversy surrounding these books in Christian circles. For our previous episode on magic, listen to our Best of Series Episode 168: Wizards, Witches and Magic, Oh My!

Angelina sets up this series with some background on children’s publishing in the 1990s, the why there are differences in the British and American editions, the basis for this book in the classic literary tradition, the form and structure of stories. They also share some thoughts on these first couple of chapters. Join us again next week for chapters 3-7!

Visit HouseofHumaneLetters.com for updates on classes with Angelina, Thomas, and other members of their teaching team.

Commonplace Quotes:

To what extent people draw their ideas from fiction is disputable. Personally, I believe that most people are influenced far more than they would care to admit by novels, serial stories, films, and so forth, and that from this point of view, the worst books are often the most important.

George Orwell, in “Boys’ Weeklies“

Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am, but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as inducing them, and you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness that has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.

C. S. Lewis, from “The Weight of Glory“ A Selection from “A School Song”

By Rudyard Kipling

'Let us now praise famous men' - Men of little showing - For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Broad and deep continueth, Greater than their knowing!And we all praise famous men - Ancients of the College;For they taught us common sense - Tried to teach us common sense Truth and God's Own Common Sense, Which is more than knowledge! Book List:

Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Holes by Louis Sachar

The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham

Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes

Stalky and Co. by Rudyard Kipling

The Hobbit 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 231: What to Do When The Literary Life Feels Overwhelming Jul 02, 2024

This week on The Literary Life podcast Angelina Stanford is joined by friends and fellow readers Cindy Rollins, Emily Raible, and Jone Rose to discuss how to deal with overwhelm with your literary life. Angelina opens the conversation with the acknowledgment that everyone has moments when they feel overwhelmed by the amount of things to read and to know. Jone talks about how she tries to avoid comparing herself and her reading life to that of others. Cindy talks about how she has seen the Enemy twist something that is a good gift and made it into a negative.

Other encouraging and helpful ideas they discuss are the following: motivation of making connections, how to work up to more challenging books, protecting your brain and attention span, learning to enjoy the feast, and continuing the literary life for the long haul.

Find out more about Cindy’s summer Narration Bootcamps over at MorningTimeforMoms.com. Look for more information about the summer classes over HouseofHumaneLetters.com, too!

Commonplace Quotes:

Now you must remember, whenever you have to deal with him, that Analysis, like fire, is a very good servant but a very bad master, for having got his freedom only of late years or so he is, like young men when they come suddenly to be their own masters, apt to be conceited and to fancy that he knows everything when he really knows nothing and can never know anything but only knows about things, which is a different matter. Emily shares her eye-opening understanding after starting out discouraged about being “behind” in her self-education journey.

Charles Kingsley

Words can come to the ear like blowing wind and neither stop nor remain, just passing by like fleeting time, if hearts and minds aren’t awake, aren’t ready and willing to receive them. Only the heart can take them in and hold them and keep them.

Chrétrien de Troyes, trans. by Burton Raffel, from Yvain, The Knight of the Lion

I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, of getting to the top of everywhere and overlooking everything. Satan was the most celebrated of alpine guides when he took Jesus to the top of an exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. But the joy of Satan standing on a peak, in not a joy in largeness, but a joy in beholding smallness in the fact that all men look like insects at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large. It is from the level that things look high. I am a child of the level and have no need of that celebrated alpine guide. Everything is an attitude of the mind, and at this moment I am in comfortable attitude. I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.

G. K. Chesterton, from Tremendous Trifles

And prodigies with a vengeance have I known thus produced, prodigies of self-conceit, shallowness, arrogance, and infidelity. Instead of storing the memory during the period when the memory is the predominant faculty with facts for the after-exercise of the judgement, and instead of awakening by the noblest models the fond and unmixed love and admiration which is the natural and graceful temper of early youth, these nurslings of improved pedagogy are taught to dispute and decide, to suspect all but their own and their lecturers’ wisdom and to hold nothing sacred from their contempt but their own contemptible arrogance, boy graduates in all the technicals and in all the dirty passions and impudence of anonymous criticism.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as quoted in Mariner by Malcom Guite from “Il Penseroso”

by John Bunyan

But let my due feet never failTo walk the studious cloister's pale,And love the high embowed roof,With antique pillars massy proof,And storied windows richly dight,Casting a dim religious light.There let the pealing organ blow,To the full-voic'd quire below,In service high, and anthems clear,As may with sweetness, through mine ear,Dissolve me into ecstasies,And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.And may at last my weary ageFind out the peaceful hermitage,The hairy gown and mossy cell,Where I may sit and rightly spellOf every star that Heav'n doth shew,And every herb that sips the dew;Till old experience do attainTo something like prophetic strain.These pleasures, Melancholy, give,And I with thee will choose to live. Book List:

Beyond Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Hobbit 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 230: “Best of” Series – “Why I Write” by George Orwell, Ep. 16 Jun 25, 2024

For this week’s “Best of The Literary Life” series episode, we revisit a conversation about George Orwell’s essay “Why I Write.” Angelina and Cindy kick off the discussion about how much they each identify with Orwell’s description of his childhood. In his story of learning to write, we see many aspects of a good education, even his inclination to imitate other authors. An important point Angelina brings up is Orwell’s own struggle against the calling he felt to write, in contrast to having an ambition to do so. Angelina brings up a related story about musician Gregory Alan Isakov, and Cindy reiterates the idea of why we need leisure in order to find our vocation.

Cindy and Angelina also bring out some of the qualities Orwell possessed that make a good writer. Maturity as a human being and as a master of a craft are crucial to certain forms of writing, as Orwell points out about his own work. Other topics of conversation include truth-telling in writing, the motives for writing according to Orwell, and the growing process of writers.

If you want to find replays of the 2019 Back to School online conference referenced in this episode, you can purchase them in Cindy’s shop at MorningTimeforMoms.com. For replays of the How to Love Poetry webinar with Thomas, you can find those at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page.

Commonplace Quotes:

Never had she seen it so clearly as on this evening — what destiny had demanded of her and what it had given her in return with her seven sons. Over and over again joy had quickened the beat of her heart; fear on their behalf had rent it in two. They were her children, these big sons with their lean, bony, boy’s bodies, just as they had been when they were small and so plump that they barely hurt themselves when they tumbled down on their way between the bench and her knee. They were hers, just as they had been back when she lifted them out of the cradle to her milk-filled breast and had to support their heads, which wobbled on their frail necks the way a bluebell nods on its stalk. Wherever they ended in the world, wherever they journeyed, forgetting their mother– she thought that for her, their lives would be like a current in her own life; they would be one with her, just as they had been when she alone on this earth knew about the new life hidden inside, drinking from her blood and making her cheeks pale.

Sigrid Undset, from Kristen Lavransdatter

Orwell was a poet who happened to find his medium in prose, a poet not so much in his means of expression as in the nature of his vision, which could strip the sprawling tangle of the world around him down to its core with the simplicity of a timeless flash of intuition.

C. M. Wodehouse, from the introduction to Animal Farm Veni, Creator Spiritus

by John Dryden

Creator Spirit, by whose aid The world’s foundations first were laid, Come, visit ev’ry pious mind; Come, pour thy joys on human kind; From sin, and sorrow set us free; And make thy temples worthy Thee.

O, Source of uncreated Light, The Father’s promis’d Paraclete! Thrice Holy Fount, thrice Holy Fire, Our hearts with heav’nly love inspire; Come, and thy Sacred Unction bring To sanctify us, while we sing!

Plenteous of grace, descend from high, Rich in thy sev’n-fold energy! Thou strength of his Almighty Hand, Whose pow’r does heav’n and earth command: Proceeding Spirit, our Defence, Who do’st the gift of tongues dispence, And crown’st thy gift with eloquence!

Refine and purge our earthly parts; But, oh, inflame and fire our hearts! Our frailties help, our vice control; Submit the senses to the soul; And when rebellious they are grown, Then, lay thy hand, and hold ’em down.

Chase from our minds th’ Infernal Foe; And peace, the fruit of love, bestow; And, lest our feet should step astray, Protect, and guide us in the way.

Make us Eternal Truths receive, And practise, all that we believe: Give us thy self, that we may see The Father and the Son, by thee.

Immortal honour, endless fame, Attend th’ Almighty Father’s name: The Saviour Son be glorified, Who for lost Man’s redemption died: And equal adoration be, Eternal Paraclete, to thee.

Book List:

Kristen Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

Animal Farm by George Orwell

P. G. Wodehouse

The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip and Carol Zaleski

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 229: “Best of” Series, “Araby” by James Joyce, Ep. 11 Jun 18, 2024

This week on The Literary Life we return to the podcast vault for a re-airing of Episode 11, in which Cindy Rollins and Angelina Stanford enjoy a discussion of the short story “Araby” by James Joyce.

Delving into “Araby,” Angelina talks about the history and development of the short story form. Cindy gives a little of her own background with reading James Joyce and why she loves his short stories. Angelina and Cindy also discuss the essential “Irishness” of this story and all the tales in The Dubliners. Angelina walks us through the story, highlighting the kinds of questions and things we should look for when reading closely. Themes discussed in this story include: blindness and sight, light and darkness, romanticism, religious devotion, the search for truth, money, courtly love, and the knight’s quest.

If you want to find replays of the 2019 Back to School online conference referenced in this episode, you can purchase them in Cindy’s shop at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page.

Commonplace Quotes:

Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become a poet.

St. Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia

A ritual for letting a son or daughter go free, handing them over under the protection of God, is not something that we naturally include as part of growing up today in the West. Yet we are here reminded of one of the most important steps of all of the transitions in life, moving from the confines of the family into freedom and maturity.

Esther de Waal Huxley Hall

by John Betjemen

In the Garden City Cafe‚ with its murals on the wall Before a talk on “Sex and Civics” I meditated on the Fall. Deep depression settled on me under that electric glare While outside the lightsome poplars flanked the rose-beds in the square. While outside the carefree children sported in the summer haze And released their inhibitions in a hundred different ways. She who eats her greasy crumpets snugly in the inglenook Of some birch-enshrouded homestead, dropping butter on her book Can she know the deep depression of this bright, hygienic hell? And her husband, stout free-thinker, can he share in it as well? Not the folk-museum’s charting of man’s Progress out of slime Can release me from the painful seeming accident of Time. Barry smashes Shirley’s dolly, Shirley’s eyes are crossed with hate, Comrades plot a Comrade’s downfall “in the interests of the State”. Not my vegetarian dinner, not my lime-juice minus gin, Quite can drown a faint conviction that we may be born in Sin.

Book List:

To Pause on the Threshold by Esther de Waal

The Dubliners by James Joyce

Ulysses by James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

The Abbot by Sir Walter Scott

The Memoirs of Vidocq by Eugene Françios Vidocq

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 228: “Best of” Series, “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, Ep. 15 Jun 11, 2024

This week on The Literary Life, we are dipping back into the archives for one of our “Best of” series of episodes. In this week’s remix from Season 1, Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins discuss Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace.” Before getting into the short story discussion, Cindy and Angelina chat about what a “commonplace book” is and how they each go about recording quotes and thoughts, including the QuoteBlock app.

First off, Angelina gives us a little background on the author Guy de Maupassant and some information on French naturalism. Then she digs into her thoughts on how this story is a fairy tale in reverse and what that might mean in context. Cindy points out the perfection of de Maupassant’s writing and his economy of style. They also bring up some of the formal elements of the story, particularly the key role the reversal takes in the plot. The main themes they find in “The Necklace” touch on common human struggles with ambition, discontentment, loss, suffering and gratitude.

If you want to find replays of the 2019 Back to School online conference referenced in this episode, you can purchase them in Cindy’s shop at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page.

Check out the brand new publishing wing of House of Humane Letters, Cassiodorus Press! You can sign up for that class or any of the HHL Summer Classes here. Sign up for the newsletter at HouseofHumaneLetters.comto stay in the know about all the exciting new things we have coming up!

Commonplace Quotes:

If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star, you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.

Terry Pratchett, from Wee Free Men

“A vocation is a gift,” said Dame Ursula. “If it has been truly given to you, you will find the strength.”

Rumer Godden, from In This House of Brede On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer

by John Keats

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men Look’d at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Books Mentioned:

Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

Kristen Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

In This House of Brede by Rumor Godden

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 227: “Agnes Grey” by Anne Bronte, Ch. 19-25 Jun 04, 2024

On The Literary Life Podcast this week, Angelina and Thomas wrap up their series on Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey. In this final episode on this beautiful Victorian novel, our hosts begin with their commonplace quotes which lead into the book discussion and the Victorian ideas about the supernatural. They talk about the major plot points here at the end of this book, contrasting the way Jane Austen dealt with these sorts of stories in contrast with Anne Brontë’s treatment of Agnes Grey. Some highlights of the conversation include thoughts on the world of education, the rebirth and reversal scene, and the question of how this story rates in terms of art versus didacticism.

Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page.

Check out the brand new publishing wing of House of Humane Letters, Cassiodorus Press! You can sign up for that class or any of the HHL Summer Classes here. Sign up for the newsletter at HouseofHumaneLetters.comto stay in the know about all the exciting new things we have coming up!

Commonplace Quotes:

Praise is a cripple; blame has wings to fly.

La louange est sans pieds et le blame a des ailes.

Victor Hugo

The idea of the supernatural was perhaps at as low an ebb as it had ever been–certainly much lower than it is now. But in spite of this, and in spite of a certain ethical cheeriness that was almost de rigueur–the strange fact remains that the only sort of supernaturalism the Victorians allowed to their imaginations was a sad supernaturalism. They might have ghost stories, but not saints’ stories. They could triple with the curse or unpardoning prophecy of a witch, but not with the pardon of a priest. They seem to have held (I believe erroneously) that the supernatural was safest when it came from below. When we think (for example) of the uncountable riches of religious art, imagery, ritual and popular legend that has clustered round Christmas through all the Christian ages, it is a truly extraordinary thing to reflect that Dickens (wishing to have in The Christmas Carol a little happy supernaturalism by way of a change) actually had to make up a mythology for himself.

G. K. Chesterton, The Victorian Age in Literature A Selection from Rabbi Ben Ezra

By Robert Browing

Grow old along with me!The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made:Our times are in His handWho saith "A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!' Book List:

God’s Funeral by A. N. Wilson

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan

Jane Eyre by Charlotte 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 226: “Agnes Grey” by Anne Brontë, Ch. 12-18 May 28, 2024

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and the continuation of our series on Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey. Angelina and Thomas open with their commonplace quotes which lead into the book discussion. Angelina kicks it off with a comparison between the work of the Brontës and Jane Austen’s writing which will continue throughout the conversation. Thomas and Angelina also look at the expectations of Victorians for courtship and marriage, the ways Anne Brontë weaves this tale as a variation on other themes, the true woman versus the false woman, and more!

Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page.

In August, Angelina Stanford will guide us through the world of Harry Potter as she shows us its literary influences and its roots in the literary tradition. You can sign up for that class or any of the HHL Summer Classes here. Sign up for the newsletter at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay in the know about all the exciting new things we have coming up!

Commonplace Quotes:

The ideal of education is that we should learn all that it concerns us to know, in order that thereby we may become all that it concerns us to be. In other words, the aim of education is the knowledge not of facts but of values. Values are facts apprehended in their relation to each other, and to ourselves. The wise man is he who knows the relative value of things.

William Ralph Inge, from The Church in the World

But while Emily Brontë was as unsociable as a storm at midnight, and while Charlotte Brontë was at best like that warmer and more domestic thing, a house on fire–they do connect themselves with the calm of George Eliot, as the forerunners of many later developments of the feminine advance. Many forerunners (if it comes to that) would have felt rather ill if they had seen the things they foreman. This notion of a hazy anticipation of after history has been absurdly overdone: as when men connect Chaucer with the Reformation; which is like connecting Homer with the Syracusan Expedition. But it is to some extent true that all these great Victorian women had a sort of unrest in their souls. And the proof of it is that… it began to be admitted by the great Victorian men.

G. K. Chesterton, The Victorian Age in Literature The Recommendation

By Richard Crashaw

These houres, and that which hovers o’re my End, Into thy hands, and hart, lord, I commend. Take Both to Thine Account, that I and mine In that Hour, and in these, may be all thine. That as I dedicate my devoutest Breath To make a kind of Life for my lord’s Death, So from his living, and life-giving Death, My dying Life may draw a new, and never fleeting Breath. Book List:

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Emma by Jane Austen

Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

The Taming of the Shrew 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 225: “Agnes Grey” by Anne Brontë, Ch. 6-11 May 21, 2024

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina and Thomas continue their series of discussions on Anne Brontë’s novel Agnes Grey. They open the conversation about this novel with some thoughts on the differences between Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre and Anne and Charlotte Brontë. Angelina poses the question as to whether this novel crosses the line into didacticism or if it stays within the purpose of the story and the art.

In discussing the education of Agnes’ charges in these chapters, Angelina has a chance to expand upon the upbringing of Victorian young women. She and Thomas discuss the position of the curate and Agnes’ spiritual seriousness, as well as the characters of Weston and Hatfield as foils for each other. Thomas closes out the conversation with a question as to whether Agnes Grey is as memorable a character as Jane Eyre or Catherine Earnshaw and why that is.

Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page.

In July, Dr. Jason Baxter will be teaching a class titled “Dostoyevsky’s Icon: Brothers Karamazov, The Christian Past, and The Modern World”, and you can sign up for that or any of the HHL Summer Classes here. Sign up for the newsletter at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay in the know about all the exciting new things we have coming up!

Commonplace Quotes:

In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts/ Is not the exactness of peculiar parts;/ ‘Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,/ But the joint force and full result of all.

Alexander Pope, from “An Essay on Criticism”

In any case, it is Charlotte Brontë who enters Victorian literature. The shortest way of stating her strong contribution is, I think, this: that she reached the highest romance through the lowest realism. She did not set out with Amadis of Gaul in a forest or with Mr. Pickwick in a comic club. She set out with herself, with her own dingy clothes and accidental ugliness, and flat, coarse, provincial household; and forcibly fused all such muddy materials into a spirited fairy-tale.

G. K. Chesterton, The Victorian Age in Literature My Heart Leaps Up

By William Wordsworth

My heart leaps up when I beholdA Rainbow in the sky:So was it when my life began;So is it now I am a man;So be it when I shall grow old,Or let me die!The Child is father of the man;And I wish my days to beBound each to each by natural piety. Book List:

Ten Novels and Their Authors by W. Somerset Maugham

1984 by George Orwell

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Charlotte Mason

Hugh Walpole

George Eliot

Wuthering Heights by Emily 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 224: “Agnes Grey” by Anne Brontë, Introduction and Ch. 1-5 May 14, 2024

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks begin a new book discussion series covering Anne Brontë’s Victorian novel Agnes Grey. This week they are giving an introduction to the social and literary climate in which Anne was writing, as well as discussing chapters 1-5 of the book.

Thomas shares a little information on Utilitarianism, and Angelina talks about how this affected the literature of the Victorian period. She also points out that the Brontës were writing in the medieval literary tradition rather than the didactic or realistic style, and as such we should look for symbols and metaphors in their journey of the soul. Thomas and Angelina explore the background of the Brontë sisters, discuss the position of the governess in this time period, and compare Agnes Grey to other governess novels.

Diving into the first five chapters of this book, Angelina and Thomas look at the life of young Agnes Grey and at her family. In treating the characters in the early chapters, they talk about Agnes Grey’s first forays into the life of the governess, the horrid children in her care, their irresponsible parents, and more.

Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page. If you haven’t heard about Cindy Rollins’ upcoming Summer Discipleship series, you can learn more about that over at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

In June Mr. Banks will be teaching a 5-day class on St. Augustine, and in July Dr. Jason Baxter will be teaching a class on Dostoevsky. Also, don’t miss the launch the HHL publishing wing, Cassiodorus Press! Sign up for the newsletter at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay in the know about all the exciting new things we have coming up!

Commonplace Quotes:

Truth is the trial of itself,/ And needs no other touch.

Ben Jonson

The previous literary life of this country had left vigorous many old forces in the Victorian time, as in our time. Roman Britain and Mediæval England are still not only alive but lively; for real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root. Even when we improve we never progress. For progress, the metaphor from the road, implies a man leaving his home behind him: but improvement means a man exalting the towers or extending the gardens of his home.

G. K. Chesterton, The Victorian Age in Literature Ganymede

By W. H. Auden

He looked in all His wisdom from the throneDown on that humble boy who kept the sheep,And sent a dove; the dove returned alone:Youth liked the music, but soon fell asleep. But He had planned such future for the youth:Surely, His duty now was to compel.For later he would come to love the truth,And own his gratitude. His eagle fell. It did not work. His conversation boredThe boy who yawned and whistled and made faces,And wriggled free from fatherly embraces; But with the eagle he was always willingTo go where it suggested, and adoredAnd learnt from it so many ways of killing. Book List:

George MacDonald

Charles Dickens

Lewis Carroll

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Adam Bede by George Eliot

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier

The Infernal World of Bramwell Brontë by Daphne Du Maurier

Thomas Hardy

Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Esther Waters 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 223: “Best of” The Literary Life – “The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster, Ep. 99 May 07, 2024

This week on The Literary Life, we bring you another episode in our “Best of” series with a throwback to one of our 2021 Summer of the Short Story shows. In this episode, Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas talk about E. M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops.” If you are interested in more E. M. Forster chat, you can go listen to our hosts discuss “The Celestial Omnibus” in Episode 17. Angelina points out how this story made her think of Dante. Thomas and Cindy share their personal reactions to reading “The Machine Stops.” They marvel at how prescient Forster was to imagine a world that comes so close to our current reality. They also discuss how to stay human in an increasingly de-humanizing world.

Past events mentioned in this episode replay:

Back to School 2021 Conference: Awakening

Cindy’s new edition of Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love

Cindy’s Charlotte Mason podcast The New Mason Jar

Commonplace Quotes:

Imagination, in its earthbound quest,

Seeks in the infinite its finite rest.

Walter de la Mare (from “Books”) from “The Hollow Men”

by T. S. Eliot

This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man’s hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death’s other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone.

The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death’s twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men.

Book List:

Two Stories and a Memory by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Howards End by E. M. Forster

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison

1984 by George Orwell

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 222: “Tartuffe” by Moliere, Acts 3 - 5 Apr 30, 2024

On today’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina and Thomas wrap up their series on the satirical comedy Tartuffe by Jean-Baptiste Moliere. If you want to listen in to the read along of this play, you can view replays on the readings on the House of Humane Letters YouTube channel. Angelina and Thomas start off the conversation on the play reviewing the idea of enchantment and the classical structural elements of this play as suggested by Aristotle. We finally meet Tartuffe himself, and Angelina and Thomas both cringe and laugh at his over-the-top antics.

Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page.

In June Mr. Banks will be teaching a 5-day class on St. Augustine, and in July Dr. Jason Baxter will be teaching a class on Dostoevsky. Angelina will also be teaching a class on Harry Potter in August! Also, don’t miss the launch the HHL publishing wing, Cassiodorus Press! Sign up for the newsletter at HouseofHumaneLetters.comto stay in the know about all the exciting new things we have coming up!

Commonplace Quotes:

Moliere…reached perfection through a strange apprenticeship of vagabondage following an excellent middle-class birth among the tradesmen of Paris, imprisoned for debt, tramping the roads with the strolling players, starting his own small theater and failing, meeting men of every kind…In that knowledge he became a master.

Hilaire Belloc, from Monarchy: A Study of Louis XIV

A man is angry at a libel because it is false but at a satire because it is true.

G. K. Chesterton

Fools are my theme. Let satire be my song.

Lord Byron The Burial of Moliere

By Andrew Lang

“Dark and amusing he is, this handsome gallant, Of chamois-polished charm, Athlete and dancer of uncommon talent— Is there cause for alarm In his smooth demeanor, the proud tilt of his chin, This cavaliere servente, this Harlequin? “Gentle and kindly this other, ardent but shy, With an intelligence Who would not glory to be guided by— And would it not make sense To trust in someone so devoted, so Worshipful as this tender, pale Pierrot? “Since both of them delight, if I must choose I win a matchless mate, But by that very winning choice I lose— I pause, I hesitate, Putting decision off,” says Columbine, “And while I hesitate, they both are mine.” Book List:

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

Don Juan by Moliere

Don Juan by Lord Byron

Enthusiasm by Ronald Knox

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 221: “Tartuffe” by Moliere, Introduction and Acts 1 & 2 Apr 23, 2024

This week on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks delve into a new literary series as we read the comedic play Tartuffe by Jean-Baptiste Moliere. If you want to listen in to the read along of this play, you can view replays on the readings on the House of Humane Letters YouTube channel. Thomas begins the conversation on this play by setting up the cultural and literary context in which Moliere was working, as well as some more biographical background on the author and actor himself. Angelina points out some differences between satire and didacticism. She and Thomas also talk about the influence of Roman comedy in Moliere’s playwriting.

Angelina introduces Act 1 with a question of how Moliere shows the audience what to think of Tartuffe before the character himself ever comes on stage. Thomas talks a little about the characters we first meet, and Angelina highlights the references to enchantments as they read through key portions of these opening scenes. Join us again next week when we will finish up this entertaining play!

If you weren’t able to join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination“, you can still purchase the recordings and find out what you missed! Also, don’t miss the launch the HHL publishing wing, Cassiodorus Press! Sign up for the newsletter at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay in the know about all the exciting new things we have coming up!

Commonplace Quotes:

He had the comic vision of himself as well as of the rest of humanity. He might mock the vices of the world, but he could also mock himself for hating the world, in the spirit of a superior person, on account of its vices.

Robert Lynn, from his essay “Moliere” in Books and Authors

We think old books are strange; but we are the aliens.

Dr. Jason Baxter The Burial of Moliere

By Andrew Lang

Dead–he is dead! The rouge has left a trace On that thin cheek where shone, perchance, a tear, Even while the people laughed that held him dear But yesterday. He died,–and not in grace, And many a black-robed caitiff starts apace To slander him whose Tartuffe made them fear, And gold must win a passage for his bier, And bribe the crowd that guards his resting-place.

Ah, Moliere, for that last time of all, Man’s hatred broke upon thee, and went by, And did but make more fair thy funeral. Though in the dark they hid thee stealthily, Thy coffin had the cope of night for pall, For torch, the stars along the windy sky!

Book List:

Menaechmi, or The Twin-Brothers by Plautus

Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 220: Fairy Tales and Children’s Literature with Dr. Vigen Guroian Apr 16, 2024

Welcome to a new episode of The Literary Life podcast and an interview with special guest Dr. Vigen Guroian, retired professor of Religious Studies and Orthodox Christianity at the University of Virginia and author of twelve book and numerous scholarly articles. Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks discuss with Dr. Guroian the new edition of his book, Tending the Heart of Virtue. They start out talking about how the first edition of this book came about, which leads into a discussion about the current approach to fairy tales and children’s stories in both academia and the publishing industry.

Other topics of conversation include the problem with reducing stories down to a moral, story as mystery, the place of fairy tales in classical education, and the Biblical literacy of the authors of fairy tales. Dr. Guroian also shares his thoughts on people like John Ruskin and Rudyard Kipling. Finally, he shares some suggestions on finding good editions of fairy tale collections. (Scroll down for links to his book recommendations.)

Commonplace Quotes:

It seems to me appropriate, almost inevitable, that when that great Imagination which in the beginning, for Its own delight and for the delight of men and angels and (in their proper mode) of beasts, had invented and formed the whole world of Nature, submitted to express Itself in human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry. For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

C. S. Lewis, from Reflections on the Psalms

Reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.

C. S. Lewis

Inertia has served them so well that they did not know how to relinquish it.

E. M. Forster, from Pharos and Pharillon

“Happy children,” say I, “who could blunder into the very heart of the will of God concerning them, and do the thing at once that the Lord taught them, using the common sense which God had given and the fairy tale nourished!” The Lord of the promise is the Lord of all true parables and all good fairy tales.

George MacDonald, from The Elect Lady The Spring

By Thomas Carew

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream Upon the silver lake or crystal stream; But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth, And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee. Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring In triumph to the world the youthful Spring. The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May. Now all things smile, only my love doth lour; Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold. The ox, which lately did for shelter fly Into the stall, doth now securely lie In open fields; and love no more is made By the fireside, but in the cooler shade Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep Under a sycamore, and all things keep Time with the season; only she doth carry June in her eyes, in her heart January. Book List:

Tending the Heart of Virtue, 2nd Edition by Dr. Vigen Guroian

Reflections on the Psalms by C. S. Lewis

Pharos and Pharillon by E. M. Forster

The Elect Lady by George MacDonald

The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin

The Lost Princess or The Wise Woman by George MacDonald

The Victorian Fairy Tale Book ed. by Michael Patrick Hearn

The Classic Fairy Tales ed. by Iona and Peter Opie

The Classic Fairy Tales ed. by Maria Tatar

Brothers Grimm: Selected Tales trans. by David Luke

The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm trans. by Jack Zipes

Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories trans. by Erik Christian Haugaard

Den Lille Havfrue og andre historier/The Little Mermaid and Other Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, trans. by Tony J. Richardson

Hans Christian Anderson: Fairy Tales trans. by Tina Nunnally

“Fairy Tale Wars” by Vigen Guroian

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 219: “Best of” Series – Why Read Old Books, Ep. 80 Apr 09, 2024

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, we bring you another episode in our “Best of” series in which 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.

It’s not too late to join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination” happening this week! During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 218: “Best of” Series – Our Favorite Poems, Ep. 54 Apr 02, 2024

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.

We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” You can visit the HHL Facebook page or Instagram to find the post to share and enter our giveaway for a $20 discount code! During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.

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 ed. by Arthur Quiller-Couch

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 217: “Best of” Series – The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: A Conversation with Jason M. Baxter, Ep. 145 Mar 26, 2024

In anticipation of our upcoming sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination,” this week we are re-airing a previous episode with Jason Baxter, our conference’s special keynote speaker. Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks sit down for a special conversation with Jason Baxter, author of The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis. Jason is a speaker, writer, and college professor who writes primarily on medieval thought and is especially interested in Lewis’ ideas. You can find out more about him and his books at JasonMBaxter.com.

Our hosts and Jason discuss a wide range of ideas, including the values of literature, the sacramental view of reality, why it is important to understand medieval thought, the “problem” of paganism in Lewis’ writings, and how to approach reading ancient and medieval literature.

Commonplace Quotes:

My part has been merely that of Walter Scott’s Old Mortality, who busied himself in clearing the moss, and bringing back to light the words, on the gravestones of the dead who seemed to him to have served humanity. This needs to be done and redone, generation after generation, in a world where there persists always a strong tendency to read newer writers, not because they are better, but because they are newer. The moss grows fast, and ceaselessly.

F. L. Lucas

It is the memory of time that makes us old; remembering eternity makes us young again.

Statford Caldecott

It is my settled conviction that in order to read old Western literature aright, you must suspend most of the responses and unlearn most of the habits you have acquired in reading modern literature.

C. S. Lewis, from “De Descriptione Temporum”

What then is the good of–what is even the defense for–occupying our hearts with stories of what never happened and entering vicariously into feeling which we should try to avoid in our own person?…The nearest I have yet got to an answer is that we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves…[In] reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

C. S. Lewis Victory

by C. S. Lewis

Roland is dead, Cuchulain’s crest is low, The battered war-rear wastes and turns to rust, And Helen’s eyes and Iseult’s lips are dust And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow.

The faerie people from our woods are gone, No Dryads have I found in all our trees, No Triton blows his horn about our seas And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon.

The ancient songs they wither as the grass And waste as doth a garment waxen old, All poets have been fools who thought to mould A monument more durable than brass.

For these decay: but not for that decays The yearning, high, rebellious spirit of man That never rested yet since life began From striving with red Nature and her ways.

Now in the filth of war, the baresark shout Of battle, it is vexed. And yet so oft Out of the deeps, of old, it rose aloft That they who watch the ages may not doubt.

Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod, Yet, like the phoenix, from each fiery bed Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head And higher-till the beast become a god.

Book List:

Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott

An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis

The Art of Living: Four Eighteenth Century Minds by F. L. Lucas

Transposition by C. S. Lewis

The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis

Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

The Divine Comedy by Dante

Nicholas of Cusa

The Life of St. Francis of Assisi by St. Bonaventure

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

Confessions by St. Augustine

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 216: E. M. Forster’s “Howards End” On Screen Mar 19, 2024

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks are joined by Atlee Northmore to explore the various screen adaptations based on Howards End by E. M. Forster. They begin the discussion with the question of what is the good of translating one art form, in this case a book, into another art form, such as a screen play. They talk about the beauty of the Merchant Ivory film adaptation, while critiquing the casting and chemistry of the cast, sharing their favorite and least favorite scenes. In contrast, they praise the BBC-Starz series for its excellent adaptation, although it missed some important things that the 1992 film did include. Atlee also highlights some of the ways in which the screen adaptations serve as subtle visual cues for ideas from the story. In the end, Angelina, Thomas, and Atlee share thoughts on enjoying a film as a stand-alone work of art versus judging it as an adaptation of a novel.

There are still spots open in many of the classes at House of Humane Letters, so if you or your student are interested in taking something, head over to houseofhumaneletters.com to register today!

We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” You can visit the HHL Facebook page or Instagram to find the post to share and enter our giveaway for a $20 discount code! During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.

Commonplace Quotes:

Every poet, in his kind, is bit by him that comes behind.

Jonathan Swift, from “Critics”

Narrative prose, especially the novel, has taken, in modern societies, the place occupied by the recitation of myths and fairy tales in traditional and popular societies. Furthermore, the ‘mythic’ structure of certain modern novels can be discerned, demonstrating the literary survival of major mythological themes and characters.

Mircea Eliade

Now, doesn’t it seem absurd to you? What is the good of the ear if it tells you the same as the eye? Helen’s one aim is to translate tunes into the language of painting and pictures into the language of music. It’s very ingenious, and she says several pretty things in the process, but what’s gained, I’d like to know?

E. M. Forster, from Howards End Cargoes

By John Masefield

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amythysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rails, pig-lead, Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays. Book and Link List:

From Pharos from Pharillon by E. M. Forster

Howards End (1992)

Howards End (BBC-Starz)

Howards End Episode 1

The Remains of the Day

The English Patient

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 215: E. M. Forster’s “Howards End”, Ch. 35-End Mar 12, 2024

Welcome to The Literary Life Podcast and the final episode in our our series on Howards End by E. M. Forster. Today Angelina and Thomas seek to sum up the book and wrap up their thoughts on the way Forster weaves this story. The open with some comments on the almost allegorical nature of Howards End, then talk about the words “only connect” and their meaning in the context of the book. They discuss the problem of Helen and Leonard’s relationship and the romance of pity. Other topics of the conversation are the crisis point between Mr. Wilcox and Margaret, the contrast between Charles and Tibby, the fate of Leonard Bast, and the future of Howards End.

We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.

Commonplace Quotes:

Life without dragons would be tame indeed.

Desmond MacCarthy, “The Poetry of Chesterton”

Howards End is a novel of extraordinary ambition and wide scope. Written in prose with the texture of restrained poetry, it is consummately controlled and sure of purpose. It is Forster’s most complexly orchestrated work to its date, and it smoothly manipulates imagery and symbolism, plot and character, into an organic whole. In so doing, it gracefully integrates social comedy, metaphysical explorations, and political concerns. Howards End tests Forster’s liberal humanism, finds it wanting, and proposes a marriage of liberal values to conservative tradition. Without destroying the practical contributions of progressivism, it forcefully attacks the mindless materialism that yields rootlessness and spiritual poverty.

Claude J. Summers, from E. M. Forster Finis

By Marjorie Pickthall

Give me a few more hours to pass With the mellow flower of the elm-bough falling, And then no more than the lonely grass And the birds calling. Give me a few more days to keep With a little love and a little sorrow, And then the dawn in the skies of sleep And a clear to-morrow. Give me a few more years to fill With a little work and a little lending, And then the night on a starry hill And the road's ending. Book List:

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 214: E. M. Forster’s “Howards End,” Ch. 26-34 Mar 05, 2024

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and our series discussing Howards End by E. M. Forster. This week Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks cover chapters 26-34. Together they continue to talk about the ideas Forster is presenting in the book as seen in this section, including Howards End as a character, the echoes of Wind in the Willows (thanks to Jen Rogers!), Helen’s idealism, Margaret and Henry’s conflict, the idea of rootedness, and more.

On March 7, 2024 you can join Thomas and his brother James live for a webinar on King Alfred the Great. Register today at houseofhumaneletters.com. The webinar recording will also be available for lifetime access after that date.

We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.

If you want to get the special literary themed teas created by our Patron Erin Miller, go to adagiotea.com to check them out!

Commonplace Quotes:

Everything has been said already; but since nobody was listening, we shall have to begin all over again.

Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n’écoute, il faut toujours recommencer.

Andre Gide, from “Narcissus”

It is under these “present conditions” of materialism, urbanization, and cosmopolitanism that Howards End poses the question, “Who shall inherit England?” This question is given a lyrical resonance shortly after Margaret tells Helen of her intention to marry Henry. The two women, visiting Aunt Julie at Swanage, gaze across Poole Harbor and watch the tide return. “England was alive, throbbing through all her estuaries, crying for joy through the mouths of all her gulls, and the north wind, with contrary motion, blew stronger against her rising sea,” the narrator records, and then asks: “What did it mean? For what end are her fair complexities, her change of soil, her sinuous coast? Does she belong to those who have moulded her and made her feared by other lands, or to those who had added nothing to her power, but have somehow seen her, seen the whole island at once, lying as a jewel in a silver sea, sailing as a ship of souls, with all the brave world’s fleet accompanying her towards eternity?” These questions are at the heart of the book. More crudely stated, they ask whether England belongs to the imperialist or to the yeoman, to those who see life steadily or to those who see it whole, to the prosaic or to the poet. Put another way, they ask whether the inheritors of England are to be people of action or vision.

Claude J. Summer, from “E. M. Foster” To E. M. Forster

By W. H. Auden

Here, though the bombs are real and dangerous, And Italy and Kings are far away, And we're afraid that you will speak to us, You promise still the inner life shall pay. As we run down the slope of Hate with gladness You trip us up like an unnoticed stone, And just as we are closeted with Madness You interrupt us like the telephone. For we are Lucy, Turton, Phillip, we Wish international evil, are excited To join the jolly ranks of the benighted Where Reason is denied and Love ignored: But, as we swear our lie, Miss Avery Comes out into the garden with the sword. Book List:

Theodore Dreiser

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 213: E. M. Forster’s “Howards End,” Ch. 17-25 Feb 27, 2024

On The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina and Thomas continue our series on Howards End by E. M. Forster with a discussion of chapters 17-25. In opening the conversation on this chapter, they consider the various houses and ask the question of what role Howards End plays in this whole story. They also delve into the seemingly unlikely romance between Margaret and Mr. Wilcox and the complexity of their personalities, as well as the reactions of their family members. Other ideas they share are about the seen and the unseen, connections versus transactions, and more! Keep listening next week as we cover chapters 26-34.

On March 7, 2024 you can join Thomas and his brother James live for a webinar on King Alfred the Great. Register today at houseofhumaneletters.com. The webinar recording will also be available for lifetime access after that date.

We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.

Commonplace Quotes:

Sapiens est qui novit tacere.

Wise is he who knows when to keep silence.

St. Ambrose, from De Oficibus Ministrorum (On the Duties of the Clergy)

But “Only connect” was the exact phrase I had been leading up to, and it has been precious to me ever since I read Howards End, of which it is the epigraph. Perhaps, indeed, it is the theme of all Forster’s writing, the attempt to link a passionate skepticism with the desire for meaning, to find the human key to the inhuman world about us, to connect the individual with the community, the known with the unknown, to relate the past to the present, and both to the future.

P. L. Travers, from “Only Connect” To My Dear and Loving Husband

By Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the East doth hold. My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Nor ought but love from thee give recompense. Thy love is such I can no way repay; The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love let’s so persever, That when we live no more, we may live ever. Book List:

The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories by E. M. Forster

Selected Stories by E. M. Forster

What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story by P. L. Travers

The Liberal Imagination by Lionel Trilling

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 212: E. M. Forster’s “Howards End”, Ch. 8-16 Feb 20, 2024

Welcome to The Literary Life Podcast and our second episode in our series on E. M. Forster’s book Howards End. This week, Angelina and Thomas cover chapters 8-16, continuing their discussion of the book and the overarching concept of “Story” along the way. In talking about different plot points and characters, Angelina and Thomas make some comparisons between the two couples presented in these chapters and share some thoughts on the friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox. Angelina points out that Forster is doing some medieval things in this story, as we will see as we go on further. They also bring out more of the significance and symbolism of Howards End the place in the story.

If you want to check out our previous episodes on two of E. M. Forster’s short stories, you can find those here:

Episode 17: “The Celestial Omnibus”

Episode 99: “The Machine Stops”

We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.

This March you can join Thomas and his brother James back for a webinar on King Alfred the Great. You can sign up at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

[The Greeks] were children with the intellects of men.

R. W. Livingstone, from The Greek Genius and Its Meaning to Us

It is astonishing how little attention critics have paid to Story considered in itself. Granted the story, the style in which it should be told, the order in which it should be disposed, and (above all) the delineation of the characters, have been abundantly discussed. But the Story itself, the series of imagined events, is nearly always passed over in silence, or else treated exclusively as affording opportunities for the delineation of character. There are indeed three notable exceptions. Aristotle in the Poeticsconstructed a theory of Greek tragedy which puts Story in the centre and relegates character to a strictly subordinate place.

C. S. Lewis, from On Stories A Selection from “Terminus”

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is time to be old,

To take in sail:—

The god of bounds,

Who sets to seas a shore,

Came to me in his fatal rounds,

And said: “No more!

No farther shoot

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.

Fancy departs: no more invent;

Contract thy firmament

To compass of a tent.

There’s not enough for this and that,

Make thy option which of two;

Economize the failing river,

Not the less revere the Giver,

Leave the many and hold the few.

Book List:

Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster

The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster

Wendell Berry

An Experiment in Criticism 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 211: E. M. Forster’s “Howards End”, Introduction and Ch. 1-7 Feb 13, 2024

Welcome to a new series on The Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford and husband Thomas Banks. This week they begin talking about E. M. Forster’s book Howards End, giving some introductory information about Forster and also cover the first seven chapters of the book. Thomas shares some background on the Bloomsbury Group authors in contrast to their Victorian predecessors. Angelina highlights the literary tradition of naming books after houses and invites us to consider the importance of place in this story as we go forward.

We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.

Also, The House of Humane Letters is expanding to include more classes, and pre-registration for returning students and registration for new students opens soon. Sign up for their email list to find out when you can sign up at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.

E. M. Forster, Howards End

Howards End is Mr. Forster’s first fully adult book. It is richly packed with meanings; it has a mellow brilliance, a kind of shot beauty of texture; it runs like a bright, slowish, flickering river, in which different kinds of exciting fish swim and dart among mysterious reedy leptons and are observed and described by a highly interested, humane, sympathetic, often compassionate, and usually ironic commentator. The effect is of uncommon beauty and charm; the fusion of humor, perception, social comedy, witty realism, and soaring moral idealism, weaves a rare captivating, almost hypnotic spell; and many people think it (in spite of the more impressive theme and more serious technique of A Passage in India) Mr. Forester’s best book.

Rose Macaulay, The Writings of E. M. Forster The Pity of It

By Thomas Hardy

April 1915

I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar From rail-track and from highway, and I heard In field and farmstead many an ancient word Of local lineage like 'Thu bist,' 'Er war,' 'Ich woll', 'Er sholl', and by-talk similar, Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird At England's very loins, thereunto spurred By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are. Then seemed a Heart crying: 'Whosoever they be At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we, 'Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame; May their familiars grow to shun their name, And their brood perish everlastingly.'

Source: Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Palgrave, 2001)

Book List:

Howards End by E. M. Forster

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Wendell Berry

An Experiment in Criticism 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 210: Reading “Beyond Mere Motherhood” with Cindy Rollins Feb 06, 2024

Today on The Literary Life, Angelina and Thomas sit down with Cindy to chat about her new book Beyond Mere Motherhood: Moms Are People, Too. First Cindy shares some of what she has going on this year, and Angelina officially introduces the 2024 Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.”

Cindy shares how this book came to be and what the process was for developing the ideas she wanted to put into words. Angelina and Thomas bring up different aspects of the book that stood out to them as important messages for mothers. Cindy talks about her approach to encouraging moms toward tackling life-long learning without the overwhelm and anxiety.

Commonplace Quotes:

“Bairns are a queer kind of blessing sometimes,” remarked the mother.

George MacDonald, from Salted with Fire

One of the disadvantages of setting up a man as a god, is that his lapses from rectitude may be quoted by his worshippers in justification of their own.

Bernard Allen, from Augustus Caesar

May the gods give you everything that your heart longs for. May they grant you a husband and a house and sweet agreement in all things, for nothing is better than this, more steadfast than when two people, man and his wife, keep a harmonious household, a thing that brings much distress to the people who hate them, and pleasure to their well-wishers, and for them the best reputation.

Homer, from The Odyssey To My Mother

by Christina Rossetti

To-day’s your natal day, Sweet flowers I bring; Mother, accept, I pray, My offering.

And may you happy live, And long us bless; Receiving as you give Great happiness.

Book List:

My Early Life by Winston Churchill

Possession by A. S. Byatt

Howards End by E. M. Forster

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 209: “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Emily Raible, Ep. 56 Jan 30, 2024

Welcome to another episode in our “Best of The Literary Life” podcast series. Today on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts Angelina and Cindy chat with “superfan” Emily Raible about her own literary life. 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.

If you are listening to this on the day it drops, there is still time to grab a spot for Thomas Banks and Anne Phillips’ webinar on Herodotus taking place today January 30, 2024. Head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com/webinars where you can sign up! Of course, you can also purchase the recordings to tune in after the webinar is released.

If you missed the 2020 Back to School Conference with Karen Glass, you can still purchase the recording at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

Also, our Sixth Annual Literary Life Online Conference is coming up in April 2024. The theme is “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity” with keynote speaker Jason Baxter. You can learn more and register now at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

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:

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

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 208: “Best of” Series – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Acts IV & V, Ep. 121 Jan 23, 2024

On The Literary Life podcast this week, we will wrap up our series on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Our hosts, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas walk through the last two acts of the play, sharing their thoughts on the structure and ideas presented here. Angelina talks about why she thinks Shakespeare resolves the different conflicts the way he does. They discuss the importance of the play within the play, the fairy tale atmosphere, and the unreality of time and space. Cindy and Angelina both bring up plot points that feel slightly problematic to them. Angelina highlights the theme of harmonizing discord and bringing order from disorder.

To sign up for Thomas Banks and Anne Phillips’ webinar on Herodotus taking place January 30, 2024, head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com/webinars.

Find Angelina’s webinar “Jonathan Swift: Enemy of the Enlightenment” at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Even though the spring 2022 Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian is over, you can still purchase the recordings at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Revolutionaries always hang their best friends.

Christopher Hollis

It is easy to forget that the man who writes a good love sonnet needs not only be enamored of a woman, but also to be enamored of the sonnet.

C. S. Lewis

For the end of imagination is harmony. A right imagination, being the reflex of the creation, will fall in with the divine order of things as the highest form of its own operation; “will tune its instrument here at the door” to the divine harmonies within; will be content alone with growth towards the divine idea, which includes all that is beautiful in the imperfect imagination of men; will know that every deviation from that growth is downward; and will therefore send the man forth from its loftiest representations to do the commonest duty of the most wearisome calling in a hearty and hopeful spirit. This is the work of the right imagination; and towards this work every imagination, in proportion to the rightness that is in it, will tend. The reveries even of the wise man will make him stronger for his work; his dreaming as well as his thinking will render him sorry for past failure, and hopeful of future success.

George MacDonald Earth’s Secret

by George Meredith

Not solitarily in fields we find Earth's secret open, though one page is there; Her plainest, such as children spell, and share With bird and beast; raised letters for the blind. Not where the troubled passions toss the mind, In turbid cities, can the key be bare. It hangs for those who hither thither fare, Close interthreading nature with our kind. They, hearing History speak, of what men were, And have become, are wise. The gain is great In vision and solidity; it lives. Yet at a thought of life apart from her, Solidity and vision lose their state, For Earth, that gives the milk, the spirit gives. Book List:

Fossett’s Memory by Christopher Hollis

A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald

A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 207: “Best of” Series – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Ep. 120 Jan 16, 2024

Today on The Literary Life podcast, we continue our “Best of” series discussing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with coverage of Act 3. Angelina talks about the pacing of this act and the importance of the characters’ madcap, lunatic behavior. She also highlight’s Shakespeare’s wrestling with the relationship between the imagination and art and reality. Thomas highlights the structure of the play as reflecting a dreamlike state. Cindy shares some of her thoughts on being concerned about making sure our children know what is real and pretend.

To sign up for Thomas Banks and Anne Phillips’ webinar on Herodotus taking place January 30, 2024, head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com/webinars.

Find Angelina’s webinar “Jonathan Swift: Enemy of the Enlightenment” at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Even though the spring 2022 Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian is over, you can still purchase the recordings at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life.

Samuel Pepys, describing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in his diary

Or the lovely one about the Bishop of Exeter, who was giving the prizes at a girls’ school. They did a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the poor man stood up afterwards and made a speech and said [piping voice]: ‘I was very interested in your delightful performance, and among other things I was very interested in seeing for the first time in my life a female Bottom.’

C. S. Lewis in a conversation with Kingsley Amis and Brian Aldiss

Still, if Homer’s Achilles isn’t the real Achilles, he isn’t unreal either. Unrealities don’t seem so full of life after three thousand years as Homer’s Achilles does. This is the kind of problem we have to tackle next–the fact that what we meet in literature is neither real nor unreal. We have two words, imaginary, meaning unreal, and imaginative, meaning what the writer produces, and they mean entirely different things.

Northrop Frye A Dream

by William Blake

Once a dream did weave a shade O'er my angel-guarded bed, That an emmet lost its way Where on grass methought I lay. Troubled, wildered, and forlorn, Dark, benighted, travel-worn, Over many a tangle spray, All heart-broke, I heard her say: "Oh my children! do they cry, Do they hear their father sigh? Now they look abroad to see, Now return and weep for me." Pitying, I dropped a tear: But I saw a glow-worm near, Who replied, "What wailing wight Calls the watchman of the night? "I am set to light the ground, While the beetle goes his round: Follow now the beetle's hum; Little wanderer, hie thee home!" Book List:

Of Other Worlds by C. S. Lewis

The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Golden Ass by Apuleius

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 206: “Best of” Series – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Acts I & II, Ep. 119 Jan 09, 2024

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and our “Best of” re-air of the series on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. After kicking off the episode with their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas start digging into the play itself. Thomas brings up the importance of the timing of this story being midsummer. Angelina gives a little background into the names and characters in this play as well as some of the major ideas we can be looking for in the story.

To sign up for Thomas Banks and Anne Phillips’ webinar on Herodotus taking place January 30, 2024, head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com/webinars.

Find Angelina’s webinar “Jonathan Swift: Enemy of the Enlightenment” at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Even though the spring 2022 Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian is over, you can still purchase the recordings at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.

John Dryden, in a letter to Jonathan Swift

It would be difficult indeed to define wherein lay the peculiar truth of the phrase “merrie England”, though some conception of it is quite necessary to the comprehension of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In some cases at least, it may be said to lie in this, that the English of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, unlike the England of today, could conceive of the idea of a merry supernaturalism.

G. K. Chesterton

And yet, there are people who say that Shakespeare always means, “just what he says.” He thinks that to find over and under meanings 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 no man at all, let alone a poet.

Harold Goddard Advice to Lovers

by Robert Graves

I knew an old man at a Fair Who made it his twice-yearly task To clamber on a cider cask And cry to all the yokels there:-- "Lovers to-day and for all time Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him. "Whistle, and Love will come to you, Hiss, and he fades without a word, Do wrong, and he great wrong will do, Speak, he retells what he has heard. "Then all you lovers have good heed Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not pardon nor forget." The old man's voice was sweet yet loud And this shows what a man was he, He'd scatter apples to the crowd And give great draughts of cider, free. Book List:

Amazon affiliate links

“Battle of the Books” by Jonathan Swift

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

Mansfield Park 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 205: The “Best of” Series – Intro to Shakespeare and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Ep. 118 Jan 02, 2024

Welcome to this new season of The Literary Life podcast! During the month of January 2024, we will be re-airing our series of episodes on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

This week we bring you an introduction both to William Shakespeare and his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas seek to give new Shakespeare readers a place from which to jump into his work and more experienced readers eyes to see more layers in his stories. Cindy begins with some perspective on how to start cultivating a love for Shakespeare. Angelina shares her “hot take” on whether you should read the play or watch the play. They suggest some books for further digging into Shakespeare’s works, and Angelina gives an overview of the format of his comedies. Thomas goes into some detail about Roman comedy.

Next week we will be back with a discussion of Acts I and II of the play.

Even though the spring 2022 Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian is over, you can still purchase the recordings at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

To sign up for Thomas Banks and Anne Phillips' webinar on Herodotus on January 30, 2024, head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com/webinars.

Commonplace Quotes:

If certain tendencies within our civilization were to proceed unchecked, they would rapidly take us towards a society which, like that of a prison, would be both completely introverted and completely without privacy. The last stand of privacy has always been, traditionally, the inner mind….It is quite possible, however, for communications media, especially the newer electronic ones, to break down the associative structures of the inner mind and replace them by the prefabricated structures of the media . A society entirely controlled by their slogans and exhortations would be introverted because nobody would be saying anything: there would only be echo, and Echo was the mistress of Narcissus….the triumph of communication is the death of communication: where communication forms a total environment, there is nothing to be communicated.

Northrop Frye

No writer can persist for five hundred pages in being funny at the expense of someone who is dead.

Harold Nicolson

Originality was a new and somewhat ugly idol of the nineteenth century.

Janet Spens Unwisdom

by Siegfried Sassoon

To see with different eyes From every day, And find in dream disguise Worlds far away—

To walk in childhood’s land With trusting looks, And oldly understand Youth’s fairy-books—

Thus our unwisdom brings Release which hears The bird that sings In groves beyond the years.

Book List:

Amazon affiliate links

“The Practice of Biography” by Harold Nicolson

The Modern Century by Northrop Frye

An Essay on Shakespeare’s Relation to Tradition by Janet Spens

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

Tales from Shakespeare by Marcia Williams

Leon Garfield’s Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield

Stories from Shakespeare by Marchette Chute

Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare by Isaac Asimov

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

Shakespeare’s Problem Plays by E. M. Tillyard

Shakespeare’s Early Comedies by E. M. Tillyard

Shakespeare’s History Plays by E. M. Tillyard

Great Stage of Fools by Peter Leithart

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 204: A Preview of The Literary Life Season 6 Dec 26, 2023

On The Literary Life today, Angelina and Thomas preview the upcoming season of the podcast and what books you can expect them to cover in 2024. We have some short books and exciting new series coming up in the new year, and you can scroll down for Amazon affiliate links to all the books planned.

The House of Humane Letters is currently having their Christmas sale until December 31, 2023. Everything is now 20% OFF, so hop on over and get the classes at their best prices now. In addition, you can still sign up for Atlee Northmore’s webinar “A Medieval Romance in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: How to Read Star Wars.”

If you missed it, go back to last month’s episode to get all the information about our 2024 Reading Challenge, Book of Centuries.

Books Mentioned:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Howards End by E. M. Forster

Tartuffe by Jean-Baptiste Moliere, trans. by Donald M. Frame

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

Harry Potter, Book 1 by J. K. Rowling

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

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

Episode 203: Our Literary Lives of 2023 Dec 19, 2023

On The Literary Life today, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas recap their reading from the past year. They first share some general thoughts on their year of reading and what sorts of books they completed. Other questions they discuss are on what books surprised them, what “low brow” books they read, and more! Come back next week for a preview of all the books we will be covering in the podcast in 2024. Stay tuned to the end of the episode for an important announcement!

Cindy is currewntly offering at 20% OFF discount throughout the holidays. Use coupon code “advent2023” on MorningTimeforMoms.com/shop until January 2024.

The House of Humane Letters is currently having their Christmas sale until December 31, 2023. Everything pre-recorded is now 20% OFF, so hop on over and get the classes at their best prices now. You can now also sign up for Atlee Northmore’s webinar “A Medieval Romance in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: How to Read Star Wars.”

If you missed it, go back to last month’s episode to get all the information about our 2024 Reading Challenge, Book of Centuries.

Commonplace Quotes:

Life was a hiding place that played me false.

Lascelles Abercrombie, from “Epitaph”

But if man’s attention is repaid so handsomely, his inattention costs him dearly. Every time he diagrams something instead of looking at it, every time he regards not what a thing is but what it can be made to mean to him, every time he substitutes a conceit for a fact, he gets grease all over the kitchen of the world. Reality slips away from him, and he is left with nothing but the oldest monstrosity in the world–an idol.

Robert Farrar Capon, from The Supper of the Lamb

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about. There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior; what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act. Does not this explain a good deal of avant-garde art?

W. H. Auden, from The Dyer’s Hand On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

by John Keats

O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair pluméd Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute, Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion, Begetters of our deep eternal theme, When through the old oak forest I am gone, Let me not wander in a barren dream, But when I am consumed in the fire, Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire. Books Mentioned:

English Literature in the 16th Century by C. S. Lewis

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Trumpet Major by Thomas Hardy

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott

Anne of Geierstein by Sir Walter Scott

The Victorian Cycle by Esme Wingfield-Stratford

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson

The History of Tom Jones, Foundling by Henry Fielding

The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great by Henry Fielding

The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith

The Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell

Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

Our Island Story by H. E Marshall

English Literature for Boys and Girls by H. E. Marshall

1066 and All That by Sellar and Yeatman

Dave Berry Slept Here by Dave Berry

The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling

Tied Up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh

The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P. D. James

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

World Enough and Time by Christian McEwen

An Anthology of Invective and Verbal Abuse edited by Hugh Kingsmill

Encyclopedia Brown books by Donald J. Sobol

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

The Woman in Me by Brittany Spears

Sackett Series by Louis L’Amour

The Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour

Madly, Deeply by Alan Rickman

Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar

Spare by Prince Harry (not recommended)

Sir John Fielding Series by Bruce Alexander

Literary Life Commonplace Books

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 202: The Literary Life of Jenn Rogers Dec 12, 2023

This week’s episode of The Literary Life we bring you a special interview with Jenn Rogers! Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins talk with Jenn about her own literary life and how she learned the things she is now passing on to others through The House of Humane Letters. Jenn shares how languages and literature were a part of her life from a young age as a child of missionaries in the Dominican Republic and homeschooled in a Charlotte Mason style. She also shares how surprising challenges ended up opening a door for her family to use AmblesideOnline and other resources, using their imaginations and creativity in getting a great education.

The House of Humane Letters is currently having their Christmas sale until December 31, 2023. Everything is now 20% OFF, so hop on over and get the classes at their best prices now. In addition to the sale, you can also sign up for Atlee Northmore’s webinar “A Medieval Romance in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: How to Read Star Wars.”

Cindy is also offering at 20% OFF discount throughout the holidays. Use coupon code “advent2023” on MorningTimeforMoms.com/shop until January 2024.

Commonplace Quotes:

But if literature teaches us anything at all, it is this, that we have an eternal element free from care and fear which can survey the things in life we call evil with serenity, that is, not without appreciating their quality but without any disturbance of our spiritual equilibrium. Not in the same way, but in some such way, we shall all doubtless survey our own story when we know it, and a great deal more of the Whole Story.

J. R. R. Tolkien, from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien

This final argument is an indication of how monastic writers like Ælfric sought to understand the cycle of the seasons. They wanted to read and interpret the natural world, to learn to recognize the meaning God had planted in it. They saw time and seasons, from the very first day of the world, as carefully arranged by God with method and purpose, so they believed it would be possible to organize the calendar, not according to the randomness of custom and inherited tradition, but in a way that reflected that divine plan.

Eleanor Parker, from Winters in the World

It is both the glory and the shame of poetry that its medium is not its private property, that a poet cannot invent his words and that words are products, not of nature, but of a human society which uses them for a thousand different purposes. In modern societies where language is continually being debased and reduced to nonspeech, the poet is in constant danger of having his ear corrupted, a danger to which the painter and the composer, whose media are their private property, are not exposed. On the other hand, he is more protected than they from another modern peril, that of solipsist subjectivity; however esoteric a poem may be, the fact that all its words have meanings which can be looked up in a dictionary makes it testify to the existence of other people Even the language of Finnegan’s Wake was not created by Joyce ex nihilo; a purely private verbal world is not possible.

W. H. Auden, from The Dyer’s Hand Cliche Came Out of Its Cage

by C. S. Lewis

You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'. Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes, And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes, Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem. Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. at the hour Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped, Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance. Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods, Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men, Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing. Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions; Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ... You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop. Or did you mean another kind of heathenry? Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth, Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm. Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound; But the bond wil1 break, the Beast run free. The weary gods, Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand, Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them; For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last, And every man of decent blood is on the losing side. Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits Who walked back into burning houses to die with men, Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim. Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs; You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune). Books Mentioned:

The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 3 by C. S. Lewis

Macbeth 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 201: “The Mind of the Maker” by Dorothy L. Sayers, Ch. 9-End Dec 05, 2023

On The Literary Life today, we wrap up our series on The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers. Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas begin the conversation with C. S. Lewis’ critique of Sayers’ work, both what he agreed with and disagreed with in this book, as well as touching on Tolkien’s idea of artists as sub-creators. Cindy talks about what it is like writing a book in relation to Sayers’ thoughts on the subject of authorship. Thomas shares why he took issue with part of her examples of scalene triangles and the Trinity in relation to aesthetic failures. Angelina shares her dilemma with this same portion, and they discuss the principle they think Sayers was trying to illustrate.

The House of Humane Letters is currently having their Christmas sale until December 31, 2023. Everything is now 20% OFF, so hop on over and get the classes at their best prices now. In addition to the sale, you can also sign up for Atlee Northmore’s webinar “A Medieval Romance in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: How to Read Star Wars.”

Cindy is also offering at 20% OFF discount throughout the holidays. Use coupon code “advent2023” on MorningTimeforMoms.com/shop until January 2024.

If you missed it, go back to last week’s episode to get all the information about our 2024 Reading Challenge, Book of Centuries.

Commonplace Quotes:

Truth herself will, at the promptings of Nature, break forth from even unwilling hearts.

“Veritas ipsa cogente natura etiam ab invitis pectoribus erumpit.”

Lactantius, from Divine Institutes, Bk. II

Curiosity may elicit facts, but only real interest may mold these facts to wisdom.

Anna Botsford Comstock, from Handbook of Nature Study

I must therefore disagree with Miss Sayers very profoundly when she says that ‘between the mind of the maker and the Mind of the Maker’ there is ‘a difference, not of category, but only of quality and degree’ (p. 147). On my view there is a greater, far greater, difference between the two than between playing with a doll and suckling a child. But with this, serious disagreement ends.

This is the first ‘little book on religion’ I have read for a long time in which every sentence is intelligible and every page advances the argument. I recommend it heartily to theologians and critics. To novelists and poets, if they are already inclined in any degree to idolatry of their own vocation, I recommend it with much more caution. They had better read it fasting.

C. S. Lewis, from Image and Imagination Thoughts

by Thomas Beddoes

Sweet are the thoughts that haunt the poet’s brain Like rainbow-fringed clouds, through which some star Peeps in bright glory on a shepherd swain; They sweep along and trance him; sweeter far Than incense trailing up an out-stretched chain From rocking censer; sweeter too they are Than the thin mist which rises in the gale From out the slender cowslip’s bee-scarred breast. Their delicate pinions buoy up a tale Like brittle wings, which curtain in the vest Of cobweb-limbed ephemera, that sail In gauzy mantle of dun twilight dressed, Borne on the wind’s soft sighings, when the spring Listens all evening to its whispering. Books Mentioned:

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

Home Economics by Wendell Berry

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 200: The Literary Life LIVE 2024 Reading Challenge Nov 28, 2023

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we have a very special 200th Episode for you! Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are joined by their Patreon Friends and Fellows for a live episode recording to launch the 2024 Reading Challenge! This year’s challenge theme is “Book of Centuries” and features a timeline of literary periods from which you can choose works to read throughout the next year. The discussion featured suggestions for each literary period and century, and you can get the complete list of book and author suggestions right here. (Due to the length of this list, we will not be adding hyperlinks this week, so please see the document to find any book titles and authors you want to explore.) As usual, there will also be a kids’ version of the reading challenge!

To download a PDF version of the adult reading challenge, click here. To download a PDF of the kids’ version, click here.

The House of Humane Letters is currently having their Christmas sale until December 31, 2023. Everything is now 20% OFF, so hop on over and get the classes at their best prices now. In addition to the sale, you can also sign up for Atlee Northmore’s webinar “A Medieval Romance in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: How to Read Star Wars.”

Cindy is also offering at 20% OFF discount throughout the holidays. Use coupon code “advent2023” on MorningTimeforMoms.com/shop until January 2024.

Commonplace Quotes:

Chaucer had the rare gift of an author of liking people he did not respect.

G. K. Chesterton, from Chaucer

Modern education promotes the unmitigated study of literature and concentrates our attention on the relation between a writer’s life, his surface life, and his work. That is the reason it is such a curse.

Madeleine L’Engle, from Walking on Water

A very famous writer once said, “A book is like a mirror. If a fool looks in, you can’t expect a genius to look out.”

J. K. Rowling Whitsunday

by George Herbert

Listen sweet Dove unto my song, And spread thy golden wings in me; Hatching my tender heart so long, Till it get wing, and fly away with thee. Where is that fire which once descended On thy Apostles? thou didst then Keep open house, richly attended, Feasting all comers by twelve chosen men. Such glorious gifts thou didst bestow, That th’earth did like a heav’n appear; The stars were coming down to know If they might mend their wages, and serve here. The sun which once did shine alone, Hung down his head, and wisht for night, When he beheld twelve suns for one Going about the world, and giving light. But since those pipes of gold, which brought That cordial water to our ground, Were cut and martyr’d by the fault Of those, who did themselves through their side wound, Thou shutt’st the door, and keep’st within; Scarce a good joy creeps through the chink: And if the braves of conqu’ring sin Did not excite thee, we should wholly sink. Lord, though we change, thou art the same; The same sweet God of love and light: Restore this day, for thy great name, Unto his ancient and miraculous right. Books Mentioned:

200th Episode Literary Life Book Suggestions

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 199: The “Best of” Series – In Search of the Austen Adaptation: Sense and Sensibility, Ep. 138 Nov 21, 2023

Due to illness among our hosts and holiday travel plans, we are airing a Best Of Series episode this week instead of our previously planned episode on The Mind of the Maker. Please enjoy this lighthearted discussion as you prepare for your Thanksgiving feasting, and join us right here next week for a very special 200th episode featuring our Friends and Fellows and introducing the 2024 Reading Challenge!

Today on The Literary Life Podcast we bring you another fun episode in our “In Search of the Austen Adaptation” series. Hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are joined by resident film aficionado, Atlee Northmore to discuss film adaptations on Sense and Sensibility. The conversation opens by revisiting the question of what makes a good adaptation of a book when translating it for the screen. They talk about the challenges of showing modern audiences the characters and situations as Jane Austen meant them to be understood. Atlee gives a brief overview of the lesser known film adaptations, as well as a more in depth discussion of the 1995 and 2008 versions. You can access the PDF he created with links to watch here.

Commonplace Quotes:

Sound principles that are old may easily be laid on the shelf and forgotten, unless in each successive generation a few industrious people can be found who will take the trouble to draw them forth from the storehouse.

Thomas Ruper, as quoted by Karen Glass

His senile fury was not exhausted by endless repetition.

Eric Linklater

‘Remember, no one is made up of one fault, everyone is much greater than all his faults,’ and then she would add with a smile: ‘I find it much easier to put up with people’s faults than with their virtues!’

Charlotte Mason, as quoted by Essex Cholmondeley

The great abstract nouns of the classical English moralists are unblushingly and uncompromisingly used: good sense, courage, contentment, fortitude, some duty neglected, some failing indulged, impropriety, indelicacy, generous candor, blameable distrust, just humiliation, vanity, folly, ignorance, reason. These are the concepts by which Jane Austen grasps the world. In her we still breathe the air of the Rambler and Idler. All is hard, clear, definable; by some modern standards, even naïvely so. The hardness is, of course, for oneself, not for one’s neighbours. It reveals to Marianne her want ‘of kindness’ and shows Emma that her behaviour has been ‘unfeeling’. Contrasted with the world of modern fiction, Jane Austen’s is at once less soft and less cruel.

C. S. Lewis Selection from With a Guitar, To Jane

by Percy Shelley

Ariel to Miranda:-- Take This slave of music, for the sake Of him who is the slave of thee; And teach it all the harmony In which thou canst, and only thou, Make the delighted spirit glow, Till joy denies itself again And, too intense, is turned to pain. For by permission and command Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, Poor Ariel sends this silent token Of more than ever can be spoken; Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who From life to life must still pursue Your happiness,-- for thus alone Can Ariel ever find his own. From Prospero's enchanted cell, As the mighty verses tell, To the throne of Naples he Lit you o'er the trackless sea, Flitting on, your prow before, Like a living meteor. When you die, the silent Moon In her interlunar swoon Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel. Book List:

In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass

The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley

Robert the Bruce by Eric Linklater

C. S. Lewis’ Selected Literary Essays edited by Walter Hooper

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 198: “The Mind of the Maker” by Dorothy L. Sayers, Ch. 6-8 Nov 14, 2023

Today’s episode of The Literary Life is a continuation of our series covering The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers. Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas discuss chapters 6-8 this week, which they acknowledge are probably the most difficult portions of this book so far. Angelina starts off with some questions she has about why chapter six in included and how it fits with other arguments she has already made earlier. Thomas reads and expands on a passage about the autobiographer and his art. Angelina makes a distinction between moral goodness and artistic goodness in works of fiction and art. Cindy highlights the idea of justification and something being “out of true.”

Coming up from House of Humane Letters on November 16, 2023, Jennifer Rogers’ webinar on Tolkien and The Old English Tradition. You can sign up now and save your spot!

Commonplace Quotes:

My friend, the Scottish poet and translator Alastair Reid, carries a lifetime’s worth of poems—an entire small library—in his head. “Do you memorize them?” someone asked him once. “No,” he answered gravely. “I remember them.”

Christian McEwan, World Enough and Time

The book everywhere exhibits the style and temper for which the author was both loved and hated. The essays are full of cheerful energy. The young people would call them ‘bonhomous’.

By a bonhomous writer they mean one who seems to like writing and what he writes of, and to assume that his readers will mostly be people he would like. I think that this last assumption is what infuriates them.

C. S. Lewis, Image and Imagination

If you are not careful…you’ll be a genius when you grow up and disgrace your parents.

Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her German Garden The Bird and the Tree

by Ruth Pitter

The tree, and its haunting bird, Are the loves of my heart; But where is the word, the word, Oh where is the art, To say, or even to see, For a moment of time, What the Tree and the Bird must be In the true sublime? They shine, listening to the soul, And the soul replies; But the inner love is not whole, and the moment dies. O give me before I die The grace to see With eternal, ultimate eye, The Bird and the Tree. The song in the living green, The Tree and the Bird– O have they ever been seen, Ever been heard? Books Mentioned:

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 197: “The Mind of the Maker” by Dorothy L. Sayers, Ch. 3-5 Nov 07, 2023

On The Literary Life Podcast today, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks continue discussing Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker. In today’s conversation, they cover the ideas in chapters 3-5, including the following: the creative process in relation to the members of the Trinity, the relationship of the writer to his own creation, the misconception of art as self-expression, the problem with poetic justice, and much more!

If you missed the live webinar Can Dante’s Inferno Save the World? with Dr. Jason Baxter, you can still purchase the recording. Also, coming up from House of Humane Letters on November 16, 2023, Jennifer Rogers’ webinar on Tolkien and The Old English Tradition. You can sign up now and save your spot!

Commonplace Quotes:

He remained altogether inimitable, yet never seemed conscious of his greatness. It was native in him to rejoice in the successes of other men at least as much as in his own triumphs.

Arthur Quiller-Couch, from “The Death of Robert Louis Stevenson”

Only one hour of the normal day is more pleasurable than the hour spent in bed with a book before going to sleep and that is the hour spent in bed with a book after being called in the morning.

Rose Macaulay, as quoted by Christian McEwan in World Enough and Time

The unity of a work of art, the basis of structural analysis, has not only been produced solely by the unconditioned will of the artist, for the artist is only its efficient cause: it has form, and consequently a formal cause. The fact that revision is possible, that the poet makes changes not because he likes them better but because they are better, means that poems, like poets, are born and not made.

Northrop Frye, from Fables of Identity Nondum

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

" Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself." ISAIAH xlv. 15. God, though to Thee our psalm we raise-- No answering voice comes from the skies; To Thee the trembling sinner prays But no forgiving voice replies; Our prayer seems lost in desert ways, Our hymn in the vast silence dies. We see the glories of the earth But not the hand that wrought them all: Night to a myriad worlds gives birth, Yet like a lighted empty hall Where stands no host at door or hearth Vacant creation's lamps appall. We guess; we clothe Thee, unseen King, With attributes we deem are meet; Each in his own imagining Sets up a shadow in Thy seat; Yet know not how our gifts to bring, Where seek Thee with unsandalled feet. Books Mentioned:

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 196: “The Mind of the Maker” by Dorothy L. Sayers, Intro and Ch. 1-2 Oct 31, 2023

This week on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks are kick off a new series on The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers. Before discussion the book itself, Angelina gives a little biographical information on Sayers for those who are new to her and her work. They begin talking about the book with the preface and Sayers own purpose in writing it. Cindy shares a little about her first reading of The Mind of the Maker when she was a young newlywed and the impact it made on her. Thomas points out the “laws” Sayers outlines and reads some important quotes from this section.

If you are listening to this episode on the day it drops, it’s not too late to get in on today’s live webinar Can Dante’s Inferno Save the World? with Dr. Jason Baxter. You can also purchase the recording any time if you missed the live class. Also coming up from House of Humane Letters on November 16, 2023, Jennifer Rogers’ webinar on Tolkien and The Old English Tradition. You can sign up now and save your spot!

Episode 9: “Are Women Human” by Dorothy L. Sayers

Episodes 5-8 on Gaudy Night

Episode 62: The Literary Friendship of Dorothy and Jack

Commonplace Quotes:

Think not, Mistress, more true dullness lies

In Folly’s cap, than Wisdom’s grave disguise.

Alexander Pope, from “The Dunciad”

We do not own stories, and when we try to limit them, squeeze the life out of them, lose the love that gave them to us, and fall back into that fatal human flaw–pride, hubris–we are right back to Adam and Eve, who listened to the power of the snake instead of the creativity of God.

Madeleine L’Engle, from Bright Evening Star

This is the first “little book on religion” I have read for a long time in which every sentence is intelligible and every page advances the argument.

C. S. Lewis, in a review of Mind of the Maker Reason Has Moons

by Ralph Hodgson

Reason has moons, but moons not hers, Lie mirror'd on the sea, Confounding her astronomers, But O! delighting me. Books Mentioned:

Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

“Learning in Wartime” 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 195: “Out of the Silent Planet” by C. S. Lewis, Ch. 16-End Oct 24, 2023

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast this week as we wrap up our series of discussion on C. S. Lewis’ novel Out of the Silent Planet. Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks are covering from chapter 16 to the end of the book in today’s episode. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina starts the conversation comparing the ideas in Gulliver’s Travels with what Lewis is doing in this book. Thomas quotes a passage from the Aeneid in Latin as they talk about the parallels to Out of the Silent Planet. The structure of the medieval romance is seen fully as we finish the story, as noted by Angelina. She and Thomas also point out more connections with Paradise Lost. Cindy brings everything together with some thoughts on the unraveling of modernity.

Join us next week as we kick off a new series on The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers!

House of Humane Letters is thrilled to announce an all new webinar from Dr. Jason Baxter coming October 31st! Register today for Can Dante’s Inferno Save the World? Also coming up from House of Humane Letters on November 16, 2023, Jennifer Rogers’ webinar on Tolkien and The Old English Tradition. You can sign up now and save your spot!

Commonplace Quotes:

But unlike most artists, Ruskin valued the seeing more than the doing. “The sight is more important than the drawing,” he said. “The greatest thing a human being ever does in this world is to SEE something, and tell what he saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands of people can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion—all in one.”

from The World Enough and Time, by Christian McEwan

Build, build your Babels black against the sky-

But mark yon small green blade, your stones between,

The single spy

Of that uncounted host you have outcast;

For with their tiny pennons waving green

They shall storm your streets at last.

F. L. Lucas, from “Beleaguered Cities”

The old universe was wholly different in its effect. It was an answer, not a question. It offered not a field for musing but a single overwhelming object; an object which at once abashes and exalts the mind. For in it there is a final standard of size. The Primum Mobile is really large because it is the largest corporeal thing there is. We are really small because our whole Earth is a speck compared with the Primum Mobile.

C. S. Lewis, from Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature Science-Fiction Cradlesong

by C. S. Lewis

By and by Man will try To get out into the sky, Sailing far beyond the air From Down and Here to Up and There. Stars and sky, sky and stars Make us feel the prison bars. Suppose it done. Now we ride Closed in steel, up there, outside Through our port-holes see the vast Heaven-scape go rushing past. Shall we? All that meets the eye Is sky and stars, stars and sky. Points of light with black between Hang like a painted scene Motionless, no nearer there Than on Earth, everywhere Equidistant from our ship. Heaven has given us the slip. Hush, be still. Outer space Is a concept, not a place. Try no more. Where we are Never can be sky or star. From prison, in a prison, we fly; There's no way into the sky. Books Mentioned:

The Secular Scripture by Northrop Frye

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 194: “Out of the Silent Planet” by C. S. Lewis, Ch. 6-15 Oct 17, 2023

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts continue their discussion of C. S. Lewis’ science fiction novel Out of the Silent Planet, covering chapters 6-15. Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks begin by sharing their commonplace quotes, including some heated debate about sausages, then dive in to this section. They start by looking at Ransom’s need to let go of some of his own modern preconceptions and categories, in spite of being steeped in the classics. Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy also discuss a variety of other themes, including: the contrasts between Lewis and Tolkien in world-building, Lewis’ crafting a medieval tale in the genre of modern science fiction, and the problems with Ransom’s anthro-centric perspective.

House of Humane Letters is thrilled to announce an all new webinar from Dr. Jason Baxter coming October 31st! Register today for Can Dante’s Inferno Save the World? Also coming up from House of Humane Letters on November 16, 2023, Jennifer Rogers’ webinar on Tolkien and The Old English Tradition. You can sign up nowand save your spot!

Commonplace Quotes:

It is to me inconceivable that Nature as we see it is either what God intended or merely evil; it looks like a good thing spoiled.

C. S. Lewis, from Letters of C. S. Lewis

What do you usually do when you are shut up in a secret room, with no chance of getting out for hours? As for me, I always say poetry to myself. It is one of the uses of poetry–one says it to oneself in distressing circumstances of that kind, or when one has to wait at railway stations, or when one cannot get to sleep at night. You will find poetry most useful for this purpose. So learn plenty of it, and be sure it is the best kind, because this is most useful as well as most agreeable.

Edith Nesbit, from The House of Arden

Lewis began the trilogy as a conscious critique of what he called “Wellsianity,” a philosophy that applies Darwinism to the metaphysical sphere, believing that humans may evolve into a new species of gods, spreading from world to world and galaxy to galaxy. Though one finds this quasi-religious belief sometimes called “Evolutionism” in Olaf Stapledon, G. B. Shaw, and C. H. Waddington, Lewis found it most fully embodied in Wells’ novels, and he set out to produce a Wellsian fantasy with an anti-Welsian theme. Lewis’ Ransom books contrast so sharply from other stories of space voyages that Robert Scholes and Eric S. Rabkin credit him with inventing a new genre: “anti-science fiction.”

from Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis, edited by Thomas L. Martin A Selection from “I Saw Eternity the Other Night”

by Henry Vaughn

I saw Eternity the other night, Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright; And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, Driv'n by the spheres Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world And all her train were hurl'd. Books Mentioned:

Kingsley Amis

William Morris

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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 193: “Out of the Silent Planet” by C. S. Lewis, Ch. 1-5 Oct 10, 2023

This week on The Literary Life podcast, Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas bring us the first installment in their series of discussions about C. S. Lewis’ science fiction novel Out of the Silent Planet. Angelina shares some background on how Lewis began writing this book and what he set out to do through the genre of science fiction within the form of a romance. In looking at the historical time period in which he was writing, Thomas brings out the transcendent quality of Lewis’ message. They talk about Ransom’s character and his embodiment of the “old ways.” Cindy points out the Dante-esque details of the beginning of Ransom’s journey.

Other themes our hosts discuss are the problem of eugenics, the study of philology, the similarities in setup with First Men in the Moon, the enchantment of modernity, medieval cosmology, and so much more!

House of Humane Letters is thrilled to announce an all new webinar from Dr. Jason Baxter coming October 31st! Register today for Can Dante’s Inferno Save the World? Also coming up from House of Humane Letters on November 16, 2023, Jennifer Rogers’ webinar on Tolkien and The Old English Tradition. You can sign up now and save your spot!

Commonplace Quotes:

“I’m with Orwell,’ said Strike. “Some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals believe them.”

Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling)

An age of discovery…is apt to loathe established institutions, and be filled with spiritual arrogance.

Agnes Mure Mackenzie, The Kingdom of Scotland

It is a strange comment on our age that such a book lies hid in a hideous paper-backed edition, wholly unnoticed by the cognescenti, while any “realistic” drivel about some neurotic in a London flat–something that needs no real invention at all, something that any educated man could write if he chose, may get seriously reviewed and mentioned in serious book–as if it really mattered. I wonder how long this tyranny will last? Twenty years ago I felt no doubt that I should live to see it all break up and great literature return: but here I am, losing teeth and hair, and still no break in the clouds.

C. S. Lewis, from a letter to Joy Davidman, Dec. 1953 A Selection from New Heaven and New Earth

by D. H. Lawrence

I was greedy, I was mad for the unknown. I, new-risen, resurrected, starved from the tomb starved from a life of devouring always myself now here was I, new-awakened, with my hand stretched out and touching the unknown, the real unknown, the unknown unknown. My God, but I can only say I touch, I feel the unknown! I am the first comer! Cortes, Pisarro, Columbus, Cabot, they are nothing, nothing! I am the first comer! I am the discoverer! I have found the other world! Books Mentioned:

On Stories by C. S. Lewis

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

The Discarded Image 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 www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 192: “The First Men In the Moon” by H. G. Wells, An Introduction to Sci-Fi Oct 03, 2023

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and a brand new episode for this fall season! This week Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas begin this series of episodes on science fiction stories, beginning with some background on H. G. Wells and his book The First Men in the Moon. This sets the scene for us as we then continue on next week with the opening of a discussion of C. S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet.

Thomas gives some biographical background information about Wells, and Angelina shares some distinctives of the science fiction genre and its sub-categories. Cindy highlights how much Out of the Silent Planet truly is a derivative of The First Men In the Moon with Lewis putting forward a very different premise.

House of Humane Letters is thrilled to announce an all new webinar from Dr. Jason Baxter coming October 31st! Register today for Can Dante’s Inferno Save the World?

Commonplace Quotes:

One of the very best things about the world is that so little of it is me.

Andrew Grieg

He could bear anything except to be silenced. Like most violent controversialists, he believed himself to be the pattern of meekness and good temper.

Ronald Knox, from Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion

Mr. Wells is a born storyteller who has sold his birthright for a pot of message.

G. K. Chesterton Astrophil and Stella 31: With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the skies

by Sir Philip Sydney

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies! How silently, and with how wan a face! What, may it be that even in heav'nly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tries! Sure, if that long-with love-acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case, I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. Then, ev'n of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there ungratefulness? Books Mentioned:

World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down by Christian McEwan

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne

Ursula K. Le Guin

Isaac Asimov

Michael Crichton

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

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

Episode 191: The “Best of” Series – “Leaf by Niggle” Part 2, Ep. 59 Sep 26, 2023

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life, we bring you another installment in our “Best of” Series. 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 MorningTimeforMoms.com. 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:

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 morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. 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

Episode 190: The “Best of” Series – “Leaf by Niggle” by J.R.R. Tolkien, Ep. 58 Sep 19, 2023

Welcome to another episode of our “Best Of” Series on 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“.

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 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

Episode 189: The “Best of” Series – On Fairy Stories by J.R.R. Tolkien, Ep. 57 Sep 12, 2023

Today on The Literary Life podcast, we bring you another episode from the “Best of” series vault, our discussion of 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. If you missed the 2020 Back to School conference that Cindy introduced in this episode, you can still get the recording at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

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:

When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning

Culture Care by Makoto Fujimura

Roger Lancelyn Green

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 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

Episode 188: Why Translation Matters with Dr. Anne Phillips Sep 05, 2023

On The Literary Life podcast today we are pleased to bring you a special episode focusing on the importance of a good translation when reading works originally written in other languages. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are joined for this conversation by Dr. Anne Phillips, who has a BA in Latin and Greek and a Doctorate in Classical Studies and teaches Latin at the House of Humane Letters. They start out with the question of basic principles for determining what makes a good translation. Angelina brings up C. S. Lewis’ review of Fitzgerald’s translation of The Odyssey and the principles he sets forth. Anne shares her experience with reading classic works in their original languages and how much richer and more enjoyable it is for her. Another topic they cover is the challenge of translating poetry.

Angelina, Thomas, and Anne both share some of their least liked translations of classical Greek and Latin works, as well as some recommendations for better translations. They also talk about finding good translations of Old English and Middle English works.

Thomas is also teaching a webinar along with Michael Williams on the modern poets W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot on September 28th. You can now register at House of Humane Letters.

Commonplace Quotes:

He had the successful portrait painters essential gift and saw men, with few exceptions, as they liked to see themselves.

C. V. Wedgwood

In my opinion value-judgements in literature should not be hurried. It does a student little good to be told that A is better than B, especially if he prefers B at the time. He has to feel values for himself, and should follow his individual rhythm in doing so. In the meantime, he can read almost anything in any order, just as he can eat mixtures of food that would have his elders reaching for the baking soda. A sensible teaching or librarian can soon learn how to give guidance to a youth’s reading that allows for undeveloped taste and still doesn’t turn him into a gourmet or a dyspeptic before his time.

Northrop Frye

A good translation is one that lets Homer sing.

Thomas Banks

There is a sense in which everything is untranslatable. A man may write what is as good or even better than the original, but from the nature of the case it cannot be precisely the same thing. There are even moments when one feels it is something of a desecration to translate at all, but that is surely over-scrupulous, a weakness which, if all had yielded to it, would certainly have left the world poorer.

Walter Headlam Ode 5, Book 1: To Pyrrha

by Horace, trans. by John Milton

What slender youth, bedew’d with liquid odors, Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, Pyrrha? For whom bind’st thou In wreaths thy golden hair, Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he Of faith and changed gods complain, and seas Rough with black winds, and storms Unwonted shall admire! Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, Who, always vacant, always amiable Hopes thee, of flattering gales Unmindful. Hapless they To whom thou untried seem’st fair. Me, in my vow’d Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the stern god of sea. Books Mentioned:

Velvet Studies by C. V. Wedgwood

The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

The Children’s Homer by Padraic Colum

The Odyssey trans. by Richmond Lattimore

The Iliad trans. by Richmond Lattimore

The Aeneid trans. by Sarah Ruden

A. E. Stallings

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

Beowulf trans. by Burton Raffel

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight trans. by Burton Raffel

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, trans. by Burton Raffel

The Landmark Heroditus trans. by Andrea L. Purvis

The Landmark Thucydides trans. by Richard Crawley

The Landmark Xenophon trans. by John Marincola

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

Episode 187: “The Man Who Was Thursday” by G. K. Chesterton, Ch. 11-End Aug 29, 2023

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we wrap up our discussion of The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas dive right in to the last section and share their various thoughts on finishing this book. Angelina and Thomas talk about some of Chesterton’s thoughts on Impressionism in the arts. Cindy and Thomas make some connections with the old rhyme about “Monday’s Child.” They talk about more of the allegorical elements that are clearly spelled out by Chesterton, as well as many other relations they make to other stories, including the one great story.

Be sure to join us next week when we have a special episode about why translation matters with Dr. Anne Phillips!

Angelina is teaching a class on How to Read Beowulf August 28-September 1, 2023. Get in on this mini-class at House of Humane Letters.

Thomas is also teaching a webinar along with Michael Williams on the modern poets W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot on September 28th. You can now register at House of Humane Letters.

Commonplace Quotes:

Almost everywhere and almost invariably the man who has sought a cryptogram in a great masterpiece has been highly exhilarated, logically justified, morally excited, and entirely wrong.

But it is all detail; and detail by itself means madness. The very definition of a lunatic is a man who has taken details out of their real atmosphere.

The truth is, I fear, that madness has a great advantage over sanity. Sanity is always careless. Madness is always careful.

G. K. Chesterton, from The Soul of Wit

Looking for an author’s life in his books is vulgar anyhow, and can be most misleading.

L. P. Hartley, from A Perfect Woman

Perhaps it is not worthwhile to try to kill heresies which so rapidly kill themselves, and the cult of suicide committed suicide some time ago. But it should not wish it supposed as some think I have supposed, that in resisting the heresy of pessimism, I have implied the equally morbid and diseased insanity of optimism. I was not then considering whether anything is really evil but whether is really evil, and in relation to the latter nightmare, it does still seem to me relevant to say that nightmares are not true and that in them even the faces of friends may appear as the faces of fiends. I tried to turn this notion of resistance to a nightmare into a topsy-turvy tale about a man who fancied himself alone among enemies and found that each of the enemies was, in fact, on his own side and in his own solitude.

G. K. Chesterton, on The Man Who Was Thursday The End of the World

by Dana Gioia

“We're going,” they said, “to the end of the world.” So they stopped the car where the river curled, And we scrambled down beneath the bridge On the gravel track of a narrow ridge. We tramped for miles on a wooded walk Where dog-hobble grew on its twisted stalk. Then we stopped to rest on the pine-needle floor While two ospreys watched from an oak by the shore. We came to a bend, where the river grew wide And green mountains rose on the opposite side. My guides moved back. I stood alone, As the current streaked over smooth flat stone. Shelf by stone shelf the river fell. The white water goosetailed with eddying swell. Faster and louder the current dropped Till it reached a cliff, and the trail stopped. I stood at the edge where the mist ascended, My journey done where the world ended. I looked downstream. There was nothing but sky, The sound of the water, and the water’s reply.

Books Mentioned:

W. Summerset Maugham

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

The Human Beast by Emile Zola

Theodore Dreiser

Jack London

On the Place of Gilbert Chesterton in English Letters by Hilaire Belloc

Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton

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

Episode 186: “The Man Who Was Thursday” by G. K. Chesterton, Ch. 5-10 Aug 22, 2023

On the Literary Life podcast this week Angelina, Cindy and Thomas continue their series on G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. Before diving into the plot of these chapters, our hosts discuss the similarities and differences between Chesterton and Kafka’s works of fiction. Thomas gives some historical context on anarchy as well as assassinations in the time period of this book. Angelina points out the Dante-esque language in this section, as well as the continuing themes of chivalry. Cindy highlights the character of Sunday and how he looms large, quite literally, over everyone’s imaginations in the story. Some other thoughts our hosts discuss include modernity’s mindset as it relates to the atmosphere of this story, the idea of the underdog fighting against all odds, and the humorous moments that break some of the tension. Be sure to come back next week when we wrap up our series on The Man Who Was Thursday.

If you missed our 2023 Back to School Conference when it was live, you can still go back and view the recordings when you purchase access to the conference at MorningTimeforMom.com.

Angelina is teaching a class on How to Read Beowulf at the end of August 2023. Get in on this mini-class at House of Humane Letters.

Thomas is also teaching a webinar along with Michael Williams on the modern poets W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot on September 28th. You can now register at House of Humane Letters.

Commonplace Quotes:

It’s important, too, that everything that has a story, such as a myth, should be read or listened to purely as a story. Many people grow up without really understanding the difference between imaginative and discursive writing. On the rare occasions when they encounter poems or even pictures, they treat them exactly as though they were intended to be pieces of more or less disguised information. Their questions are all based on this assumption: “What is he trying to get across?” “What am I supposed to get out of it?” “Why doesn’t someone explain it to me?” “Why couldn’t he have written it in a different way so that I could understand him?” The art of listening to story is a basic training for the imagination.

Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination

The biographer is there to explain rather than to judge. To get a clear view of a man we do not need to be told if his actions were good…but how and why he came to do them.

Lord David Cecil, “Modern Biography”

Or read again The Man Who Was Thursday. Compare it with another good writer, Kafka. Is the difference simply that the one is ‘dated’ and the other contemporary? Or is it rather that while both give a powerful picture of the loneliness and bewilderment which each one of us encounters in his (apparently) single-handed struggle with the universe, Chesterton, attributing to the universe a more complicated disguise, and admitting the exhilaration as well as the terror of the struggle, has got in rather more, is more balanced: in that sense, more classical, more permanent?

C. S. Lewis, “Period Criticism” Selection from Paradise Lost, Book 1

by John Milton

Innumerable force of Spirits arm’d

That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,

His utmost power with adverse power oppos’d

In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav’n,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome?

Books Mentioned:

The Oxford Book of Christian Verse ed. by Lord David Cecil

On Stories by C. S. Lewis

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Castle by Franz Kafka

Day of the Assassins by Michael Burleigh

The Defendant by G. K. Chesterton

The Song of Roland trans. by Dorothy L. Sayers

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

King Lear by William Shakespeare

The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

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

Episode 185: "The Man Who Was Thursday" by G. K. Chesterton, Intro and Ch. 1-4 Aug 15, 2023

Welcome back to the Literary Life podcast this week and our new series on G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas open with their commonplace quotes, as usual, then proceed to setting up the background for this book and the man Chesterton himself. Thomas also shares Chesterton’s poem to E. C. Bentley that opens this book and gives a brief explication of the poem. Following this, our hosts recap each chapter in the first section. Angelina makes several connections to Paradise Lost in this section, as well as pointing out the romantic and chivalric quest elements in the story. Cindy highlights the fact that we also have the fair maiden character here. Join us again next week when we will cover chapters 5-10 as events become even more strange.

If you missed our 2023 Back to School Conference when it was live, you can still go back and view the recordings when you purchase access to the conference at MorningTimeforMom.com.

Angelina is teaching a class on How to Read Beowulf at the end of August 2023. Get in on this mini-class at House of Humane Letters.

Thomas is also teaching a webinar along with Michael Williams on the modern poets W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot on September 28th. You can now register at House of Humane Letters.

Commonplace Quotes:

Had her mother been somebody else’s mother she would perhaps have admired her unreservedly.

L. P. Hartley, A Perfect Woman

When a child is reading, he should not be teased with questions as to the meaning of what he has read, the signification of this word or that; what is annoying to older people is equally annoying to children.

Charlotte Mason

And there is…Mooreeffoc, or Chestertonian Fantasy. Mooreeffoc is a fantastic word, but it could be seen written up in every town in this land. It is Coffeeroom, view from the inside through a glass door, as it was seen by Dickens on a dark London day; and it was used by Chesterton to denote the queerness of things that have become trite, when they are seen suddenly from a new angle.

J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories“ GKC

by Walter de la Mare

Knight of the Holy Ghost, he goes his way,

Wisdom his motley, Truth his loving jest;

The mills of Satan keep his lance in play,

Pity and innocence his heart at rest.

Books Mentioned:

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde

Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley

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

Episode 184: The “Best of” Series – In Search of the Austen Adaptation – Pride and Prejudice, Ep. 115 Aug 08, 2023

This week on The Literary Life podcast we have a fun “Best of” Series episode for you from our collection of “In Search of the Austen Adaptation” podcasts! On this episode our hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are joined by Atlee Northmore, and together they are debating which film version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is the best. Atlee shares some of the history of the Pride and Prejudice adaptations that were made for TV and film. Angelina highlights different ideas of what makes a good film adaptation of a book. Cindy brings up the importance of the casting, and Angelina talks about why she still feels like no film has gotten Mr. Darcy right. She also talks about the difficulty of embodying the virtues that Jane Austen gives her characters. Our hosts critique each major movies from over the decades, sharing what they like and dislike about each one.

Click here to download the PDF Atlee created for all the Pride and Prejudice film adaptations.

Commonplace Quotes:

If we cannot get the better of life, at any rate, we can be so free as to laugh at it.

Desmond MacCarthy

Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader’s mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial.

Virginia Woolf

The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.

G. K. Chesterton

Never judge a book by its movie.

Anonymous False Though She Be

by William Congreve

FALSE though she be to me and love, I'll ne'er pursue revenge; For still the charmer I approve, Though I deplore her change. In hours of bliss we oft have met: They could not always last; And though the present I regret, I'm grateful for the past. Book List:

The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf

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

Episode 183: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Caitlin Beauchamp, Ep. 30 Aug 01, 2023

On today’s “Best of The Literary Life” episode, Angelina and Cindy interview Caitlin Bruce Beauchamp. In addition to being an AmblesideOnline homeschool graduate and a lover of the humanities, Caitlin is a busy wife and a mother of young children. In their conversation, Angelina, Cindy and Caitlin dive into the deep end from the start, discussing the purpose of beauty. They talk about Caitlin’s early reading life and how she came to love books. She shares how she had to learn some humility in her reading life as an adult.

Angelina asks Caitlin how she finds the time to keep up her reading life amidst the responsibilities of mothering. Cindy and Caitlin talk about the importance of feeding your mind with other people’s ideas instead of taking the road to self-pity. The ladies discuss the timing of reading certain books to children and the great joy of watching children blossom as they listen to the right kinds of stories. Caitlin shares some of the books she reads to get out of a slump, as well as some other favorites and current reads.

Commonplace Quotes:

In his memoir Suprised by Joy Lewis described his ideal daily routine to be reading and writing from nine until one and again from five until seven, with breaks for meals, walking, or tea-time. Apart from those six hours of study every day, he also enjoyed light reading over meals or in the evening hours. All in all, Lewis’ preferred schedule seemed to include seven or eight hours of reading per day!

David C. Downing and Michael G. Maudlin, in the preface to The Reading Life

To be seeking always after the useful does not become free and exalted souls.

Aristotle

The years to come – this is a promise –

will grant you ample time

to try the difficult steps in the empire of thought

where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.

But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding,

than this deepest affinity between your eyes and the world.

The flock thickens

over the roiling, salt brightness. Listen,

maybe such devotion, in which one holds the world

in the clasp of attention, isn’t the perfect prayer,

but it must be close, for the sorrow, whose name is doubt,

is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry of reason,

but of pure submission. Tell me, what else

could beauty be for? And now the tide

is at its very crown,

the white birds sprinkle down,

gathering up the loose silver, rising

as if weightless. It isn’t instruction, or a parable.

It isn’t for any vanity or ambition

except for the one aloud, to stay alive.

It’s only a nimble frolic

over the waves. And you find, for hours,

you cannot even remember the questions

that weigh so in your mind.

Mary Oliver, selection from “Terns” In the Bleak Midwinter

by Christina Rossetti

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day, Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom angels fall before, The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air; But His mother only, in her maiden bliss, Worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Book List:

The Reading Life by C. S. Lewis

Poetics by Aristotle

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Happy Hollisters by Jerry West

Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace

Stories from The Faerie Queen by Jeanie Lang

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Silence by Shusako Endo

Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery

Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Middlemarch by George Eliot (the Audible version read by Juliet Stevenson)

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

Light in August by William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Wild Places by Robert MacFarlane

Landmarks by Robert MacFarlane

Elizabeth Goudge

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

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

Episode 182: The Literary Life of Addison and Ella Hornstra Jul 25, 2023

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas sit down for a chat with twin sisters Addison and Ella Hornstra. Together they have been given a literary home education, and this fall they will continue that journey at New College Franklin. Angelina introduces the Hornstra ladies and she and Thomas tell a little bit about having them as students. Cindy also shares how she met the Hornstra family. Then they dig into the girls’ reading journeys from the beginning of their learning to read all the way to their current reading lives. Some of the topics that come up in this conversation are: reading content beyond your understanding, owning your reading life, the problem with using the wrong approach to literature, the dangers of modern education for uniquely gifted students, the power of just reading well, and so much more.

Come explore, with seasoned moms, the things that stand the test of time in our homeschools at this year’s Literary Life Back to School Online Conference. In addition to our hosts, Donna-Jean Breckenridge and a panel of home educating parents and their adult children, will be bringing encouragement and insight to help you on your homeschool journey. This year’s conference will be live online on August 2-5, with recordings available for those who cannot join live.

Commonplace Quotes:

It is bad to spend too many hours over either a microscope or telescope or in gazing fixedly at some one distance range. The eyes need change of focus, and so does the imagination. There has been in modern Europe a shocking riot in misuse of the imagination. The remedy is to learn to use it. But the same kind of people who would like to bandage a child’s eyes lest it should learn to squint like to bandage the imagination lest it should wear itself out by squinting.

Mary Everest Boole

Away from the immense, cloistered in our own concepts, we may scorn and revile everything. But standing between earth and sky, we are silenced by the sight.

Abraham Heschel

In nature, the bird who gets up earliest catches the most worms, but in book collecting, the prizes fall to birds who know worms when they see them.

Michael Sadlier

The madman, of all men, lives most in a world of his own.

E. J. Oliver

Symbols are the nature speech of the soul, a language older and more universal than words.

Edmund Spenser Sonnet XIX: On His Blindness

by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.” Books Mentioned:

The Philosophy and Fun of Algebra by Mary Everest Boole

Thunder in the Soul by Abraham Heschel

A Gentle Madness by Nicholas Basbanes

Coventry Patmore by E. J. Oliver

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

Beatrix Potter

Mistmantle Chronicles by M. I. McAllister

Redwall Series by Brian Jacques

Poppy Series by Avi

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White

Ralph Mouse Series by Beverley Cleary

The Cat of Bubastes by G. A. Henty

In Freedom’s Cause by G. A. Henty

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Gene Stratton Porter

The Chronicles of Prydain Series by Lloyd Alexander

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Phantastes by George MacDonald

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

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

Episode 181: “Kidnapped”, Ch. 19-End Jul 18, 2023

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and the final episode in our series on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. This week, Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas open with a discussion of the difference between Jacobites and Whigs and how that contrast is played out in this story. Angelina and Cindy compare the characters of David Balfour and Jim Hawkins of Treasure Island and how they display honor. Angelina addresses moralizing stories versus making a moral observation of a story. Thomas gives a summary of the last several chapters of Kidnapped and makes some comment on the lawyer Rankeillor. They highlight more of the epic romance elements found in this book, as well.

Check out our Upcoming Events page to see the schedule for the rest of the summer and into fall.

Join us for the 5th Annual Back to School Conference with your hosts, along with special guest speaker Donna-Jean Breckenridge this August 2-5, 2023. Learn more and register at morningtimeformoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

But in these days we are forced even against our will to judge everything, even plays, morally. A crowd of artists and aesthetes have declared in this age that art is immoral; but the fact plainly and obviously remains that there never was a time in the history of the world when art was so moral. If there be a fault in the popular criticism of the day, it is that it is far too much so.

G. K. Chesterton, The Soul of Wit

Man is by nature so dissatisfied an animal that he must always be acclaiming something that he fondly believes to be new.

Charles Petrie, The Four Georges

But though the thing is to be criticised (and admired) strictly as an adventure story, there are sidelights of interest about it considered as a historical novel. It carries on a rather curiously balanced critical attitude, partly inherited from the attitude of Sir Walter Scott, the paradox of being intellectually on the side of the Whigs and morally on the side of the Jacobites.

G. K. Chesterton, Robert Louis Stevenson Scotland’s Winter

by Edwin Muir

Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill, The sun looks from the hill Helmed in his winter casket, And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky. The water at the mill Sounds more hoarse and dull. The miller’s daughter walking by With frozen fingers soldered to her basket Seems to be knocking Upon a hundred leagues of floor With her light heels, and mocking Percy and Douglas dead, And Bruce on his burial bed, Where he lies white as may With wars and leprosy, And all the kings before This land was kingless, And all the singers before This land was songless, This land that with its dead and living waits the Judgement Day. But they, the powerless dead, Listening can hear no more Than a hard tapping on the floor A little overhead Of common heels that do not know Whence they come or where they go And are content With their poor frozen life and shallow banishment.

Books Mentioned:

The History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

David Balfour/Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson

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 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

Episode 180: “Kidnapped,” Ch. 7-18 Jul 11, 2023

This week on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy continue their discussion of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, covering chapters 7-18. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Thomas opens the conversation with a brief synopsis of chapter 7. Angelina notes the increase in danger and violence in this section of the book, and our hosts talk about the roguish character of Alan Breck. They make many comparisons between Kidnapped and Treasure Island and highlight the other-world atmosphere Stevenson creates while staying in the real world. Cindy mentions some of the conflict between the Campbells and MacDonalds, and Thomas fleshes out a little more of this aspect of Scottish history.

Join us for the 5th Annual Back to School Conference with your hosts, along with special guest speaker Donna-Jean Breckenridge this August 2-5, 2023. Learn more and register at morningtimeformoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Mr. Roger Lancelyn Green, writing in English not long ago, remarked that the reading of Rider Haggard had been to many a sort of religious experience. To some people this will have seemed simply grotesque. I myself would strongly disagree with it if ‘religious’ is taken to mean ‘Christian.’ And even if we take it in a sub-Christian sense, it would have been safer to say that such people had first met in Haggard’s romances elements which they would meet again in religious experience if they ever came to have any. But I think Mr. Green is very much nearer the mark than those who assume that no one has ever read the romances except in order to be thrilled by hair-breadth escapes. If he had said simply that something which the educated receive from poetry can reach the masses through stories of adventure, and almost in no other way, then I think he would have been right.

C. S. Lewis

The conception which unites the whole varied work of Stevenson was that romance, or the vision of the possibilities of things, was far more important than mere occurrences: that one was the soul of our life, the other the body, and that the soul was the precious thing.

G. K. Chesterton, from Varied Types

What do you usually do when you are shut up in a secret room, with no chance of getting out for hours? As for me, I always say poetry to myself. It is one of the uses of poetry–one says it to oneself in distressing circumstances of that kind, or when one has to wait at railway stations, or when one cannot get to sleep at night. You will find poetry most useful for this purpose. So learn plenty of it, and be sure it is the best kind, because this is most useful as well as most agreeable.

E. Nesbit, from The House of Arden A Selection from Rob Roy’s Grave

by William Wordsworth

Thou, although with some wild thoughts Wild Chieftain of a savage Clan! Hadst this to boast of; thou didst love The liberty of man.

And, had it been thy lot to live With us who now behold the light, Thou would’st have nobly stirred thyself, And battled for the Right.

For thou wert still the poor man’s stay, The poor man’s heart, the poor man’s hand; And all the oppressed, who wanted strength, Had thine at their command.

Books Mentioned:

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard

The History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

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 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

Episode 179: “Kidnapped,” Intro to Robert Louis Stevenson and Ch. 1-6 Jul 04, 2023

Welcome back to a new read along series on The Literary Life Podcast! This week Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy will begin their discussion of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, covering chapters 1-6, as well as giving some background information on the beloved author and the historical setting of this book. Angelina talks about the life of R. L. Stevenson, and Thomas sets the historical stage for the story. We also get a glimpse into the form of the novel as a romance from some clues Stevenson gives at the outset. Cindy highlights the foreboding in the song of a woman David Balfour passes on the road. They look more closely at David’s plight, the role of the usurping uncle, and Stevenson’s excellent storytelling.

Come back next week to get in on the discussion of chapters 7-18.

You are not too late to participate in Thomas’ mini-class on G. K. Chesterton taking place live or later from June 26th through July 7th. Register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com today!

Commonplace Quotes:

Perhaps it is a mistake to suppose that metaphors can be invented. The real ones, those that formulate intimate connections between one image and another, have always existed; those we can invent are the false ones, which are not worth inventing.

Jorge Luis Borges, An Essay on Hawthorne

The tragedy of King Lear, in some of its elements perhaps the very greatest of all the Shakespearean tragedies, is relatively seldom played. It is even possible to have a dark suspicion that it is not universally read; with the usual deplorable result, that it is universally quoted. Perhaps nothing has done so much to weaken the greatest of English achievements, and to leave it open to facile revolt or fatigued reaction, than the abominable habit of quoting Shakespeare without reading Shakespeare.

G. K. Chesterton, from and introduction to The Spice of Life

Truth is a stern mistress, and when one hath once started off with her one must follow on after the jade, though she lead in flat defiance of all the rules and conditions which would fain turn that tangled wilderness the world into the trim Dutch garden of the story-tellers.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Micah Clarke Epitaph on a Jacobite

by Thomas Macaulay

To my true king I offered free from stain Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain. For him, I threw lands, honours, wealth, away. And one dear hope, that was more prized than they. For him I languished in a foreign clime, Grey-haired with sorrow in my manhood’s prime; Heard on Lavernia Scargill’s whispering trees, And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees; Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep, Each morning started from the dream to weep; Till God who saw me tried too sorely, gave The resting place I asked, an early grave. Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone, From that proud country which was once mine own, By those white cliffs I never more must see, By that dear language which I spake like thee, Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O’er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

Books Mentioned:

The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton

Other Inquisitions: 1937-1952 by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. by Ruth L. C. Simms

The Soul of Wit by G. K. Chesterton, ed. by Dale Ahlquist

The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sacketts Series by Louis L’Amour

Roger Lancelyn Greene

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

Episode 178: The “Best of” Series- The Great Divorce, Ch. 11-End, Ep. 50 Jun 27, 2023

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. 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 schedule and see what we will be reading together over the next few months!

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:

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

Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

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 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

Episode 177: The “Best of” Series – The Great Divorce, Ch. 7-10, Ep. 49 Jun 20, 2023

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!

There is still time to sign up for Thomas’ upcoming mini-class on G. K. Chesterton taking place live from June 26th through July 7th. Register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com today!

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 a 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 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

Episode 176: The “Best of” Series – The Great Divorce, Ch. 2-6, Ep. 48 Jun 13, 2023

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.

Be sure to check out Thomas’ upcoming mini-class on G. K. Chesterton taking place live from June 26th through July 7th. Register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com today!

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

“Unspoken Sermons: The Last Farthing” by George MacDonald

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 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

Episode 175: The “Best of” Series – The Great Divorce, Preface and Ch. 1, Ep. 47 Jun 06, 2023

On The Literary Life podcast today, Cindy Rollins, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks begin their series on The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis. Today you are going to get a crash-course in Medievalism through Lewis’ story, and we hope you will enjoy this book as much as our hosts do. Angelina kicks off the discussion even while sharing her commonplace quote, sharing some information about the epigraph and front matter. She gives us some historical context, both for where this books comes in Lewis’ own timeline, as well as some ideas of the journey of the soul and medieval dream literature.

Thomas gives some background on Prudentius and his allegorical work The Psychomachia. Angelina goes into some comparisons between The Great Divorce and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Thomas talks about Nathanial Hawthorne’s short story The Celestial Railroad as a satire of Pilgrim’s Progress. Also, if you haven’t read and listened to E. M. Forster’s Celestial Omnibus, see Episode 17. As they get into discussing the Preface, Thomas give us some information on William Blake. We will be back next week with a discussion on Chapters 2-6.

Be sure to check out Thomas' upcoming mini-class on G. K. Chesterton taking place live from June 26th through July 7th. Register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com today!

Commonplace Quotes:

We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. Man cannot discover them by his own powers and if he sets out to seek for them he will find in their place counterfeits of which he will be unable to discern the falsity.

Simone Weil, from “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God“

A poet is not a man who says “look at me”, but rather a man who points at something and says “look at that.”

C. S. Lewis

No, there is no escape. There is no heaven with a little of hell in it–no plan to retain this of that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather.

George MacDonald, from “Unspoken Sermons: The Last Farthing“ MCMXIV

by Philip Larkin

Those long uneven lines Standing as patiently As if they were stretched outside The Oval or Villa Park, The crowns of hats, the sun On moustached archaic faces Grinning as if it were all An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached Established names on the sunblinds, The farthings and sovereigns, And dark-clothed children at play Called after kings and queens, The tin advertisements For cocoa and twist, and the pubs Wide open all day–

And the countryside not caring: The place names all hazed over With flowering grasses, and fields Shadowing Domesday lines Under wheat’s restless silence; The differently-dressed servants With tiny rooms in huge houses, The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word–the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages, Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.

Book List:

The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald

The Personal Heresy by C. S. Lewis and E. M. Tillyard

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Divine Comedy by Dante

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

The Holy War by John Bunyan

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis

The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis

The Weight of Glory 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 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

Episode 174: The “Best of” Series – The Importance of Detective Fiction, Ep. 3 May 30, 2023

In this conversation, Angelina and Cindy talk all things related to the detective novel. Why do we love detective fiction so much? What are the qualities of a good detective novel? What is the history of detective fiction, and how did World War I bring about the Golden Age of the genre? Angelina and Cindy answer all these questions and more. Be sure to scroll down for links to all the books and authors mentioned in this episode!

Commonplace Quotes:

Those who read poetry to improve their minds will never improve their minds by reading poetry, for the true enjoyments must be spontaneous and compulsive and look to no remoter end. The Muses will submit to no marriage of convenience.

C. S. Lewis

One of these days I shall write a book in which two men are seen to walk down a cul de sac, and there is a shot, and one man is found murdered, and the other runs away with a gun in his hand, and after twenty chapters stinking with red herrings, it turns out that the man with the gun did it after all.

Dorothy L. Sayers The Listeners

by Walter De La Mare

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveler, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest’s ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveler’s head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. But no one descended to the Traveler; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveler’s call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:— ‘Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,’ he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Book List:

The World’s Last Night by C.S. Lewis

The Five Red Herrings, Murder Must Advertise, and Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Nancy Drew #45: The Spider Sapphire Mystery by Carolyn Keene

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox

Agatha Christie

Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe

The Moonstone and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Albert Campion Series by Margery Allingham

The Roderick Alleyn Series by Ngaio Marsh

The Flavia de Luce Series by Allen Bradley

The Inspector Appleby Mystery Series by Michael Innes

The Daughter of Time and Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey

Murder Fantastical by Patricia Moyes

The Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

Alexander McCall Smith

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes Series by Laurie King

Chief Inspector Gamache Series by Louise Penny

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael Series by Ellis Peters

The Inspector Adam Dalgliesh Series by P.D. James

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

Episode 173: The “Best of” Series – Why Pastors Should Read Fiction, Ep. 137 May 23, 2023

This week on The Literary Life podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks, we have a very special episode for you. Our hosts are joined by guests Dan Bunting and Anthony Dodgers, both of whom are pastors, for a discussion on why pastors should read fiction books. Dan is also host of the the Reading the Psalms podcast. Angelina starts off the conversation by asking why these men would prioritize taking literature classes. Anthony shares about his own literary life journey and how rediscovering literature has helped him personally. Dan talks about the book club that he and a couple of his pastor friends have and what kinds of books they read together. They discuss many other deep topics and crucial questions that we hope will be encouraging and thought-provoking to everyone who listens to and shares this episode.

If you want to get the replays of the 2022 Back to School Conference, “Education: Myths and Legends” with special guest speakers Lynn Bruce and Caitlin Beauchamp, along with our hosts Cindy Rollins, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks, you can learn more at Morning Time for Moms.

Commonplace Quotes:

If education is beaten by training, civilization dies.

C. S. Lewis, from “Our English Syllabus”

How am I a hog and me both?

Flannery O’Connor

He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.

Freidrich Schiller

Whoever wants to become a Christian, must first become a poet.

St. Porphyrios of Kafsokalivia

It is hard to have patience with those Jeremiahs, in press or pulpit, who warn us that we are “relapsing into paganism”. It might be rather fun if we were. It would be pleasant to see some future Prime Minister trying to kill a large and lively milk-white bull in Westminster Hall. But we shan’t. What lurks behind such idle prophecies, if they are anything but careless language, is the false idea that the historical process allows mere reversal; that Europe can come out of Christianity “by the same door as in she went”, and find herself back where she was. It is not what happens. A post-Christian man is not a Pagan; you might as well think that a married woman recovers her virginity by divorce. The post-Christian is cut off from the Christian past, and therefore doubly from the Pagan past.

C. S. Lewis, from “De Descriptione Temporum” A Boy in Church

by Robert Graves

‘Gabble-gabble, . . . brethren, . . . gabble-gabble!’ My window frames forest and heather. I hardly hear the tuneful babble, Not knowing nor much caring whether The text is praise or exhortation, Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation. Outside it blows wetter and wetter, The tossing trees never stay still. I shift my elbows to catch better The full round sweep of heathered hill. The tortured copse bends to and fro In silence like a shadow-show. The parson’s voice runs like a river Over smooth rocks, I like this church: The pews are staid, they never shiver, They never bend or sway or lurch. ‘Prayer,’ says the kind voice, ‘is a chain That draws down Grace from Heaven again.’ I add the hymns up, over and over, Until there’s not the least mistake. Seven-seventy-one. (Look! there’s a plover! It’s gone!) Who’s that Saint by the lake? The red light from his mantle passes Across the broad memorial brasses. It’s pleasant here for dreams and thinking, Lolling and letting reason nod, With ugly serious people linking Sad prayers to a forgiving God . . . . But a dumb blast sets the trees swaying With furious zeal like madmen praying. Book List:

Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh

Asterix Comics by René Goscinny

Tin Tin by Herge

Sigrid Undset

Giants in the Earth by Ole Rolvaag

Roald Dahl

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

John Donne

George Herbert

The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

Graham Greene

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse edited by Donald Davie

Waiting on the Word by Malcolm Guite

Word in the Wilderness by Malcolm Guite

Reflections on the Psalms 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 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

Episode 172: The Literary Life of Kiel Lemon May 16, 2023

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are joined by their podcast producer Kiel Lemon to chat about her own literary life. Kiel and her husband, along with their two children, live in West Virginia where they homeschool and enjoy the outdoors together whenever they can. After sharing commonplace quotes and how Angelina and Cindy met Kiel, they dig in to her background in reading. They also talk at some length about making use of audio books and speak to the concern parents have about audio versus physical books.

Kiel gives a shout out to her high school English teacher for giving her a good foundation in the classics and poetry. She also shares some of her early attempts to give herself a literary education in early adulthood, and Angelina asks Kiel why she was so drawn to old books. They also discuss the challenges of a dry time she went through when she wasn’t reading much at all and how to get out of a reading slump. Some other topics they touch on are disciplined versus whimsical reading, keeping multiple books at the same time, going through the AmblesideOnline curriculum with children, and more.

To find out more about Thomas’ summer class on G. K. Chesterton and sign up for that, go to houseofhumaneletters.com. To register for Cindy’s summer discipleship session, visit morningtimeformoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?…Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so that we may feel again their majesty and power?

Annie Dillard, from The Abundance: Narrative Essays New and Old

My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

Jane Austen

A man living at the bottom of a well will think the sky is small.

Han Yu

Recent psychological research, together with a number of other contributory factors, has influenced us to emphasise–possibly to over-emphasise–the importance of the unconscious in determining our actions and opinions. Our confidence in such faculties as will and judgement has been undermined, and in collapsing has taken with it a good deal of our interest in ourselves as responsible individuals.

Dorothy L. Sayers, from Introductory Papers on Dante The Land of Story-Books

by Robert Louis Stevenson

At evening when the lamp is lit, Around the fire my parents sit; They sit at home and talk and sing, And do not play at anything.

Now, with my little gun, I crawl All in the dark along the wall, And follow round the forest track Away behind the sofa back.

There, in the night, where none can spy, All in my hunter’s camp I lie, And play at books that I have read Till it is time to go to bed.

These are the hills, these are the woods, These are my starry solitudes; And there the river by whose brink The roaring lions come to drink.

I see the others far away As if in firelit camp they lay, And I, like to an Indian scout, Around their party prowled about.

So when my nurse comes in for me, Home I return across the sea, And go to bed with backward looks At my dear land of Story-books.

Books Mentioned:

An American Childhood by Annie Dillard

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

The Real Mother Goose by Blanche Fisher Wright

The Odyssey by Homer

Howards End by E. M. Forster

Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge

Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis

“Kate Crackernuts” retold by Joseph Jacobs

Beowulf trans. by Burton Raffell

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Bess Streeter Aldrich

Gene Stratton-Porter

Poems That Touch the Heart ed. by A. L. Alexander

Black Plumes by Margery Allingham

To the Far Blue Mountains by Louis L’Amour

The Education of a Wandering Man: A Memoire by Louis L’Amour

Redwall Series by Brian Jacques

Continuing the Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

Kidnapped by Robert Lewis 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 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

Episode 171: “Code of the Woosters,” Part 3, Ch. 10-14 May 09, 2023

Welcom back to The Literary Life Podcast and our discussion of P. G. Wodehouse’s Code of the Woosters. This week Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy finish up the book, covering chapters 10-14. After sharing their commonplace quotes, they start the chat by talking about what exactly the “Code of the Woosters” is for Bertie. Cindy brings up Wodehouse’ good experience in boarding school and how that comes out in his stories. Angelina reminds us again of the Roman comic structure that sets the form for this type of story. Thomas highlights some connections between Evelyn Waugh, Oscar Wilde, and P. G. Wodehouse. They also enjoy recounting the moments when Bertie thinks of himself of a detective and compares himself to Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, et al.

Find annotations for the slang, quotes, etc., for The Code of the Woosters here.

To find out more about Thomas’ summer class on G. K. Chesterton and sign up for that, go to houseofhumaneletters.com. To register for Cindy’s summer discipleship session, visit morningtimeformoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The books that should be set before children are books of play and ceremonial, and pomp and war: the whole gloria mundi, the whole pageant of history, full of blood and pride, may safely be told them–everything but the secret of their own incomparable influence. Children need to be taught primarily the grandeur of the whole world. It is merely the whole world that needs to be taught the grandeur of children.

G. K. Chesterton, from The Speaker, November 24, 1900

Each be other’s comfort kind:

Deep, deeper than divined,

Divine charity, dear charity,

Fast you ever, fast bind.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, from “At the Wedding March”

I find that my personal animosity against a writer never affects my opinion of what he writes. Nobody could be more anxious than myself, for instance, that Alan Alexander Milne should trip over a loose boot-lace and break his bloody neck, yet I re-read his early stuff at regular intervals with all the old enjoyment and still maintain that in The Dover Road he produced about the best comedy in English.

Did you read Milne’s serial in the Mail? I thought it good. Nothing happened in it, but the characters were so real. I wonder how a book like that sells. Do people want a story or not?

P. G. Wodehouse Pippa’s Song

by Robert Browning

The year’s at the spring, And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in His heaven— All’s right with the world!

Books Mentioned:

P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters edited by Sophie Ratcliffe

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

Oscar Wilde

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

Episode 170: “Code of the Woosters”, Part 2, Ch. 5-9 May 02, 2023

This week on The Literary Life Podcast our hosts, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks, continue discussing P. G. Wodehouse’s Code of the Woosters together, covering chapters 5-9 today. They share some similarities in Wodehouse’s work to Shakespearean and Roman comic characters. Some of these stock characters are the couple, the helpful servant, the unhelpful servant, the irritable old man, and more. Angelina shares her take on Wodehouse’s ability to complicate the comedic form. Cindy makes a comparison between the ease created by habits in life and form in stories. Delighting in Wodehouse’s skill to turn a phrase, our hosts share many humorous passages throughout this episode, so be sure to stay tuned to the end to catch it all.

Find annotations for the slang, quotes, etc., for The Code of the Woosters here.

To find out more about Thomas’ summer class on G. K. Chesterton and sign up for that, go to houseofhumaneletters.com. To register for Cindy’s summer discipleship session, visit morningtimeformoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The gentleness and candour of Shakespeare’s mind has impressed all his readers. But is impresses us still more the more we study the general tone of sixteenth-century literature. He is gloriously anomalous.

C. S. Lewis

He wrote to Sheran: What do you find to read these days? I simply can’t cope with the American novel. The most ghastly things are published and sell a million copies, but good old Wodehouse will have none of them and sticks to English mystery stories. It absolutely beats me how people can read the stuff that is published now. I am reduced to English mystery stories and my own stuff. I was reading Blandings Castle again yesterday and was lost in admiration for the brilliance of the author.

P. G. Wodehouse, as quoted by Frances Donaldson

You notice that popular literature, the kind of stories that are read for relaxation, is always very highly conventionalized…Wodehouse is a popular writer, and the fact that he is a popular writer has a lot to do with his use of stock plots. Of course he doesn’t take his own plots seriously; he makes fun of them by the way he uses them; but so did Plautus and Terence.

Northrop Frye

…when you go to his residence, the first thing you see is an enormous fireplace, and round it are carved in huge letters the words: TWO LOVERS BUILT THIS HOUSE. Her idea, I imagine. I can’t believe Wells would have thought of that himself.

P. G. Wodehouse, in a letter to William Townend Fashion’s Phases

by P. G. Wodehouse

When first I whispered words of love, When first you turned aside to hear, The winged griffin flew above, The mammoth gaily gamboll’d near; I wore the latest thing in skins Your dock-leaf dress had just been mended And fastened-up with fishes fins – The whole effect was really splendid. Again – we wondered by the Nile, In Egypt’s far, forgotten land, And we watched the festive crocodile Devour papyrus from your hand. Far off across the plain we saw The trader urge his flying camel; Bright shone the scarab belt he wore, Clasped with a sphinx of rare enamel. Again — on Trojan plains I knelt; Alas! In vain I strove to speak And tell you all the love I felt In more or less Homeric Greek; Perhaps my helmet-strap was tight And checked the thoughts I fain would utter, Or else your robe of dreamy white Bewildered me and made me stutter. Once more we change the mise-en-scene; The road curves across the hill; Excitement makes you rather plain, But on the whole I love you still, As wreathed in veils and goggles blue, And clad in mackintosh and leather, Snug in our motor built for two We skim the Brighton road together.

Books Mentioned:

English Literature in the Sixteenth Century by C. S. Lewis

P. G. Wodehouse, A Biography by Frances Donaldson

The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye

Arabian Nights trans. by Burton Richard

The Renaissance Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

Unnatural Death by 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

Episode 169: Intro to P. G. Wodehouse, “Code of the Woosters,” Ch. 1-4 Apr 25, 2023

On this episode of The Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks, are introducing P. G. Wodehouse’s entertaining book, Code of the Woosters. This week they will cover chapters 1-4. Our hosts start the conversation sharing some interesting tidbits about P. G. Wodehouse the man, as well as the Wodehousian world in general. Then they begin discussing the story, highlighting Bertie’s code of manners that sets up so many problematic situations and Jeeves’ unflappable mastery of every circumstance. Find annotations for the slang, quotes, etc., for The Code of the Woosters here.

To find out more about Thomas’ summer class on G. K. Chesterton and sign up for that, go to houseofhumaneletters.com. To register for Cindy’s summer discipleship session, visit morningtimeformoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

A craftsman is excellent in his craft according to his degree of attainment towards its end and his use of the means toward that end. Now the end of writing is the production in the reader’s mind of a certain image and a certain emotion. And the means towards that end are the use of words in any particular language; and the complete use of that medium is the choosing of the right words and the putting of them into the right order. It is this which Mr. Wodehouse does better, in the English language, than anyone else alive, or at any rate, than anyone else that I have read for many years past.

Hilaire Belloc

Mr. Wodehouse has created Jeeves. He has created others, but in his creation of Jeeves he has done something which may be respectably compared to the the world of the Almighty in Michelangelo’s painting. He has formed a man filled with the breath of life…If in, say, fifty years Jeave and any other of the that great company – but in particular Jeeves – shall have faded, then what we have so long called England will no longer be.

Hilaire Belloc

For Mr. Wodehouse there has been no fall of Man; no ‘aboriginal calamity.’ His characters have never tasted the forbidden fruit. They are still in Eden. The gardens of Blandings Castle are that original garden from which we are all exiled. The chef Anatole prepares the ambrosia for the immortals of high Olympus. Mr. Wodehouse’s world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.

Evelyn Waugh

[This critic] has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha; but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneraled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.

P. G. Wodehouse from In Memoriam A. H. H.

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.

But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch The far-off interest of tears?

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d, Let darkness keep her raven gloss: Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground,

Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast, `Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn.’

Books Mentioned:

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

Summer Lightning by P. G. Wodehouse

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

Episode 168: The “Best of” Series – Witches, Wizards, and Magic, Oh My!!, Ep. 104 Apr 18, 2023

This week on The Literary Life Podcast we are pleased to bring you another “Best Of” series replay of one of our most popular episodes. Today our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks tackle the tough questions so many people ask about reading stories dealing with magic. First off, Angelina affirms the need to discernment and the desire to steer clear of that which would be a stumbling block for our children. Cindy shares a little about her own concern when her children were very young. Then they set the groundwork by defining some terms and considering the kinds of questions we need to ask, beginning with Scripture and the church fathers. Be sure to listen to the end when Angelina, Cindy and Thomas suggest some criteria for evaluating magic elements in books before handing them to their students.

Commonplace Quotes:

I am not conscious of having ever bought a book from a motive of ostentation.

Edward Gibbon

There is no language and no knowledge without symbol and metaphor. Two consequences arise from this: one is that we require imagination both to make and to interpret symbols, and the other is that symbols themselves beckon us through language to that which is beyond language. In other words, symbols are energized between the two poles (as Coleridge would say) of immanence and transcendence.

Malcolm Guite

Incidentally, we do not know of a single healthy and powerful book used to educate people (and that includes the Bible) in which such delicate matters do not actually appear to an even greater extent. Proper usage sees no evil here, but finds, as an attractive saying has it, a document of our hearts. Children can read the stars without fear, while others, so superstition has it, insult angels by doing the same thing.

Wilhelm Grimm The Queen Mab Speech

by William Shakespeare

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Over men’s noses as they lie asleep; Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’ legs, The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; Her traces, of the smallest spider web; Her collars, of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams; Her whip, of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film; Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid; Her chariot is an empty hazelnut, Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies straight; O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees; O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometimes she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail Tickling a parson’s nose as ‘a lies asleep, Then dreams he of another benefice. Sometimes she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscades, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled much misfortune bodes. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage. This is she!

Book List:

Memoirs of My Life by Edward Gibbon

Faith, Hope, and Poetry by Malcolm Guite

Wings and the Child by Edith Nesbit

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

Episode 167: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Timilyn Downey, Ep. 122 Apr 11, 2023

This week on The Literary Life, we are bringing you another “Best of The Literary Life Podcast” episode. This week’s featured guest is Timilyn Downey, who will be a keynote speaker at this spring’s Literary Life Online Conference. Hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins dig into how Timilyn became a lifelong reader. Timilyn shares about the incredibly literary childhood education that she had without even realizing it at the time. She also tells the story of her trip to London during college, then goes into how she used a literary approach in her teaching career. Timilyn also describes her journey to homeschooling and the role that God’s grace clearly played in where she is now.

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up April 12-15, 2023, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The founding of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was not as programmatic or formal as its name suggests, but rather evolved out of a series of pub discussions and informal get-togethers.

Carolyn Weber

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.

Charles MacKay

On a Saturday afternoon in winter, when nose and fingers might be pinched enough to give an added relish to the anticipation of tea and fireside, and the whole week-end’s reading lay ahead, I suppose I reached as much happiness as is ever to be reached on earth.

C. S. Lewis from “Among School Children”

by William Butler Yeats

VII Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose. And yet they too break hearts—O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise— O self-born mockers of man's enterprise; VIII Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? Book List:

The Rossetti’s in Wonderland by Dinah Roe

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

Little Britches by Ralph Moody

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

The Arabian Nights by Muhsin Mahdi

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

Morning Time by Cindy Rollins

Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian

D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths by Ingri and Edgar D’Aulaire

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

Episode 166: Shakespeare’s “Othello,” Acts 4 & 5 Apr 04, 2023

We are back on The Literary Life Podcast this week to wrap up our series on Shakespeare’s Othello with a discussion of Acts 4 and 5. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin the conversation looking at how the avalanche that began at the climax in Act 3 now continues until the curtain drops. Beginning with her commonplace quote, Angelina expands on the idea that this play uses images of the temptation and fall of man. Thomas reads from Othello’s speech in illustration of how disordered he has become. Once again in these acts we see Desdemona’s innocence and goodness. Iago’s parallels to the storm and to Satan are further illustrated, as well. Cindy, Thomas, and Angelina share their several thoughts on the ending of the play.

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up April 12-15, 2023, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

It is observed that “a corrupt society has many laws”; I know not whether it is not equally true that an ignorant age has many books. When the treasures of ancient knowledge lie unexamined, and original authors are neglected and forgotten, compilers and plagiaries are encouraged, who give us again what we had before, and grow great by setting before us what our own sloth had hidden from our view.

Samuel Johnson, from The Idler, Essay #85

It is very important again that the child should not be allowed to condemn the conduct of the people about him. Whether he is right or wrong in his verdict is not the question. The habit of bestowing blame will certainly blunt his conscience and deaden his sensibility to the injunction “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

Charlotte Mason, from Home Education

If the precise movement of Eve’s mind at this point is not always noticed, that is because Milton’s truth to nature is here almost too great, and the reader is involved in the same illusion as Eve herself. The whole thing is so quick, each new element of folly, malice, and corruption enters so unobtrusively, so naturally, that it is hard to realize we have been watching the genesis of murder. We expect something more like Lady Macbeth’s “unsex me here”. But Lady Macbeth speaks thus after the intention of murder has already been fully formed in her mind. Milton is going closer to the actual moment of decision. Thus, and not otherwise, does the mind turn to embrace evil. No man, perhaps, ever at first described to himself the act he was about to do as Murder, or Adultery, or Fraud, or Treachery, or Perversion; and when he hears it so described by other men he is (in a way) sincerely shocked and surprised. Those others “don’t understand.” If they knew what it had really been like for him, they would not use those crude “stock” names. With a wink or a titter, or in a cloud of muddy emotion, the thing has slipped into his will as something not very extraordinary, something of which, rightly understood and in all his highly peculiar circumstances, he may even feel proud. If you or I, reader, ever commit a great crime, be sure we shall feel very much more like Eve than like Iago.

C. S. Lewis, from A Preface to Paradise Lost Desdemona

by George Gissing

I see thee, Desdemona, pale and cold As the pluck’d lily that uncared for dies, Thy lips the seat of silence, and thine eyes Deserted shrines of chastity; behold, Their lamp is quenched, their oracles untold; Calm is thy bosom, which no more shall rise And fall with love’s sweet rapture or sad sighs, And thy hands clasp’d in prayer shall ne’er unfold Silent and still; yet in that silence speaks A voice more eloquent than passion’s tongue, The mute reproach upon thy innocent face, Which chases from his breast who did thee wrong The spectre of blind wrath, and in his place Despair, for all thy sorrows vengeance wreaks.

Books Mentioned:

Othello by William Shakespeare

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

The Soul of Wit by G. K. Chesterton, edited by Dale Ahlquist

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

Ignatius Critical Editions of Shakespeare plays

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

Episode 165: Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Act 3 Mar 28, 2023

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and our series covering Shakespeare’s play Othello. This week Angelina, Thomas and Cindy talk about the end of Act 2, review Act 3’s major plot points, and discuss the bigger ideas present in this and all Shakespeare’s stories. Thomas brings out the similarities between Don John in Much Ado About Nothing and Iago in Othello. Angelina highlights the significance of the placement of the wedding dance and the discord occurring within the form of the play. Cindy points out the importance of reputation in this section of the play. Other concepts they talk about include: the character of a warrior, the issue of race in this play, Iago’s deception of Othello, Desdemona as a picture of innocence, and so much more.

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up April 12-15, 2023, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The notion of cosmic order pervades the entire Fairy Queen and prompts such a detail as Spenser’s iteration of the phrase “In a comely rew [row]” or “on a row.” The arrangement is comely not just because it is pretty and seemly but because it harmonises with a universal order.

But the negative implication was even more frequent and emphatic. If the Elizabethans believed in an ideal order animating earthly order, they were terrified lest it should be upset, and appalled by the visible tokens of disorder that suggested its upsetting. They were obsessed by the fear of chaos and the fact of mutability; and the obsession was powerful in proportion as their faith in the cosmic order was strong. To us chaos means hardly more than confusion on a large scale; to an Elizabethan it mean the cosmic anarchy before creation and the wholesale dissolution that would result if the pressure of Providence relaxed and allowed the law of nature to cease functioning. Othello’s “chaos is come again” or Ulysses’s “this chaos, when degree is suffocate,” cannot be fully felt apart from orthodox theology.

E. M. Tillyard

The world will always believe Shakespeare’s version of these events.

Andrew Lang

All the men in history who have really done anything with the future have had their eyes fixed upon the past.

G. K. Chesterton Could Man Be Drunk Forever?

by A. E. Housman

Could man be drunk for ever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning And lief lie down of nights. But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.

Books Mentioned:

Othello by William Shakespeare

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

A Short History of Scotland by Andrew Lang

The Soul of Wit by G. K. Chesterton, edited by Dale Ahlquist

The Malcontent by John Marston

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

Ignatius Critical Editions of Shakespeare plays

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

Episode 164: Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Acts 1 & 2 Mar 21, 2023

This week on The Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks, we have our second episode covering Shakespeare’s play Othello. Today’s episode is a discussion of Acts 1 and 2. Our hosts talk about the problem of Iago’s antagonism toward Othello, the way in which Shakespeare asks “what if?” to develop new treatments of old stories, the question of Othello’s ethnicity, Shakespeare’s method of building up layers of disorder in the story, the theme of people out of harmony with the community, plus so much more!

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up April 12-15, 2023, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

It has only been for a short time, a recent and disturbed time of transition, that each writer has been expected to write a new theory of all things or draw a new wild map of the world. The old writers were content to write of the old world, but to write of it with an imaginative freshness which made it in each case look like a new world. The poets taught in a continuous tradition and were not in the least ashamed of being traditional. Each taught in an individual way with a perpetual slight novelty, as Aristotle said, but they were not a series of separate lunatics looking at separate worlds. One poet did not provide a pair of spectacles by which it appeared that the grass was blue, or another poet lecture on optics to teach people to say that the grass was orange. They both had the far harder and more heroic task of teaching people to feel that the grass is green. And because they continue their heroic task, the world, after every epoch of doubt and despair, always grows green again.

G. K. Chesterton

Our age was cultivated thus at length; But what we gained in skill we lost in strength. Our builders were with want of genius curst; The second temple was not like the first.

John Dryden

The atmosphere of the homeschool is on the mother’s face.

Lynn Bruce My Pretty Rose Tree

by William Blake

A flower was offered to me, Such a flower as May never bore; But I said “I’ve a pretty rose tree,” And I passed the sweet flower o’er.

Then I went to my pretty rose tree, To tend her by day and by night; But my rose turned away with jealousy, And her thorns were my only delight.

Books Mentioned:

Othello by William Shakespeare

The Soul of Wit by G. K. Chesterton, edited by Dale Ahlquist

Paradise Lost by John Milton

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

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

Episode 163: Introduction to Shakespeare’s “Othello” Mar 14, 2023

On this episode of The Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks, our hosts introduce their new series on Shakespeare’s play Othello. They share some tips and strategies for those new to Shakespeare, both as independent readers and for reading along with children. Angelina also talks more specifically about how to approach reading a Shakespearean tragedy. Finally, our hosts respond to the idea that Shakespeare plays should be watched, not read. Join us back here next week to dive into the discussion of Othello!

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up April 12-15, 2023, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The devils come because the half-gods go,

But in the end the gods, the gods return.

Humbert Wolfe

I was rereading chapter 14 of Surprised by Joy, and there it was, the opening quote from George MacDonald: “The one principle of hell is – ‘I am my own’.”

Andrew Johnson

A convention is a form of freedom. That is the reality that the realists cannot get into their heads. A dramatic convention is not a constraint on the dramatist; it is a permission to the dramatist. It is a permit allowing him to depart from the routine of external reality, in order to express a more internal and intimate reality. . . .

But as Shakespeare had the liberty of a literary convention, he can make Macbeth say something that nobody in real life would say, but something that does express what somebody in real life would feel. It expresses such things as music expresses them; though nobody in those circumstances would recite that particular poem, any more than he would begin suddenly to play on the violin. But what the audience wants is the emotion expressed; and poetry can express it and commonplace conversation cannot. . . .

The realist is reduced to inarticulate grunts and half-apologetic oaths, like an apoplectic major in a club.

G. K. Chesterton Iago

by Walter de la Mare

A dark lean face, a narrow, slanting eye, Whose deeps of blackness one pale taper’s beam Haunts with a flitting madness of desire; A heart whose cinder at the breath of passion Glows to a momentary core of heat Almost beyond indifference to endure: So parched Iago frets his life away. His scorn works ever in a brain whose wit This world hath fools too many and gross to seek. Ever to live incredibly alone, Masked, shivering, deadly, with a simple Moor Of idiot gravity, and one pale flower Whose chill would quench in everlasting peace His soul’s unmeasured flame — O paradox! Might he but learn the trick! — to wear her heart One fragile hour of heedless innocence, And then, farewell, and the incessant grave. ” O fool! O villain! ” — ’tis the shuttlecock Wit never leaves at rest. It is his fate To be a needle in a world of hay, Where honour is the flattery of the fool; Sin, a tame bauble; lies, a tiresome jest; Virtue, a silly, whitewashed block of wood For words to fell. Ah! but the secret lacking, The secret of the child, the bird, the night, Faded, flouted, bespattered, in days so far Hate cannot bitter them, nor wrath deny; Else were this Desdemona. . . . Why! Woman a harlot is, and life a nest Fouled by long ages of forked fools. And God — Iago deals not with a tale so dull: To have made the world! Fie on thee, Artisan!

Books Mentioned:

Othello by William Shakespeare

London Sonnets by Humbert Wolfe

The Soul of Wit by G. K. Chesterton, edited by Dale Ahlquist

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit

Leon Garfield’s Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield

Stories from Shakespeare by Marchette Chute

Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare by Isaac Asimov

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

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

Episode 162: "Ion" – On Socratic Dialogue and Reading Plato Mar 07, 2023

Welcome to this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks. This week our hosts share their discussion of Plato’s Ion. This episode serves as an introduction on how to read Plato as well as an opportunity to consider what Socratic dialogue is and is not. Thomas gives some background on Plato as a person as well as his writing of dialogues. Angelina shares her thoughts on why the term “Socratic method” as it is used today is not actually a good teaching technique.

In talking about the text of Ion, Thomas explains what a “rhapsode” is and lets us know that this piece of dialogue is supposed to be humorous, rather satirical in nature. Another background topic related to the conversation is the ancient idea of atheism in contrast to our modern definition. To wrap up, Thomas gives a few suggestions for continuing your reading of Plato.

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up April 12-15, 2023, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The job of a Christian parent is not to produce godly children. The job of the Christian parent is to be a godly parent.

Christopher Yuan

A few people have ventured to imitate Shakespeare’s tragedy. But no audacious spirit has dreamed or dared to imitate Shakespeare’s comedy. No one has made any real attempt to recover the loves and the laughter of Elizabethan England. The low dark arches, the low strong pillars upon which Shakespeare’s temple rests we can all explore and handle. We can all get into his mere tragedy; we can all explore his dungeon and penetrate into his coal-cellar; but we stretch our hands and crane our necks in vain towards that height where the tall turrets of his levity are tossed towards the sky. Perhaps it is right that this should be so; properly understood, comedy is an even grander thing than tragedy.

G. K. Chesterton, from Illustrated London News, April 27, 1907

Nothing stands still for us. This is our normal state, albeit the one most contrary to our proper inclination

Blaise Pascal The Fall of a Soul

by John Addington Symonds

I sat unsphering Plato ere I slept: Then through my dream the choir of gods was borne, Swift as the wind and splendid as the morn, Fronting the night of stars; behind them swept Tempestuous darkness o’er a drear descent, Wherein I saw a crowd of charioteers Urging their giddy steeds with cries and cheers, To join the choir that aye before them went: But one there was who fell, with broken car And horses swooning down the gulf of gloom; Heavenward his eyes, though prescient of their doom, Reflected glory like a falling star, While with wild hair blown back and listless hands Ruining he sank toward undiscover’d lands.

Books Mentioned:

Phaedrus by Plato

Othello by William Shakespeare

Out of a Far Country by Angela Yuan and Christopher Yuan

The Soul of Wit by G. K. Chesterton, edited by Dale Ahlquist

Pensées by Blaise Pascal

Five Dialogues by Plato

Selected Myths by Plato

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

Episode 161: The Literary Life of Lia Techand Feb 28, 2023

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we bring you another fun Literary Life of…episode. Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy’s guest today is Lia Techand, our first international guest on the podcast. Lia, a German born in Kyrgyzstan, currently serving with her husband as a missionary in Australia, along with their two book-loving children. We start off the interview hearing Lia tell about her young life and how she started loving English literature. She talks about her parents and grandparents’ reading lives and the legacy of loving books that they left for her. She also shares how literary analysis and symbolism teaching in high school and college challenged her enjoyment of literature. Lia tells about how she stopped reading in university because she was too busy but then started reading again once she became a mother.

Lia and Angelina share some examples of crazy literary theory that is taught in university programs, and how that confused and discouraged Lia so much. She also tells the story of finding The Literary Life podcast and taking classes with Angelina. They wrap up the conversation with some encouragement for readers looking for the meaning in the stories they read.

Join us next time for a discussion of Plato’s Ion, led by Mr. Banks!

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up April 12-15, 2023, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

A story is a work of art. Its greatest use to the child is in the everlasting appeal of beauty by which the soul of man is constantly pricked to new hungers, quickened to new perceptions, and so given desire to grow…

The storyteller…has, in short, accomplished the one greatest aim of story-telling,–to enlarge and enrich the child’s spiritual experience, and stimulate healthy reaction upon it.

Of course this result cannot be seen and proved as easily and early as can the apprehension of a fact. The most one can hope to recognize is its promise, and this is found in the tokens of that genuine pleasure which is itself the means of accomplishment.

Sara Cone Bryant, from How to Tell Stories to Children

Every thirty years a new race comes into the world–a youngster that knows nothing about anything, and after summarily devouring in all haste the results of human knowledge as they have been accumulated for thousands of years, aspires to be thought cleverer than the whole of the past. For this purpose he goes to the university, and takes to reading books–new books, as being of his own age and standing. Everything he reads must be briefly put, must be new, as he is new himself. Then he falls to and criticizes.

Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Men of Learning”

What has drawn the modern world into being is a strange, almost occult yearning for the future. The modern mind longs for the future as the medieval mind longed for heaven.

Wendell Berry, from The Unsettling of America

In these days, when Mr. Bernard Shaw is becoming gradually, amid general applause, the Grand Old Man of English letters, it is perhaps ungracious to record that he did once say there was nobody, with the possible exception of Homer, whose intellect he despised to so much as Shakespeare’s. He has since said almost enough sensible things to outweigh even anything so silly as that. But I quote it because is exactly embodies the nineteenth-century notion of which I speak. Mr. Shaw had probably never read Home; and there were passages in his Shakespearean criticism that might well raise a doubt about whether he ever read Shakespeare. But the point was that he could not, in all sincerity, see what the world saw in Home and Shakespeare, because what the world saw was not what G. B. S. was then looking for. He was looking for that ghastly thing which Nonconformists call a Message.

G. K. Chesterton, from The Soul of Wit: G. K. Chesterton on William Shakespeare Still ist de Nacht

by Heinrich Heine

Still is the night, and the streets are lone, My darling dwelt in this house of yore; ‘Tis years since she from the city has flown, Yet the house stands there as it did before.

There, too, stands a man, and aloft stares he, And for stress of anguish he wrings his hands; My blood runs cold when his face I see, ‘Tis my own very self in the moonlight stands.

Thou double! Thou fetch, with the livid face! Why dust thou mimic my lovelorn mould, That was racked and rent in this very place So many a night in the times of old?

Books Mentioned:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Astrid Lindgren

Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Agatha Christie

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Margery Allingham

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason (section on Goethe)

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

Beatrix Potter

Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc

Struwwelpeter in English Translation by Heinrich Hoffman

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

Episode 160: Aristotle’s “Poetics” Part 2 Feb 21, 2023

Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas are back on The Literary Life Podcast today with another discussion in our series on Aristotle’s Poetics. Sharing their commonplace quotes leads into the conversation about why reading this work still matters to our understanding of how to read literature. Thomas and Angelina talk about the problem of literary critics who claim Shakespeare violates Aristotle’s “rules” for plays. Cindy’s question as to why we read the ancients is another topic of this conversation.

Join us next time when we will have another Literary Life of... guest interview. Then we will be back the next week with a discussion of Plato's Ion.

Thomas will be teaching a webinar on Jean Jacques Rousseau on February 24th. You can learn more and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up in mid-April, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Episodes Mentioned Today:

Antigone Series Introduction

The Trojan Women Series Introduction

Why Read Pagan Myths

Why Read Fairy Tales

Commonplace Quotes:

The best way to get to know the world is to live in it. The next best is to break your leg and read Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” in bed.

Christopher Hollis, from Dr. Johnson

Sensible parents are often distressed at this want of conscience in children; but they are not greatly at fault; the mature conscience demands to be backed up by the mature intellect, and the children have neither the one nor the other. Discussions of the kind should be put down; the children should not be encouraged to give their opinions on questions of right and wrong, and little books should not be put into their hands which pronounce authoritatively upon conduct.

Charlotte Mason, from Home Education

The Classical emphasis, established in Aristotle is esthetic (“hieratic”) in the sense that it is focused on the thing made, and assumes an emotional balance or detachment which we see in such aspects of it as catharsis. The fundamental conception of this approach is that of “imitation,” which is concerned with the relation of the poem to its context in nature. The other emphasis…is psychological rather than esthetic, and is based on participation rather than on detachment. It thinks of a poem as an “expression,”…rather than as Aristotle’s techne or artifact, and its fundamental conception, corresponding to “imitation,” is “creation,” a metaphor which relates the poet to his context in nature.

Northrop Frye, from The Well-Tempered Critic Sonnet 23

by William Shakespeare

As an unperfect actor on the stage Who with his fear is put beside his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart, So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love’s rite, And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay, O’ercharg’d with burthen of mine own love’s might. O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, Who plead for love and look for recompense More than that tongue that more hath more express’d. ⁠O, learn to read what silent love hath writ; ⁠To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

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

Episode 159: Aristotle's "Poetics", Part 1 Feb 14, 2023

On The Literary Life podcast this week, our hosts continue their series of discussions on Aristotle’s Poetics. Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas share some pertinent commonplace quotations to open the episode, then dive into this week’s text, beginning with Aristotle’s definition of “tragedy.” Thomas expands on the idea of catharsis, and Angelina outlines Aristotle’s necessary elements of a story. Cindy shares her thoughts the distinction between poetry and history. They talk about the form and sequence of a story and why these are so important in Aristotle’s view. In working out the definition of terms, our hosts also correct some common and crucial misconceptions.

Thomas will be teaching a webinar on Jean Jacques Rousseau on February 24th. You can learn more and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up in mid-April, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

He was happier using the knife than in trying to save the limb.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, from “In the Children’s Hospital”

Here the term moral imagination refers very loosely to a way of looking at life, or as Vigen Guroian puts it, “the process by which the self makes metaphors out of images given by experience, which it then employs to find and suppose moral correspondences in experience.”

With this in mind, it makes sense to regard reading stories aloud to one’s children the archetypal act of the trivium. One is simultaneously remembering a tradition, revealing the Logos, and by voice inflection and gesture dramatizing a story to communicate the meaning heart to heart.

Stratford Caldecott, from Beauty in the Word

It is true that “our way” of misreading the romances is very recent. In the nineteenth centure, even in the Edwardian period, a serious response to the ferlies seems to have been easy and almost universal. Even now it is common among the elderly. Most of my generation have all our lives taken these things with awe and with a sense of their mystery. But a generation has grown up which really needs the corrective that Mr. Speirs is offering. For whatever reason–a materialistic philosophy, anti-romanticism, distrust of one’s unconscious–gigantic inhibitions, have, with astonishing rapidity, been built up. The response which was once easy and indeed irresistible now needs to be liberated by some sort of mental ascesis.

C. S. Lewis, from “De Audiendis Poetis” Selection from “An Essay on Criticism”

by Alexander Pope

‘Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill; But, of the two, less dang’rous is th’ offence To tire our patience, than mislead our sense. Some few in that, but numbers err in this, Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; A fool might once himself alone expose, Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

‘Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own. In poets as true genius is but rare, True taste as seldom is the critic’s share; Both must alike from Heav’n derive their light, These born to judge, as well as those to write. Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well. Authors are partial to their wit, ’tis true, But are not critics to their judgment too?

Book List:

Othello by William Shakespeare

Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott

Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature by C. S. Lewis

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis by Jason Baxter

MacBeth by William Shakespeare

The Odyssey by Homer

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

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

Episode 158: Introduction to Aristotle’s “Poetics” Feb 07, 2023

On this episode of The Literary Life podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks open a new series of discussions about Aristotle’s work on story, Poetics. After sharing this week’s commonplace quotes, Thomas gives us some background on Aristotle and his time. Angelina points out the importance of differentiating between Aristotle’s work Rhetoric and Poetics and how they are applied. She and Thomas also talk about the problem of translating the Greek word “mimesis.” They discuss Aristotle’s thoughts on the characters in comedy and tragedy, as well as the complex concept of “arete.”

Thomas will be teaching a webinar on Jean Jacques Rousseau on February 24th. You can learn more and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Register now for our 5th Annual Literary Life Online Conference coming up in mid-April, Shakespeare: The Bard for All and for All Time. Get all the details and sign up today at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The supreme imaginative literature of the world is a survival of the fittest ink blots of the ages, and nothing reveals a man with more precision than his reaction to it.

The men who have loved Shakespeare best and have kept him most alive have all been Cadwals.

Harold Goddard

When we are young we all think we are going to remake the world…But in the end it is the world which remakes most of us.

Bruce Marshall

It is astonishing how little attention critics have paid to Story considered in itself. Granted the story, the style in which it should be told, the order in which it should be disposed, and (above all) the delineation of the characters, have been abundantly discussed. But the Story itself, the series of imagined events, is nearly always passed over in silence, or else treated exclusively as affording opportunities for the delineations of character. There are indeed three notable exceptions. Aristotle in the Poetics constructed a theory of Greek tragedy which puts Story in the centre and relegates character to a strictly subordinate place. In the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, Boccaccio and others developed an allegorical theory of Story to explain the ancient myths. And in our own time Jung and his followers have produced their doctrine of Archetypes. Apart from these three attempts the subject has been left almost untouched…

C. S. Lewis The Dead of Athens at Chalcis

by Simonides, trans. by F. L. Lucas

We died in the glen of Dirphys.

Here by our country’s giving

This tomb was heaped above us high on Euripus’ shore.

Twas earned, for young we lost the loveliness of living.

We took instead upon us the bursting storm of war.

Book List:

The Meaning of Shakespeare, Vol. 1 by Harold Goddard

The Fair Bride by Bruce Marshall

On Stories by C. S. Lewis

Northrop Frye

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Pamela by Samuel Richardson (not recommended)

An Experiment in Criticism 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 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

Episode 157: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Thomas Banks, Ep. 78 Jan 31, 2023

This week on the podcast, we bring you another of our “Best of The Literary Life Podcast” episode replays. On today’s episode we delve into the literary life of the mysterious Mr. Banks.

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 May

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 Northrop Frye

Classics to Grow On book set

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

Hawthorne’s Short Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The James Bond Dossier by Kingsley Amis

P. D. James

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Mishima (not recommended)

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 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

Episode 156: The “Best of” Series – Why Read Fairy Tales, Ep. 70 Jan 24, 2023

Welcome to another episode in our “Best of The Literary Life Podcast” series. 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.

Other Literary Life series openers referenced in this episode:

Episode 20: An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

Episode 71: Phantastes by George MacDonald

Episode 30: The Literary Life of Caitlin Beauchamp

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:

Phantastes by George MacDonald

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

Surprised by Joy 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 Angelina Stanford – House of Humane Letters.

Find Cindy at MorningTimeforMoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at Cindy Rollins – Writer. 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

Episode 155: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Wendi Capehart, Ep. 69 Jan 17, 2023

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, we have another installment in our “Best of The Literary Life Podcast series. This week’s replay is a special chat our hosts Angelina and Cindy had with Wendi Capehart. Wendi passed away in 2022, and this episode is in honor of her memory. Wendi was an adventurous mom of many and lived throughout Asia for many years. She spent the last several years enjoying the life of an at-home librarian, caring for her disabled daughter, and cherishing time with her 15 grandchildren. She also served on the AmblesideOnline Advisory board since its founding.

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 cover 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 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

Episode 154: The “Best of” Series – What Is the Literary Life?, Ep. 1 Jan 10, 2023

Welcome to this episode in our “Best of The Literary Life Podcast” series, this time replaying our very first episode! In this inaugural episode, Cindy and Angelina introduce the podcast and what they mean when they talk about having a “literary life.” Each of them share how stories have shaped their personal lives, as well as how they believe stories have the power to shape culture.

You can find and listen to the other 3 introductory episodes of The Literary Life mentioned in this replay at the links below-

Episode 2: The Interview Episode

Episode 3: The Importance of Detective Fiction

Episode 4: Gaudy Night, Ch. 1-3

Although the online conference mentioned at the end of this episode has long since come and gone, you can still purchase the replay at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The first reading of some literary work is often, to the literary, an experience so momentous that only experiences of love, religion, or bereavement can furnish a standard of comparison. Their whole consciousness is changed. They have become what they were not before.

C. S. Lewis

The storyteller is one speaking out of memory, out of more than memory, speaking out of a trust left to the memory of the one speaking.

Padraic Colum The Truisms

by Louis MacNeice

His father gave him a box of truisms Shaped like a coffin, then his father died; The truisms remained on the mantlepiece As wooden as the play box they had been packed in Or that his father skulked inside.

Then he left home, left the truisms behind him Still on the mantlepiece, met love, met war, Sordor, disappointment, defeat, betrayal, Till through disbeliefs he arrived at a house He could not remember seeing before.

And he walked straight in; it was where he had come from And something told him the way to behave. He raised his hand and blessed his home; The truisms flew and perched on his shoulders And a tall tree sprouted from his father’s grave.

Book List:

An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis

The Stone of Victory and Other Tales by Padriac Colum

Stratford Caldecott

Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Elizabeth Gaskell

Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Joseph Pieper

Gaudy Night by 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

Episode 153: Our Literary Lives of 2022 Dec 29, 2022

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts look back on their reading lives over the past year. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas each share a commonplace quote, then they each share a little about how they approach reading in a way that fits with the demands of their busy lives. Each of our hosts talks about their literary surprises, their most outstanding reads of the year, disappointing books they read, and their personal favorite podcast books from 2022. Angelina also reiterates why reading rightly is so important to us all!

Don’t forget to join us for the 2023 Reading Challenge! Get your books and Bingo cards ready!

Commonplace Quotes:

A good story isn’t told to make a point. A good story reflects the World God created. The point makes itself.

Timothy Rollins

“Blessed be Pain and Torment and every torture of the Body … Blessed be Plague and Pestilence and the Illness of Nations….

“Blessed be all Loss and the Failure of Friends and the Sacrifice of Love….

“Blessed be the Destruction of all Possessions, the Ruin of all Property, Fine Cities, and Great Palaces….

“Blessed be the Disappointment of all Ambitions….

“Blessed be all Failure and the ruin of every Earthly Hope….

“Blessed be all Sorrows, Torments, Hardships, Endurances that demand Courage….

“Blessed be these things–for of these things cometh the making of a Man….”

Hugh Walpole

I will not walk with your progressive apes, erect and sapient. Before them gapes the dark abyss to which their progress tends – if by God’s mercy progress ever ends, and does not ceaselessly revolve the same unfruitful course with changing of a name. I will not treat your dusty path and flat, denoting this and that by this and chat, your world immutable wherein no part the little maker has with maker’s art. I bow not yet before the Iron Crown, nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

J. R. R. Tolkien, from “Mythopoeia” A Selection from “The Secular Masque”

by John Dryden

All, all of a piece throughout; Thy chase had a beast in view; Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. 'Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new. Book and Link List:

Episode 60: Why Read Pagan Myths

Episode 124: The Abolition of Man (beginning of series)

Fortitude by Hugh Walpole

The Killer and the Slain by Hugh Walpole

The Old Ladies by Hugh Walpole

Cherringham Mystery Series by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards

Anthony Berkeley

Ronald Knox

Rex Stout

Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh

Henry the Eighth by Beatrice Saunders

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Captive Flames by Ronald Knox

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin

The Most Reluctant Convert by David C. Downing

The Truth and Beauty by Andrew Klavan

The Man Who Knew Too Much by G. K. Chesterton

The Rosettis in Wonderland by Dinah Roe

Just Passing Through by Winton Porter

The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories ed. by Martin Edwards

The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P. D. James

Edmund Crispin

Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley

Dorothy L. Sayers by Colin Duriez

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis by Jason Baxter

Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

I Live Under a Black Sun by Edith Sitwell

The Dwarf by Par Lagerkvist

You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Twist of the Knife by Anthony Horowitz

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (not recommended)

The Witness of the Stars by E. W. Bullinger (not recommended)

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Abolition of Man 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 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

Episode 152: Dracula At the Movies Dec 20, 2022

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are joined by Atlee Northmore to talk about film adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Atlee guides us through the timeline of Dracula film adaptations and, together with our hosts, talks about why these have fallen short of the book and how they have distorted people’s view of this story.

Head over to the HouseofHumaneLetters.com to get in on their sales through the end of 2022.

Check out the sales on past online conferences this Christmas over at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

Find Atlee’s list of Movies and Their Literary Roots in pdf form here. You can also view an infographic of his Dracula film adaptation timeline here.

Commonplace Quotes:

The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.

George MacDonald, as quoted in A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War

With all his passion for art he was not inclined to glorify the artist or to conceive of him as a superman producing masterpieces in his lonely pride. He thought of him rather as a workman who gave more than was asked from him from love of his work.

Arthur Clotton-Brock

Descartes did not begin with memory, with ‘Grammar’: he went straight to Thinking before going through Remembering.

Stratford Caldecott

The cinematic Dracula, however, is generally bereft of metaphysical gravity. It is his seductive humanity that fascinates. Close examination of the cinematic Dracula reveals a gradual stripping away of his metaphysical attributes and a progressive tendency to humanize him, until, at the end of this evolution, he is transformed into a postmodern tragic antihero in revolt against the injustice of the Christian God.

Jack Trotter, “The Cinematic Dracula: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker’s Dracula Hamlet’s Advice to the Players

by William Shakespeare

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

Book List:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War by Joseph Loconte

William Morris: His Work and Influence by Arthur Clutton-Brock

Dracula (Ignatius Critical Edition) by Bram Stoker

Hamlet 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 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

Episode 151: The Literary Life Podcast Reading Challenge 2023 Dec 13, 2022

This week on The Literary Life podcast our hosts introduce the 2023 Reading Challenge! Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are excited to share with you about all the categories on this year’s Literary Life Bingo Reading Challenge! You can download your own copy of the challenge here, as well as check out our past reading challenges. Scroll down in the show notes to see a list of the links and books mentioned in this episode. You can use the hashtag #LitLifeBingo on social media so we can all see what everyone is reading in 2023!

Don’t forget to shop the House of Humane Letters Christmas Sale now through the end of the year.

The Literary Life Back to School online conference recordings are also on sale at Morning Time for Moms right now.

Commonplace Quotes:

Much that we call Victorian is known to us only because the Victorians laughed at it.

George Malcolm Young, from Portrait of an Age

I think that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

Annie Dillard, from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Reading is to the mind as exercise is to the body.

Joseph Addison Thunderstorms

by William H. Davies

My mind has thunderstorms, That brood for heavy hours: Until they rain me words, My thoughts are drooping flowers And sulking, silent birds. Yet come, dark thunderstorms, And brood your heavy hours; For when you rain me words, My thoughts are dancing flowers And joyful singing birds. Book and Link List:

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie

Episode 14: “The Adventures of a Shilling” by Joseph Addison

Episode 3: The Importance of Detective Fiction

Episode 16: “Why I Write” by George Orwell

Reading Challenge Downloads

The Letters of Jane Austen by Jane Austen

Abigail Adams: Letters ed. by Edith Gelles

The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple ed. by G. C. Moore Smith

Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson

Letters to an American Lady by C. S. Lewis

Letters of C. S. Lewis by C. S. Lewis

Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien

Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor ed. by Sally Fitzgerald

Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman by Lord Chesterfield

The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Saga of the Volsungs by Anonymous

The Vision of Sir Launfal by James Russell Lowell

Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Ramayana of Valmiki ed. and trans. by Robert and Sally Goldman

The Prelude by William Wordsworth

Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton

The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

Mythos by Stephen Fry

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

P. G. Wodehouse

The Last Days of Socrates by Plato

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis

Champagne for the Soul by Mike Mason

Edges of His Ways by Amy Carmichael

The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox

Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey

Jane Austen

Patrick Leigh Fermor

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

Heroes by Stephen Fry

Troy by Stephen Fry

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

The Mabinogion trans. by Sioned Davies

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green

Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson

Cindy’s List of Literature of Honor for Boys (archived webpage)

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The Man Who Knew Too Much by G. K. Chesterton

The 39 Steps by John Buchan

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

The Well Read Poem

An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

The Truth and the Beauty by Andrew Klavan

The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill

Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill

Jacob’s Room is Full of Books by Susan Hill

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis by Jason Baxter

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Q’s Legacy by Helene Hanff

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

Episode 150: “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, Ch. 18-End Dec 06, 2022

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are back to wrap up their series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. They open with their commonplace quotes then begin diving into the major plot points and the connections being made. Angelina and Cindy discuss what happens to Mina, especially in relation to the idea of the New Woman versus the Angel in the House. Thomas and Angelina talk about Dracula’s background and his connection with Satan seen more clearly here at the end of the book. They all share thoughts on the Christian images that are increasingly brought out as the story line progresses.

Head over to the HouseofHumaneLetters.com so you don’t miss out on their Christmas sale. Kelly Cumbee will also be teaching a course on The Chronicles of Narnia and medieval cosmology in February, and registration is now open.

Now is the time to get your copy of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah in time for celebrating Advent with your family. You can also get a recording of the Advent to Remember webinar at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Rumor is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wav’ring multitude, Can play upon it.

William Shakespeare, from Henry IV, Part 2

There is the double tragedy of the prophet–he must speak out so that he makes men dislike him, and he must be content to believe that he is making no impression whatsoever.

Ronald Knox

Be wary of all earnestness.

John D. MacDonald

Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.

G. K. Chesterton, from The Red Angel The To-be-forgotten

by Thomas Hardy

I I heard a small sad sound, And stood awhile among the tombs around: "Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are you distrest, Now, screened from life's unrest?" II —"O not at being here; But that our future second death is near; When, with the living, memory of us numbs, And blank oblivion comes! III "These, our sped ancestry, Lie here embraced by deeper death than we; Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry With keenest backward eye. IV "They count as quite forgot; They are as men who have existed not; Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath; It is the second death. V "We here, as yet, each day Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say We hold in some soul loved continuance Of shape and voice and glance. VI "But what has been will be — First memory, then oblivion's swallowing sea; Like men foregone, shall we merge into those Whose story no one knows. VII "For which of us could hope To show in life that world-awakening scope Granted the few whose memory none lets die, But all men magnify? VIII "We were but Fortune's sport; Things true, things lovely, things of good report We neither shunned nor sought ... We see our bourne, And seeing it we mourn." Book List:

The Deep Blue Goodbye by John D. MacDonald

Tremendous Trifles by G. K. Chesterton

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

The Odd Women by George Gissing

Beowulf trans. by Burton Raffel

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

Episode 149: “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, Ch. 12-17 Nov 22, 2022

Our hosts are back on The Literary Life podcast today to continue our series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This week we are covering chapters 12-17, and in the introduction to this episode, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss the purpose of the Gothic novel in reorienting us to realize there is more to the world than the physical and empirical. As they cover the plot in these chapters, other ideas shared are the effective blending of modern technology with ancient wisdom in fighting evil, the many mythological and fairy tale elements in this story, the contrast between the true woman and the false woman, the parallels to Paradise Lost, and so much more.

Sign up for the mailing list at HouseofHumaneLetters.com so you don’t miss out on the upcoming Christmas sale. Kelly Cumbee will also be teaching a course on The Chronicles of Narnia and medieval cosmology in February, and registration is now open.

Now is the time to get your copy of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah in time for celebrating Advent with your family. You can also get a recording of the Advent to Remember webinar at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

He was one of that not uncommon sort of men who, when they want something, must believe that they are right in wanting it.

Milton Waldman

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe– Sailed on a river of crystal light, Into a sea of dew. “Where are you going, and what do you wish?” The old moon asked of the three. “We have come to fish for the herring fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of silver and gold have we!” Said Wynken, Blynken, And Nod.

Eugene Field, from “Wynkin, Blynken, and Nod”

During the period when the forces of Christianity were nearly spent and materialism had dislodged spiritual values, the Gothic novelists planned their novels with an awareness of the Deity and the consciousness of a just fate. The villains learn in due course that the wages of sin is death.

Devendra Varma Sonnet 71

by William Shakespeare

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell. Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it, for I love you so That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe. O, if, I say, you look upon this verse When I, perhaps, compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life decay, Lest the wise world should look into your moan And mock you with me after I am gone.

Book List:

Rod of Iron by Milton Waldman

The Gothic Flame by Devendra Varma

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

Episode 148: “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, Ch. 8-11 Nov 15, 2022

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast today and our series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This week Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks cover chapters 8-11 of the book. Angelina explains both the “New Woman” and “Angel in the House” ideas of the Victorian era and makes some observations about Dr. Seward’s interactions with Renfield in contrast to the nuns ministrations to Jonathan Harker. We are also introduced to Dr. Van Helsing in this section of the book as the foil for Dracula, and we quickly learn that he is more than just a medical man. Our hosts discuss Stoker’s own medical knowledge and both the historical and metaphorical context of the blood transfusion procedures in these chapters.

Thomas will be offering a webinar on Henry VIII and his times, which you can register for at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. Kelly Cumbee will also be teaching a course on The Chronicles of Narnia and medieval cosmology in February, and registration is now open.

Now is the time to get your copy of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah in time for celebrating Advent with your family. You can also get a recording of the Advent to Remember webinar at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Once the imagination has been awakened, it is procreative. Through it we can give more than we were given, say more than we had to say. This is a beautiful double proposition, that art enlarges our repertoire for being, and that it further enables a giving onwards of that enriched utterance, that broadened perception.

Lewis Hyde

The passions are more powerful than the gods. If the gods speak, which they seldom do, the passions drown their voices.

Walter Savage Lander

The gods love blood.

Leconte de Lisle What can the world be to him who lives for thought, if there be no supreme and perfect Thought? None but such poor struggles after thought as he finds in himself? Take the eternal Thought from the heart of things, no longer can any beauty be real, no more can shape, motion, aspect of nature, have significance in itself or sympathy with human soul. George MacDonald A Dream Within a Dream

by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?

Book List:

Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott

The Gifts of Reading by Robert Macfarlane

The Gift by Lewis Hyde

Imaginary Conversations by Walter Savage Landor

A Dish of Orts 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 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

Episode 147: “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, Ch. 3-7 Nov 08, 2022

On The Literary Life Podcast this week, our hosts continue with part 2 of their series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin discussing how to properly read Dracula and other books written in this tradition. (Hint: It’s not the Freudian or psychoanalytical approach!) Angelina argues that Bram Stoker was trying, among other things, to reintroduce the traditional forms and metaphors into the modern era. Thomas shares the dark etymology of the name Dracula and how that relates to the image of Satan in this character. Cindy brings up Jonathan’s memory of Mina when he is in his darkest moments and the power of love against evil.

Now is the time to get your copy of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah in time for celebrating Advent with your family. You can also get a recording of the Advent to Remember webinar at MorningTimeforMoms.com.

Thomas will be offering a webinar on Henry VIII and his times, which you can register for at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. Kelly Cumbee will also be teaching a course on The Chronicles of Narnia and medieval cosmology in February, and registration is now open.

Commonplace Quotes:

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Samuel Johnson

For, indeed, a change was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction of which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to era. The paths trodden by the footsteps of ages were broken up; old things were passing away, and the faith and the life of ten centuries were dissolving like a dream. Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to crumble into ruins; and all the forms desires, beliefs, convictions of the old world were passing away, never to return. A new continent had risen up beyond the western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness the universe. In the fabric of habit in which they had so laboriously built for themselves, mankind were to remain no longer.

And now it is all gone–like an unsubstantial pageant faded; and between us and the old English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the historian will never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagination can but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the aisles of the cathedral, only as we gaze upon their silent figures sleeping on their tombs, some faint conceptions float before us of what these men were when they were alive; and perhaps in the sound of church bells, that peculiar creation of mediæval age, which falls upon the ear like the echo of a vanished world.

James Anthony Froude

A man no more creates the forms of which he would reveal his thoughts, than he creates thoughts themselves. For what are the forms by means of which a man may reveal his thoughts? Are they not those of nature?…What springs there is the perception that this or that form is already an expression of this or that phase of thought or of feeling. For the world around him is an outward figuration of the condition of his mind; an inexhaustible storehouse of forms whence he may choose exponents…The meanings are in those forms already, else they could be no garment of unveiling.

George MacDonald A Selection from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea, And drew my eyes away; I looked upon the rotting deck, And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust.

Book List:

A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald

The History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth by James Anthony Froude

The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis

Studies in Words by C. S. Lewis

Wilkie Collins

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

Episode 146: Introduction to “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, Ch. 1 & 2 Nov 01, 2022

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford is joined as always by Thomas Banks and Cindy Rollins for the opening of their series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Today our hosts focus on the background and historical context for this piece of literature, as well as going over the highlights of the first two chapters. They talk about the question of the role of the monster in literature in modernity versus its historical interpretation. Understanding the form of the Gothic novel and the time period in which this book was written are important aspects of approaching Dracula.

Keep listening next week for more about how to read this book. We will be covering chapters 3-7.

Get the latest news from House of Humane Letters by signing up for their e-newsletter today!

Commonplace Quotes:

And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere modernity cannot kill.

Bram Stoker

That children should have the peace of God as a necessary condition of growth is a practical question. If we believe it is their right, not to be acquired by merit nor lost by demerit, we shall take less upon ourselves and understand that it is not we who pasture the young souls. The managing mother who interferes with every hour and every occupation of her child’s life, all because it is her duty, would tend to disappear. She would see with some amusement why it is that the rather lazy, self-indulgent mother, is often blessed with very good children. She, too, will let her children be, not because she is lazy, but being dutiful, she sees that, give children opportunity and elbow room, and they are likely to become natural persons, neither cranks nor prigs. And here is the hope for society–children so brought up are hardly likely to become managing persons in their turn, inclined to intrude upon the lives of others and be rather intolerable in whatever relation.

Charlotte Mason

Men of science spend much time and effort in the attempt to disentangle words from their metaphorical and traditional associations. The attempt is bound to prove vain, since it runs counter to the law of humanity.

Dorothy Sayers Ghosts

by Elizabeth Jennings

Those houses haunt in which we leave Something undone. It is not those Great words or silence of love

That spread their echoes through a place And fill the locked-up, unbreathed gloom. Ghosts do not haunt with any face

That we have known; they only come With arrogance to thrust at us Our own omissions in a room.

The words we would not speak they use, The deeds we dared not act they flaunt, Our nervous silences they bruise;

It is our helplessness they choose And our refusals that they haunt.

Book List:

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Wake Not the Dead by Johann Ludwig Tieck

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Vampyre by John Polidori

Varney the Vampire by James Malcolm Rymer

Carmilla by Sheridan Lefanu

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

Episode 145: The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: A Conversation with Jason M. Baxter Oct 18, 2022

On The Literary Life Podcast this week, our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks sit down for a special conversation with Jason Baxter, author of The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis. Jason is a speaker, writer, and college professor who writes primarily on medieval thought and is especially interested in Lewis’ ideas. You can find out more about him and his books at JasonMBaxter.com.

Our hosts and Jason discuss a wide range of ideas, including the values of literature, the sacramental view of reality, why it is important to understand medieval thought, the “problem” of paganism in Lewis’ writings, and how to approach reading ancient and medieval literature.

Be back next week when we will begin digging into Bram Stoker’s Dracula together and learning more about this late Victorian Gothic novel. It’s not what you might think!

Get the latest news from House of Humane Letters by signing up for their e-newsletter today!

Commonplace Quotes:

My part has been merely that of Walter Scott’s Old Mortality, who busied himself in clearing the moss, and bringing back to light the words, on the gravestones of the dead who seemed to him to have served humanity. This needs to be done and redone, generation after generation, in a world where there persists always a strong tendency to read newer writers, not because they are better, but because they are newer. The moss grows fast, and ceaselessly.

F. L. Lucas

It is the memory of time that makes us old; remembering eternity makes us young again.

Statford Caldecott

It is my settled conviction that in order to read old Western literature aright, you must suspend most of the responses and unlearn most of the habits you have acquired in reading modern literature.

C. S. Lewis, from “De Descriptione Temporum”

What then is the good of–what is even the defense for–occupying our hearts with stories of what never happened and entering vicariously into feeling which we should try to avoid in our own person?…The nearest I have yet got to an answer is that we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves…[In] reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

C. S. Lewis Victory

by C. S. Lewis

Roland is dead, Cuchulain’s crest is low, The battered war-rear wastes and turns to rust, And Helen’s eyes and Iseult’s lips are dust And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow.

The faerie people from our woods are gone, No Dryads have I found in all our trees, No Triton blows his horn about our seas And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon.

The ancient songs they wither as the grass And waste as doth a garment waxen old, All poets have been fools who thought to mould A monument more durable than brass.

For these decay: but not for that decays The yearning, high, rebellious spirit of man That never rested yet since life began From striving with red Nature and her ways.

Now in the filth of war, the baresark shout Of battle, it is vexed. And yet so oft Out of the deeps, of old, it rose aloft That they who watch the ages may not doubt.

Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod, Yet, like the phoenix, from each fiery bed Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head And higher-till the beast become a god.

Book List:

Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott

An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis

The Art of Living: Four Eighteenth Century Minds by F. L. Lucas

Transposition by C. S. Lewis

The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis

Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

The Divine Comedy by Dante

Nicholas of Cusa

The Life of St. Francis of Assisi by St. Bonaventure

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

Confessions by St. Augustine

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

Episode 144: “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, Bk. 3, Ch. 4-End Oct 11, 2022

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts wrap up their series on Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Angelina opens the conversation about the book by highlighting Dickens’ masterful ability to tie up all the loose ends in his stories. They cover not only the major plot points here at the end of the book, but talk about the craft of Dickens and continue to teach us how to read this type of story. We see each character’s full arc and the positive changes that come when people choose repentance versus the fate of those who remain stubbornly on the road to destruction.

Join us next time for a special conversation with Jason Baxter, author of The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis.

After that, we will be digging into Bram Stoker’s Dracula together and learning more about this late Victorian Gothic novel. It’s not what you might think!

Head over to MorningTimeforMoms.com to get signed up for Dawn Duran’s webinar on “A Reasoned Patriotism,” taking place later this week!

Get the latest news from House of Humane Letters by signing up for their e-newsletter today!

Commonplace Quotes:

It is not the business of poetry to go about distributing tracts.

Andrew Lang

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people of very ordinary literary ability that they could write excellent continuations of The Screwtape Letters.

Fred Sanders

In the Bible, the opposite of Sin, with a capital ‘S,’ is not virtue – it’s faith: faith in a God who draws all to himself in his resurrection.

Robert Farrar Capon

Reviewers who have not had time to reread Milton have failed for the most part to digest your criticism of him, but it is a reasonable hope that of those who heard you in Oxford, many will understand henceforward that when the old poets made some virtue their theme they were not teaching but adoring, and that what we take for the didactic is often the enchanted.

C. S. Lewis Say not the Struggle nought Availeth

by Arthur Hugh Clough

Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright.

Book List:

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

Between Noon and Three by Robert Farrar Capon

A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis

The Gifts of Reading by Robert MacFarlane

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

That Hideous Strength 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 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

Episode 143: “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, Bk. 3, Ch. 1-3 Oct 04, 2022

On The Literary Life this week our hosts cover the next section of Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Angelina opens the conversation highlighting the structure of the book and the storytelling devices Dickens uses in this book. Cindy talks about the failure of educational systems in general, and the confrontation between Louisa and her father. Thomas shares a little about Jeremy Bentham and his utilitarian economic theory in relation to Hard Times. One of the main points they discuss in today’s episode is the importance of motherhood and the quiet work that goes on in the family unit.

Head over to MorningTimeforMoms.com to get signed up for Dawn Duran’s webinar on “A Reasoned Patriotism.”

Commonplace Quotes:

Persuasion enters like a sunbeam, quietly and without violence.

Jeremy Taylor

To me the greatness of the story, the horror of the story, and the threat to humanity the story portrays lie in the fact that Frankenstein has usurped the power, not of God, but of women. He has made a man without a mother. His science has eliminated the principle of femininity from the creation of human life.

Through the miracle of science a woman can now medicate her body so that men may use it for pleasure without consequence or attachment.

Andrew Klavan

In the first place, we naturally wish to help the students in studying those parts of the subject where we have most help to give and they need help most. On recent and contemporary literature their need is least and out help least. They ought to understand it better than we, and if they do not then there is something radically wrong either with them or with the literature. But I need not labour the point. There is an intrinsic absurdity in making current literature a subject of academic study, and the student who wants a tutor’s assistance in reading the works of his own contemporaries might as well ask for a nurse’s assistance in blowing his own nose.

C. S. Lewis, from “Our English Syllabus” Death and the Lady

by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

TURN in, my lord, she said ; As it were the Father of Sin I have hated the Father of the Dead, The slayer of my kin ; By the Father of the Living led, Turn in, my lord, turn in. We were foes of old ; thy touch was cold, But mine is warm as life ; I have struggled and made thee loose thy hold, I have turned aside the knife. Despair itself in me was bold, I have striven, and won the strife. But that which conquered thee and rose Again to earth descends ; For the last time we have come to blows. And the long combat ends. The worst and secretest of foes, Be now my friend of friends.

Book List:

Holy Living and Dying by Jeremy Taylor

The Truth and the Beauty by Andrew Klavan

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

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

Episode 142: “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, Book 2, Ch. 6-9 Sep 27, 2022

Welcome back to The Literary Life this week and the continuation of our series on Hard Times by Charles Dickens. After some autumnal chit-chat, our hosts Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas dive into the plot of the end of Book 2. They open discussing Stephen’s fate and Tom Gradgrind’s destructive, devouring nature. They highlight Mrs. Sparsit and her similarities to a harpy and other imagery surrounding her denoting evil. Some other ideas discussed are good intentions with bad results, the concept of the fallen woman in Victorian times, Louisa’s homecoming and confession, and the failure of a formula in imparting virtue.

Head over to MorningTimeforMoms.com to get signed up for Dawn Duran’s webinar on “A Reasoned Patriotism.”

Commonplace Quotes:

Beware of the superficial knowledge of cold facts. Beware of sinful ratiocination, for it kills the heart, and when heart and mind have died in a man, there art cannot dwell.

Caspar David Friedrich

I don’t think they are noticeably worse at reading or writing than they were all those decades ago, though they’re less likely to have a lot of experience with the standard academic essay (introduction, three major points, conclusion) — which I do not see as a major deficiency. That kind of essay was never more than a highly imperfect tool for teaching students how to read carefully and write about what they have read, and, frankly, I believe that over the years I have come up with some better ones.

Alan Jacobs, from Snakes and Ladders

The hours of unsponsored, uninspected, perhaps even forbidden, reading, the ramblings, and the “long, long thoughts” in which those of luckier generations first discovered literature and nature and themselves are a thing of the past.

C. S. Lewis, from “Lilies that Fester” A Daughter of Eve

by Christina Rossetti

A fool I was to sleep at noon, And wake when night is chilly Beneath the comfortless cold moon; A fool to pluck my rose too soon, A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept; Faded and all-forsaken, I weep as I have never wept: Oh it was summer when I slept, It’s winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future spring And sun-warm’d sweet to-morrow:— Stripp’d bare of hope and everything, No more to laugh, no more to sing, I sit alone with sorrow.

Book List:

The World’s Last Night: and Other Essays by C. S. Lewis

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Esther Waters by George Moore

Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

Pictures from Italy 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 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

Episode 141: “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, Book 2, Ch. 1-5 Sep 20, 2022

The Literary Life Podcast’s new episode this week continues our series on Hard Times by Charles Dickens. After Angelina ties up a few loose ends from Book 1, Thomas leads us into Book 2 and introduces us to Mr. Harthouse. Cindy highlights the dangers of not allowing children learn self-government as illustrated in the character of Tom Gradgrind. They then look again at Stephen Blackpool and his position as the martyr in the story. Our hosts also discuss Dickens’ focus on demonstrating the problems facing people in his day, not moralizing or trying to present solutions.

Head over to MorningTimeforMoms.com to get signed up for Dawn Duran’s webinar on “A Reasoned Patriotism.”

You can also get the replay of Angelina’s mini-class on The Taming of the Shrew at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

It is ill for a country, Gentlemen – I fear we must acknowledge it – when her destiny passes into the guidance of professors.

Arthur Quiller-Couch, from “Studies in Literature”

It is the old story. Utilitarian education is profoundly immoral in that it defrauds a child of the associations which should give him intellectual atmosphere.

Charlotte Mason

That evil may spring from the imagination, as from everything except the perfect love of God cannot be denied. But infinitely worse evils would be the result of its absence. Selfishness, avarice, sensuality, cruelty, would flourish tenfold; and the power of Satan would be well established ere some children had begun to choose. Those who would quell the apparently lawless tossing of the spirit, called the youthful imagination, would suppress all that is to grow out of it. They fear the enthusiasm they never felt; and instead of cherishing this divine thing, instead of giving it room and air for healthful growth, they would crush and confine it–with but one result of their victorious endeavors–imposthume, fever, and corruption. And the disastrous consequences would soon appear in the intellect likewise which they worship. 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 The Golf Links

by Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn

The golf links lie so near the mill That almost every day The laboring children can look out And see the men at play.

Book List:

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason

A Dish of Orts 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 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

Episode 140: “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, Book 1, Ch. 11-16 Sep 13, 2022

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts continue their series on Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas open the conversation with their commonplace quotes, which all lead into the discussion of Hard Times. They start out highlighting once again the fairytale and allegory aspects of this story, including the setting of Coketown. Together they talk about the two sides of Sissy Jupe’s education, along with the situations and portrayals of the other key characters in this section. A large part of the discussions centers around the ideas of input and output versus sowing and reaping.

Purchase the recordings of our 2022 Back to School Conference at MorningTimeforMoms.com. That is also where you can get signed up for Dawn Duran’s webinar on “A Reasoned Patriotism.”

You can also get the replay of Angelina’s mini-class on The Taming of the Shrew at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

The ways of authorship are dusty and stony, and the stones are only too handy for throwing at the few that, deservedly or undeservedly, have made a name.

Andrew Lang, from “How to Fail in Literature”

To taboo knowledge is not to secure innocence. We must remember that ignorance is not innocence, and also that ignorance is the parent of insatiable curiosity.

Charlotte Mason

Early in 1851, Dickens suggested in Household Words that a second exhibition be held of “England’s sins and negligences.” When he finally went to the Crystal Palace, he described it as “terrible duffery.” He wrote in July 1851, “I find I am used up by the exhibition. I don’t say there is nothing in it. There is too much. I have only been twice. So many things bewildered me. I have a natural horror of sights, and the fusion of so many sights in one has not decreased it. I’m not sure that I have seen anything but the fountain and perhaps the Amazon. It is a dreadful thing to be obliged to be false, but when anyone says, ‘Have you seen…?’ I say, ‘Yes’, because if I don’t he’ll explain it, and I can’t bear that.

Julia Baird, quoting Charles Dickens from “Ode On a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy”

by Thomas Hood

Ah me! those old familiar bounds! That classic house, those classic grounds My pensive thought recalls! What tender urchins now confine, What little captives now repine, Within yon irksome walls?

Ay, that’s the very house! I know Its ugly windows, ten a-row! Its chimneys in the rear! And there’s the iron rod so high, That drew the thunder from the sky And turn’d our table-beer!

There I was birch’d! there I was bred! There like a little Adam fed From Learning’s woeful tree! The weary tasks I used to con!— The hopeless leaves I wept upon!— Most fruitless leaves to me!—

The summon’d class!—the awful bow!— I wonder who is master now And wholesome anguish sheds! How many ushers now employs, How many maids to see the boys Have nothing in their heads!

Book List:

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason

The Ink Black Heart (Cormoran Strike Book 6) by Robert Galbraith

Victoria: The Queen by Julia Baird

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

Episode 139: “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, Bk. 1, Ch. 1-10 Sep 06, 2022

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life, we begin our fall series on Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas start out the book chat by covering some of the differences between this book and other novels of his, as well as how to approach Dickens in general. They also discuss misrepresentations of Dickens as a social reformer, the allegorical and fairy tale elements of his works, and what keys to look for as you read through Hard Times. Thomas talks about Utilitarianism in educational reform, and Cindy highlights the ideas of Charlotte Mason in connection with Victorian times. Angelina brings out the references to imagination in these first chapters and the danger of distorting the child’s imagination.

Purchase the recordings of our 2022 Back to School Conference at MorningTimeforMoms.com. That is also where you can get signed up for Dawn Duran’s webinar on “A Reasoned Patriotism.”

You can also get the replay of Thomas’ webinar on Evelyn Waugh or register for Angelina’s mini-class on The Taming of the Shrew at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

But already the Utilitarian citadel had been more heavily bombarded on the other side by and lonely and unlettered man of genius. The rise of Dickens is like the rising of a vast mob. This is not only because his tales are indeed as crowded and populous as towns: for truly it was not so much that Dickens appeared as that as hundred Dickens characters appeared.

G. K. Chesterton, from The Victorian Age in Literature

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, from A Preface to Paradise Lost

Never be without a really good book on hand. If you find yourself sinking to a dull, commonplace level, with nothing particular to say, the reason is probably that you are not reading, and therefore, not thinking.

Charlotte Mason, as quoted by Essex Cholmondeley in The Story of Charlotte Mason from “Among School Children”

by William Butler Yeats

Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Book List:

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Life of Our Lord by Charles Dickens

A Child’s History of England by Charles Dickens

“Why Should Businessmen Read Great Literature?” by Vigen Guroian

“The Fantastic Imagination” 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 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

Episode 138: In Search of the Austen Adaptation: Sense and Sensibility Aug 02, 2022

Today on The Literary Life Podcast we bring you another fun episode in our “In Search of the Austen Adaptation” series. Hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are joined by resident film aficionado, Atlee Northmore to discuss film adaptations on Sense and Sensibility. The conversation opens by revisiting the question of what makes a good adaptation of a book when translating it for the screen. They talk about the challenges of showing modern audiences the characters and situations as Jane Austen meant them to be understood. Atlee gives a brief overview of the lesser known film adaptations, as well as a more in depth discussion of the 1995 and 2008 versions. You can access the PDF he created with links to watch here.

You are not too late to join in this year’s Back to School Online Conference! Go to MorningTimeforMoms.com to register and get in on the great talks, always live or later!

Commonplace Quotes:

Sound principles that are old may easily be laid on the shelf and forgotten, unless in each successive generation a few industrious people can be found who will take the trouble to draw them forth from the storehouse.

Thomas Ruper, as quoted by Karen Glass

His senile fury was not exhausted by endless repetition.

Eric Linklater

‘Remember, no one is made up of one fault, everyone is much greater than all his faults,’ and then she would add with a smile: ‘I find it much easier to put up with people’s faults than with their virtues!’

Charlotte Mason, as quoted by Essex Cholmondeley

The great abstract nouns of the classical English moralists are unblushingly and uncompromisingly used: good sense, courage, contentment, fortitude, some duty neglected, some failing indulged, impropriety, indelicacy, generous candor, blameable distrust, just humiliation, vanity, folly, ignorance, reason. These are the concepts by which Jane Austen grasps the world. In her we still breathe the air of the Rambler and Idler. All is hard, clear, definable; by some modern standards, even naïvely so. The hardness is, of course, for oneself, not for one’s neighbours. It reveals to Marianne her want ‘of kindness’ and shows Emma that her behaviour has been ‘unfeeling’. Contrasted with the world of modern fiction, Jane Austen’s is at once less soft and less cruel.

C. S. Lewis Selection from With a Guitar, To Jane

by Percy Shelley

Ariel to Miranda:-- Take This slave of music, for the sake Of him who is the slave of thee; And teach it all the harmony In which thou canst, and only thou, Make the delighted spirit glow, Till joy denies itself again And, too intense, is turned to pain. For by permission and command Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, Poor Ariel sends this silent token Of more than ever can be spoken; Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who From life to life must still pursue Your happiness,-- for thus alone Can Ariel ever find his own. From Prospero's enchanted cell, As the mighty verses tell, To the throne of Naples he Lit you o'er the trackless sea, Flitting on, your prow before, Like a living meteor. When you die, the silent Moon In her interlunar swoon Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel. Book List:

In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass

The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley

Robert the Bruce by Eric Linklater

C. S. Lewis’ Selected Literary Essays edited by Walter Hooper

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

Episode 137: Why Pastors Should Read Fiction Jul 26, 2022

This week on The Literary Life podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks, we have a very special episode for you. Our hosts are joined by guests Dan Bunting and Anthony Dodgers, both of whom are pastors, for a discussion on why pastors should read fiction books. Dan is also host of the the Reading the Psalms podcast. Angelina starts off the conversation by asking why these men would prioritize taking literature classes. Anthony shares about his own literary life journey and how rediscovering literature has helped him personally. Dan talks about the book club that he and a couple of his pastor friends have and what kinds of books they read together. They discuss many other deep topics and crucial questions that we hope will be encouraging and thought-provoking to everyone who listens to and shares this episode.

Join us for the 2022 Back to School Conference, “Education: Myths and Legends” happening live online this August 1st-6th. Our special guest speakers will be Lynn Bruce and Caitlin Beauchamp, along with our hosts Cindy Rollins, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks. Learn more and register today at Morning Time for Moms.

Commonplace Quotes:

If education is beaten by training, civilization dies.

C. S. Lewis, from “Our English Syllabus”

How am I a hog and me both?

Flannery O’Connor

He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.

Freidrich Schiller

Whoever wants to become a Christian, must first become a poet.

St. Porphyrios of Kafsokalivia

It is hard to have patience with those Jeremiahs, in press or pulpit, who warn us that we are “relapsing into paganism”. It might be rather fun if we were. It would be pleasant to see some future Prime Minister trying to kill a large and lively milk-white bull in Westminster Hall. But we shan’t. What lurks behind such idle prophecies, if they are anything but careless language, is the false idea that the historical process allows mere reversal; that Europe can come out of Christianity “by the same door as in she went”, and find herself back where she was. It is not what happens. A post-Christian man is not a Pagan; you might as well think that a married woman recovers her virginity by divorce. The post-Christian is cut off from the Christian past, and therefore doubly from the Pagan past.

C. S. Lewis, from “De Descriptione Temporum” A Boy in Church

by Robert Graves

‘Gabble-gabble, . . . brethren, . . . gabble-gabble!’ My window frames forest and heather. I hardly hear the tuneful babble, Not knowing nor much caring whether The text is praise or exhortation, Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation. Outside it blows wetter and wetter, The tossing trees never stay still. I shift my elbows to catch better The full round sweep of heathered hill. The tortured copse bends to and fro In silence like a shadow-show. The parson’s voice runs like a river Over smooth rocks, I like this church: The pews are staid, they never shiver, They never bend or sway or lurch. ‘Prayer,’ says the kind voice, ‘is a chain That draws down Grace from Heaven again.’ I add the hymns up, over and over, Until there’s not the least mistake. Seven-seventy-one. (Look! there’s a plover! It’s gone!) Who’s that Saint by the lake? The red light from his mantle passes Across the broad memorial brasses. It’s pleasant here for dreams and thinking, Lolling and letting reason nod, With ugly serious people linking Sad prayers to a forgiving God . . . . But a dumb blast sets the trees swaying With furious zeal like madmen praying.

Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh

Asterix Comics by René Goscinny

Tin Tin by Herge

Sigrid Undset

Giants in the Earth by Ole Rolvaag

Roald Dahl

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

John Donne

George Herbert

The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

Graham Greene

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse edited by Donald Davie

Waiting on the Word by Malcolm Guite

Word in the Wilderness by Malcolm Guite

Reflections on the Psalms 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 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

Episode 136: Two for ’22 Reading Challenge Check-In Jul 19, 2022

This week on The Literary Life podcast our hosts give an update on their progress with the “Two for ’22” Literary Life Reading Challenge. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas share their commonplace quotes, then begin going over each category and talking about their progress and the various books they have chosen so far. Scroll down in the show notes for all the book titles mentioned and affiliate links to them on Amazon.

Download the adult reading challenge PDF here, and the kids’ reading challenge PDF here. The Literary Life Commonplace Books published by Blue Sky Daisies are always available for purchase, as well!

Join us for the 2022 Back to School Conference, “Education: Myths and Legends” happening live online this August 1st-6th. Our special guest speakers will be Lynn Bruce and Caitlin Beauchamp, along with our hosts Cindy Rollins, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks. Learn more and register today at Morning Time for Moms.

Check out Episode 3: The Importance of the Detective Novel.

Commonplace Quotes:

Nobody seems great to his dwarf.

Par Lagerkvist

What is true of nature is also true of freedom. The half-baked Rousseau-ism in which most of us have been brought up has given us a subconscious notion that the free act is the untrained act. But of course, freedom has nothing to do with the lack of training. We are not free to move until we have learned ot walk. We are not free to express ourselves musically until we have learned music. We are not capable of free thought unless we can think. Similarly, free speech cannot have anything to do with the mumbling and grousing of the ego. Free speech is cultivated and precise speech, which means that there are far too many people who are neither capable of it nor would know if they had lost it. A group of individuals who retain the power and desire of genuine communication is a society. An aggregate of egos is a mob.

Northrop Frye

He had had a choice, after all. The army had been keen to keep him, even with half his leg missing. Friends of friends had offered everything from management roles in the close protection industry to business partnerships, but the itch to detect, solve, and reimpose order on the moral universe could not be extinguished in him. He doubted it ever would be.

Robert Galbraith The Composer

by W. H. Auden

All the others translate: the painter sketches A visible world to love or reject; Rummaging into his living, the poet fetches The images out that hurt and connect. From Life to Art by painstaking adaption Relying on us to cover the rift; Only your notes are pure contraption, Only your song is an absolute gift. Pour out your presence, O delight, cascading The falls of the knee and the weirs of the spine, Our climate of silence and doubt invading; You, alone, alone, O imaginary song, Are unable to say an existence is wrong, And pour out your forgiveness like a wine. Book List:

The Dwarf by Par Lagerkvist

The Well-Tempered Critic by Northrop Frye

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason

Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

Poet’s Corner by John Lithgow

Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott

The Wise Woman by George MacDonald

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

Paradise Lost by John Milton

The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris

Phantastes by George MacDonald

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott

Evelina by Fanny Burney

The Boys by Ron and Clint Howard

The Most Reluctant Convert by David C. Downing

Dorothy L. Sayers by Colin Duriez

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Silas Marner by George Eliot

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

An Old Man’s Love by Anthony Trollope

She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare

Timon of Athens by Williams Shakespeare

The Trojan Women by Euripedes

Antigone by Sophocles

The Rehearsal by George Villiers

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis by Jason M. Baxter

The Oxford Inklings by Colin Duriez

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks

Wintering by Katherine May

The Eternal Husband by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Aeneid by Virgil

A Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell

The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards

DC Smith Investigation Series by Peter Grainger

Nero Wolfe Series by Rex Stout

Anthony Horowitz

Simon Serrailler Series by Susan Hill

P. D. James

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

The Leavenworth Case by Anna Catherine Green

Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley

David Bentley Hart

Joseph 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

Episode 135: The Literary Life of Jone Rose Jul 12, 2022

Welcome back to this long awaited return of The Literary Life podcast and a new “Literary Life of…” interview episode with Angelina, Cindy and their guest Jone Rose. Jone is a “super-fan” of the podcast and is a homeschool mom living in North Carolina. Today Angelina starts off the interview asking about Jone’s childhood reading life and school experience. Jone shares how her own adult literary education didn’t start until after she had been homeschooling her own children for several years. In addition to discussing the redemption of Jone’s own education, they talk about what her reading life looks like now, how narration helps make connections and increase understanding, asking better questions, and so much more!

Join us for the 2022 Back to School Conference, “Education: Myths and Legends” happening live online this August 1st-6th. Our special guest speakers will be Lynn Bruce and Caitlin Beauchamp, along with our hosts Cindy Rollins, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks. Learn more and register today at Morning Time for Moms.

Commonplace Quotes:

Surely this great writer would provide me with a definitive definition which showed me all the answers. He didn’t, and I was naive to expect him to. Generally, what is more important than getting watertight answers is learning to ask the right questions.

Madeleine L’Engle

Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become named; and naming is one of the impulses behind all art, to give a name to the cosmos we see, despite all the chaos.

Madeleine L’Engle

I am inclined to think that her work is in danger of being overlaid by too many interpreters and the simplicity of her message needs preserving.

Essex Cholmondeley from Ode: Intimations of Immortality

by William Wordsworth

Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. Book List:

Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy

The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley

Brother Cadfael Series by Ellis Peters

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

The Magician’s Nephew 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 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

Episode 134: “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame, Part 4 Jun 07, 2022

In this week’s episode of The Literary Life, our hosts wrap up their series on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Angelina, Thomas and Cindy talk about these final chapters of the book, covering some key ideas such as the siren song of the Sea Rat, Toad’s inability to see himself rightly, the echoes of Homer’s Odyssey, examples of bad discussion questions, and what makes this such a lasting book.

It’s not too late to join Cindy’s Summer Discipleship group! Head over the MorningTimeforMoms.com to register.

Thomas will be teaching an introductory course on Russian Literature in July 2022. Learn more and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Secrets had an immense attraction for him, because he never could keep one.

Kenneth Grahame

It is a reasonable hope that those who heard you in Oxford, many will understand henceforth that when the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching, but adoring, and that which we take for the didactic is often the enchanted.

C. S. Lewis

A childhood without books–that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.

Astrid Lindgren Mr. Toad’s Song

by Kenneth Grahame

The world has held great Heroes, As history-books have showed; But never a name to go down to fame Compared with that of Toad!

The clever men at Oxford Know all that there is to be knowed. But they none of them knew one half as much As intelligent Mr. Toad!

The animals sat in the Ark and cried, Their tears in torrents flowed. Who was it said, ” There’s land ahead ” ? Encouraging Mr. Toad!

The Army all saluted As they marched along the road. Was it the King? Or Kitchener? No. It was Mr. Toad!

The Queen and her Ladies-in-waiting Sat at the window and sewed. She cried, ” Look! who’s that handsome man? “ They answered, ” Mr. Toad. “

Book List:

Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Seacrow Island by Astrid Lindgren

Wild Wood by Jan Needle (not a recommendation)

The Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame

Pagan Papers 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 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

Episode 133: “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame, Part 3 May 31, 2022

On The Literary Life podcast this week, our hosts are joined in their discussion of The Wind in the Willows by Kelly Cumbee. Angelina, Cindy, Thomas and Kelly talk about chapters 7-8, focusing special attention on a section of this book that presents a potential problem for some readers. Angelina opens with background on the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the concept of “the Numinous,” and the popularity of the Pan character in Edwardian times. Thomas gives us a classical picture of who Pan was in mythology. Kelly then speaks to the Medieval understanding of the figure of Pan and the pastoral tradition along with their connections with Christ. They also address concerns over neo-paganism in relation to this book. If you want more discussion on mythology in literature, tune in to Episode 60: Why Read Pagan Myths.

Cindy’s 2022 Morning Time for Moms Summer Discipleship group is now open for registration. The theme this year is “Laughter and Lament.” Head over to morningtimeformoms.com to find out more and sign up!

Thomas will be teaching an introductory course on Russian Literature in July 2022. Learn more about his classes, as well as Kelly Cumbee’s classes, and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Dictionaries are like watches. The worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Samuel Johnson

“Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is the nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill.”

Bram Stoker

This malady of unbelief, again, is common to serious minds, educated to examine all things before they know the things they criticise by the slow, sure process of assimilating ideas. If we would but receive it, we are not capable of examining that which we do not know; and knowledge is the result of a slow, involuntary process, impossible to a mind in the critical attitude. Let us who teach spend time in the endeavour to lay proper and abundant nutriment before the young, rather than in leading them to criticise and examine every morsel of knowledge that comes their way. Who could live if every mouthful of bodily food were held up on a fork for critical examination before it be eaten?

Charlotte Mason

Suppose you were told that there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told “There is a ghost in the next room,” and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is “uncanny” rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply “There is a might spirit in the room” and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking–described as awe, and the object which excites it is the Numinous.

C. S. Lewis To Find God

by Robert Herrick

Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find A way to measure out the wind? Distinguish all those floods that are Mixed in that wat’ry theater, And taste thou them as saltless there, As in their channel first they were. Tell me the people that do keep Within the kingdoms of the deep; Or fetch me back that cloud again, Beshivered into seeds of rain. Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and spears Of corn, when summer shakes his ears; Show me that world of stars, and whence They noiseless spill their influence. This if thou canst; then show me Him That rides the glorious cherubim.

Book List:

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason

The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis

Letters to Children by C. S. Lewis

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

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

Episode 132: “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame, Part 2 May 24, 2022

Today on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts continue their discussion of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas kick off the book discussion by clarifying some confusion over the definition of a picaresque novel. They share some thoughts on the how stories communicate to us in a unique way that cannot easily be expressed in any other way. Other ideas brought up in this episode are the following: the home as a refuge from the world, the centrality of food and drink, friendship with an addict, the problem of trying to use books to teach virtue, and more!

Cindy’s 2022 Morning Time for Moms Summer Discipleship group is now open for registration. The theme this year is “Laughter and Lament.” Head over to morningtimeformoms.com to find out more and sign up!

Thomas will be teaching a webinar on Napoleon Bonaparte later this month, as well as an introductory course on Russian Literature in July 2022. Learn more and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

A work of art speaks a truth we can’t speak outright: the truth of the human experience. Love, joy, grief, guilt, beauty–no words can communicate these. We can only represent them in stories and pictures and songs. Art is the way we speak the meaning of our lives.

Andrew Klavan

He is led more by his ears than his understanding, taking the sound of words for their true sense…His ill-luck is not so much in being a fool, as in being put to such pains to express it to the world, for what in others is natural, in him (with much ado) is artificial.

Thomas Overbury, in “A Mere Scholar”

Granted that the average man may live for seventy years, it is a fallacy to assume that his life from sixty to seventy is more important than his life from five to fifteen. Children are not merely people: they are the only really living people that have been left to us in an over-weary world. Any normal child will instinctively to agree with your own American poet, Walt Whitman, when he said: “To me every house of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

In my tales about children, I have tried to show that their simple acceptance of the mood of wonderment, their readiness to welcome a perfect miracle at any hour of the day or night, is a think more precious than any of the laboured acquisition of adult mankind…

Kenneth Grahame To Althea, from Prison

by Richard Lovelace

When Love with unconfinèd wings Hovers within my Gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the Grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered to her eye, The Gods that wanton in the Air, Know no such Liberty.

When flowing Cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames, Our careless heads with Roses bound, Our hearts with Loyal Flames; When thirsty grief in Wine we steep, When Healths and draughts go free, Fishes that tipple in the Deep Know no such Liberty.

When (like committed linnets) I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, Mercy, Majesty, And glories of my King; When I shall voice aloud how good He is, how Great should be, Enlargèd Winds, that curl the Flood, Know no such Liberty.

Stone Walls do not a Prison make, Nor Iron bars a Cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an Hermitage. If I have freedom in my Love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above, Enjoy such Liberty.

Book List:

The Truth and Beauty by Andrew Klavan

First Whisper of “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

“On Three Ways of Writing for Children” by C. S. Lewis

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Children and Books by Mayhill Arbuthnot and Zena Sutherland

The Adventure of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

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

Episode 131: “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame, Part 1 May 17, 2022

Grahame. Angelina, Thomas and Cindy set out to introduce this book in its historical and literary context, as well as address a few of the challenges people may have on their first reading of The Wind in the Willows. They also discuss some other pertinent topics such as Edwardian cultural concerns, the form of this novel, the rebirth images in the opening chapters, and the echoes of this book in other literature.

Cindy’s 2022 Morning Time for Moms Summer Discipleship group is now open for registration. The theme this year is “Laughter and Lament.” Head over to morningtimeformoms.com to find out more and sign up!

Thomas will be teaching a webinar on Napoleon Bonaparte later this month, as well as an introductory course on Russian Literature in July 2022. Learn more and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

There is no vice so simple but assumes/ Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

William Shakespeare, from The Merchant of Venice

A boat will not answer to the rudder unless it is in motion. The poet can work upon us only as long as we are kept on the move.

C. S. Lewis, from his Preface to Paradise Lost

One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and, if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can’t criticize it, because it is criticizing us. But I must give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don’t be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgement on my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgment on yourself. You may be worth: I don’t know, but it is you who are on trial.

A. A. Milne Sonnet to the River Otter

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have passed, What happy and what mournful hours, since last I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny ray, But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes, Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way, Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood’s cares, yet waking fondest sighs: Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

Book List:

The Golden Age by Kenneth Grahame

Dream Days by Kenneth Grahame

The Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie

Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers

P. G. Wodehouse

Leisure the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Kenneth Grahame: A Biography by Peter Green

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

Episode 130: "The Enchanted April" Film Adaptations May 03, 2022

Our Literary Life podcast hosts are back this week, along with Atlee Northmore, to wrap up their discussion of The Enchanted April with some thoughts on the various film adaptations of this enchanting book. After expanding on their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy, Thomas and Atlee start the film talk with the “dreadful” 1935 RKO version. Then they move on to dig in to how Enchanted April was and brought to the big screen in 1991 and why it worked so well as an adaptation of the novel.

Our next book will be The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, starting May 17th, so be sure to join us for that as well!

Cindy’s 2022 Morning Time for Moms Summer Discipleship group is now open for registration. The theme this year is “Laughter and Lament.” Head over to morningtimeformoms.com to find out more and sign up!

Thomas will be teaching an introductory course on Russian Literature in July 2022. Learn more and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

No matter how much experience we may gather in life, we can never in life get the dimension of experience that the imagination gives us. Only the arts and sciences can do that; and of these, only literature gives us the whole sweep and range of human imagination as it sees itself. It seems to be very difficult for many people to understand the reality and intensity of literary experience.

Northrop Frye

Education is always an individual endeavor. In terms of a future renewal, much of it will depend on a commitment to individualism, something that has been much maligned in recent years. We hear so much trendy, tedious talk about how bad individualism is and how we need to think in terms of “the group.” The problem is that the group usually offers conformity, not genuine community.

Morris Berman

And yet, we are still being taught that fairy tales and myths are to be discarded as soon as we are old enough to understand “reality.” I received a disturbed and angry letter from a young mother who told me that a friend of hers with young children gave them only instructive books. She wasn’t going to allow their minds to be polluted with fairy tales. They were going to be taught the “real world.” This attitude is a victory for the powers of this world. A friend of mine, a fine storyteller, remarked to me, “Jesus was not a theologian. He was a God Who told stories.” Yes, God Who told stories.

Madeleine L’Engle

The general fate of sects is to obtain a high reputation for sanctity while they are oppressed, and to lose it as soon as they become powerful.

Thomas Macaulay To Italy

by Percy Shelley

As the sunrise to the night, As the north wind to the clouds, As the earthquake's fiery flight, Ruining mountain solitudes, Everlasting Italy, Be those hopes and fears on thee. Book List:

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye

The Twilight of American Culture by Morris Berman

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

The History of England by Thomas Macaulay

Tea with the Dames documentary

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

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

Episode 129: “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim, Ch. 12-22 Apr 26, 2022

This week on The Literary Life podcatst, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas continue their discussion of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim, on chapters 12-22. Angelina and Thomas begin the conversation sharing some thoughts on modern literature and why we don’t hear of modern authors like Elizabeth von Arnim among “the academy.” Cindy tells us what stood out to her most in the second half of the book and the surprising turns von Arnim takes in the storyline. Angelina and Thomas also talk about the types of books they enjoy, and Cindy brings up the longings and fears of the various characters. The metaphors and fairy tale concepts found in this book are, of course, major topics of the conversation.

Return next week when we will discuss the film versions of The Enchanted April. Our next book will be The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, starting in May, so be sure to join us for that as well!

Cindy’s 2022 Morning Time for Moms Summer Discipleship group is now open for registration. The theme this year is “Laughter and Lament.” Head over to morningtimeformoms.com to find out more and sign up!

Thomas will be teaching an introductory course on Russian Literature in July 2022. Learn more and register at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Keeping up with the Joneses was a full time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level.

Quentin Crisp

Here is a matter which sometimes causes uneasiness to parents: they are appalled when they think of the casual circumstances and chance people that may have a lasting effect upon their children’s characters. But their part is, perhaps, to exercise ordinary prudence and not over-much direction. They have no means of knowing what will reach a child; whether the evil which blows his way may not incline him to good, or whether the too-insistent good may not predispose him to evil. Perhaps the forces of life as they come should be allowed to play upon the child, who is not, be it remembered, a product of educational care, but a person whose spiritual nurture is accomplished by that wind which bloweth whither it listeth.

Charlotte Mason, Formation of Character

Chaste and ardent eros for the Beautiful is the first task of human life, and falling in love with Beauty is the beginning of every adventure that matters.

Timothy Patitsas

To be sure, there are limits and patterns governing the transposition of beauty into truth, such that it can never be mapped fully in the reductive way some would insist. It was never my desire to write a truth-first book about the beauty-first approach to ethics. Beauty creates its own structure, a form that may not be perfectly linear and symmetrical, but which is still harmonious and beneficial, and in its odd way, perfectly accurate. Through the surprising order of the beautiful, reason participates in and discloses living mystery as mystery. That is, when it starts with an eros for the beautiful, reason is able to announce to the world what mystery is, that which interprets and changes us, just when we manage to engage with it and interpret it.

Timothy Patitsas Summer Dawn

by William Morris

Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars. The summer night waneth, the morning light slips, Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars That are patiently waiting there for the dawn: Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold Waits to float through them along with the sun. Far out in the meadows, above the young corn, The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun; Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn, Round the lone house in the midst of the corn, Speak but one word to me over the corn, Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn. Book List:

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Ethics of Beauty by Timothy Patitsas

Katherine Mansfield

Barbara Pym

The Narnian by Alan Jacobs

Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim

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

Episode 128: “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim, Ch. 1-11 Apr 19, 2022

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks. This week our hosts begin their discussion of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim, covering chapters 1-11. Thomas gives some interesting biographical information about von Arnim, and Angelina shares some perspective on appreciating the art and the life of artist. Cindy highlights the fact that we see only caricatures of the women in England, and it isn’t until they get to Italy that we begin to see their real selves. Angelina also points out that all the women are on identity quests in this story. Angelina unpacks some of the metaphors in this book and the Dante-esque images, in addition to the key place beauty has in the story. Commonplace Quotes:

Whoso maintains that I am humbled now

(Who await the Awful Day) is still a liar;

I hope to meet my Maker brow to brow

And find my own is higher.

Frances Cornford, “Epitaph for a Book Reviewer”

“(The) sufferer is by definition a customer.”

Wendell Berry, from The Art of the Commonplace

Beauty will save the world.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky Sonnet 98

by William Shakespeare

From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer’s story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight Drawn after you, – you pattern of all those. Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow I with these did play. Book List:

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

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

Episode 127: The Literary Life of Kay Pelham Mar 29, 2022

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts are bringing you another “Literary Life Of” interview episode. This week’s guest is Kay Pelham, a lifelong reader, veteran homeschooling mother, and accomplished pianist. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy and Kay dig into their conversation about the journey of Kay’s reading life. She shares a little about her family of story-tellers and readers, her personal reading versus school studies, and how her reading life changed as a young adult. Kay also talks about how she came to homeschool using Charlotte Mason’s philosophy. The discussion turns to Kay’s self-education journey as an older adult and she gives encouragement for anyone coming to this later in life. You can read Kay’s own thoughts on books and more at KayPelham.com.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

When children come to school, they can read and speak. When they leave school they can do neither the one nor the other.

Arthur Burrell, from “Recitation, the Children’s Art” in The Parent’s Review

It is my settled conviction that in order to read Old Western Literature aright, you must suspend most of the responses and unlearn most of the habits you have acquired in reading modern literature.

C. S. Lewis

Mythology is the embryo of literature and the arts, not of science, and no form of art has anything to do with making direct statements about nature, mistaken or correct. Similarly, as science does not grow out of mythology, so it can never replace mythology. Mythology is recreated by the poets in each generation, while science goes its own way.

Northrup Frye Mozart

by Maurice Baring

The sunshine, and the grace of falling rain, The fluttering daffodil, the lilt of bees, The blossom on the boughs of almond trees, The waving of the wheat upon the plain— And all that knows not effort, strife or strain, And all that bears the signature of ease, The plunge of ships that dance before the breeze The flight across the twilight of the crane: And all that joyous is, and young, and free, That tastes of morning and the laughing surf; The dawn, the dew, the newly turned-up turf, The sudden smile, the unexpressive prayer, The artless art, the untaught dignity,— You speak them in the passage of an air.

Books Mentioned:

Creation and Recreation by Northrup Frye

If I Were Going: The Alice and Jerry Basic Reader by Mabel O’Donnell

My Bookhouse edited by Olive B. Miller

Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Boys by Ron and Clint Howard

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

Episode 126: "The Abolition of Man" by C. S. Lewis, Ch. 3 Mar 22, 2022

On today’s episode of The Literary Life, our hosts wrap up their series on The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis. Angelina kicks off today’s conversation about chapter 3 with more exploration and clarification of the concept of “the Tao.” Cindy talks about the importance of respect for the past and how much we have lost by letting go of that. Thomas highlights the fact that so many education theorists were men who never had reared children and the difference that a mother’s experience makes. One of the main themes of this discussion is the state of education and Lewis’ prescient insight into our current cultural climate. Lewis also goes beyond criticizing scientism by laying out his vision for good science.

We will be back next week with a “Literary Life of…” interview with a surprise guest. After that we will take a short break for the conference, and return in April with a read along of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

Only in destroying I find ease for my relentless thoughts.

Satan in Paradise Lost, by John Milton

…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 physical sciences, good and innocent in themselves, had already begun to be warped, had been subtly maneuvered in a certain direction. Despair of objective truth had been increasingly insinuated into the scientists; indifference to it, and a concentration upon mere power, had been the result.

C. S. Lewis, in That Hideous Strength Who Has Seen the Wind?

by Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by. Book List:

Paradise Lost by John Milton

The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

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

Episode 125: “The Abolition of Man” by C. S. Lewis, Ch. 2 Mar 15, 2022

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas continue their series of discussions on The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis. They open the conversation with their commonplace quotes and give us a working definition of debunking. You can also read a fantastic post on debunking from Kelly Cumbee’s blog here. Other topics of this conversation include “the tao,” objective reality, utilitarianism, finding wisdom, and how this book speaks to our current culture.

Kelly Cumbee will be teaching a webinar on The Tempest by William Shakespeare this Thursday, March 17, 2022 at 5pm Eastern, so head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to register today.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

A Scottish proverb, as quoted by Joseph Addison

“Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”

“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”

C. S. Lewis

Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set.

Proverbs 22:28 (NKJV) Inexpensive Progress

by John Betjeman

Encase your legs in nylons, Bestride your hills with pylons O age without a soul; Away with gentle willows And all the elmy billows That through your valleys roll. Let's say goodbye to hedges And roads with grassy edges And winding country lanes; Let all things travel faster Where motor car is master Till only Speed remains. Destroy the ancient inn-signs But strew the roads with tin signs 'Keep Left,' 'M4,' 'Keep Out!' Command, instruction, warning, Repetitive adorning The rockeried roundabout; For every raw obscenity Must have its small 'amenity,' Its patch of shaven green, And hoardings look a wonder In banks of floribunda With floodlights in between. Leave no old village standing Which could provide a landing For aeroplanes to roar, But spare such cheap defacements As huts with shattered casements Unlived-in since the war. Let no provincial High Street Which might be your or my street Look as it used to do, But let the chain stores place here Their miles of black glass facia And traffic thunder through. And if there is some scenery, Some unpretentious greenery, Surviving anywhere, It does not need protecting For soon we'll be erecting A Power Station there. When all our roads are lighted By concrete monsters sited Like gallows overhead, Bathed in the yellow vomit Each monster belches from it, We'll know that we are dead. Book List:

The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

That Hideous Strength 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 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

Episode 124: “The Abolition of Man” by C. S. Lewis, Ch. 1 Mar 08, 2022

On The Literary Life podcast this week, our hosts begin a much-anticipated series on The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis. Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy share their commonplace quotes to open the discussion, then they give some background on this particular work. They talk about the ideas behind the “new criticism” approach to literature and why it is so problematic. Angelina and Thomas expand on the significance of the concept of the sublime. Cindy shares some thoughts on learning to identify and to produce good writing. Angelina helps us connect Lewis’ points about ordo amoris with our current day dilemmas. Other topics touched on in their conversation are the nature of objective reality, the tripartite soul, the medieval view of Reason, debunking the ideal of honor, and so much more.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

The modern state exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good–anyway, to do something to us or make us something. Hence the new name “leaders” for those who were once “rulers.” We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, “Mind your own business.” Our whole lives are their business.

C. S. Lewis, from “Is Progress Possible?”

It is good for a professional to be reminded that his professionalism is only a husk, that the real person must remain an amateur, a lover of the work.

May Sarton

In truth, he wished to command the respect at once of courtiers and of philosophers, to be admired for attaining high dignities, and to be at the same time respected for despising them.

Thomas Macaualy Duty Surviving Self-Love, The Only Sure Friend Of Declining Life. A Soliloquy

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' Wanings should'st thou fret? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou may'st--shine on! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite: And tho' thou notest from thy safe recess Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, Love them for what they are; nor love them less, Because to thee they are not what they were. Book List:

The History of England from the Accession of James II by Thomas Macaulay

The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis

That Hideous Strength 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 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

Episode 123: In Search of the Austen Adaptation – Emma Feb 22, 2022

Our hosts are back on The Literary Life podcast this week with another fun episode in our series “In Search of the Austen Adaptation.” In this episode, Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas are joined again by Atlee Northmore to discuss the several film versions of Jane Austen’s Emma. To start the conversation, Angelina highlights the challenges of adapting Emma to film. Atlee outlines the major film adaptations of Emma. Then they discuss the ups and downs of the various adaptations, as well as casting, personal favorites and production choices.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

In all our literary experience there are two kinds of response. There is the direct experience of the world itself, while we’re reading a book or seeing a play, especially for the first time. This experience is uncritical, or rather pre-critical, so it’s not infallible. If our experience is limited, we can be roused to enthusiasm or carried away by something that we can later see to have been second-rate or even phony. Then there is the conscious, critical response we make after we’ve finished reading or left the theatre, where we compare what we’ve experienced with other things of the same kind, and form a judgment of value and proportion on it. This critical response, with practice, gradually makes our pre-critical responses more sensitive and accurate, or improves our taste, as we say. But behind our responses to our literary experience as a whole, as a total possession.

Northrup Frye

Reason thus with life:

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep.

William Shakespeare

A boat will not answer to the rudder unless it is in motion; the poet can work upon us only as long as we are kept on the move.

C. S. Lewis

The wit of Jane Austen has for partner the perfection of her taste. Her fool is a fool, her snob is a snob, because he departs from the model of sanity and sense which she had in mind, and conveys to us unmistakably even while she makes us laugh. Never did any novelist make more use of an impeccable sense of human values. It is against the disc of an unerring heart, an unfailing good taste, an almost stern morality, that she shows up those deviations from kindness, truth, sincerity which are among the most delightful things on English literature.

Virginia Woolf Selection from “Epistle to a Lady, Of the Characters of Women”

by Alexander Pope

Say, what can cause such impotence of mind? A Spark too fickle, or a Spouse too kind. Wise wretch! with pleasures too refin’d to please; With too much spirit to be e’er at ease; With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought: You purchase Pain with all that Joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live. Book List:

Emma by Jane Austen

Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian

The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye

Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis

The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf

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

Episode 122: The Literary Life of Timilyn Downey Feb 15, 2022

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are bringing you another Literary Life of interview episode. This week’s guest is Timilyn Downey, and together with hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins dig into how Timilyn became a lifelong reader. Timilyn shares about the incredibly literary childhood education that she had without even realizing it at the time. She also tells the story of her trip to London during college, then goes into how she used a literary approach in her teaching career. Timilyn also describes her journey to homeschooling and the role that God’s grace clearly played in where she is now.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

The founding of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was not as programmatic or formal as its name suggests, but rather evolved out of a series of pub discussions and informal get-togethers.

Carolyn Weber

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.

Charles MacKay

On a Saturday afternoon in winter, when nose and fingers might be pinched enough to give an added relish to the anticipation of tea and fireside, and the whole week-end’s reading lay ahead, I suppose I reached as much happiness as is ever to be reached on earth.

C. S. Lewis from “Among School Children”

by William Butler Yeats

VII Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose. And yet they too break hearts—O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise— O self-born mockers of man's enterprise; VIII Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? Book List:

The Rossetti’s in Wonderland by Dinah Roe

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

Little Britches by Ralph Moody

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

The Arabian Nights by Muhsin Mahdi

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

Morning Time by Cindy Rollins

Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian

D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths by Ingri and Edgar D’Aulaire

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

Episode 121: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Acts 4 and 5 Feb 08, 2022

On The Literary Life podcast this week, we will wrap up our series on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Our hosts, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas walk through the last two acts of the play, sharing their thoughts on the structure and ideas presented here. Angelina talks about why she thinks Shakespeare resolves the different conflicts the way he does. They discuss the importance of the play within the play, the fairy tale atmosphere, and the unreality of time and space. Cindy and Angelina both bring up plot points that feel slightly problematic to them. Angelina highlights the theme of harmonizing discord and bringing order from disorder.

On February 8th, Angelina will be offering a webinar on Jonathan Swift: Enemy of the Enlightenment. Check it out at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

Revolutionaries always hang their best friends.

Christopher Hollis

It is easy to forget that the man who writes a good love sonnet needs not only be enamored of a woman, but also to be enamored of the sonnet.

C. S. Lewis

For the end of imagination is harmony. A right imagination, being the reflex of the creation, will fall in with the divine order of things as the highest form of its own operation; “will tune its instrument here at the door” to the divine harmonies within; will be content alone with growth towards the divine idea, which includes all that is beautiful in the imperfect imagination of men; will know that every deviation from that growth is downward; and will therefore send the man forth from its loftiest representations to do the commonest duty of the most wearisome calling in a hearty and hopeful spirit. This is the work of the right imagination; and towards this work every imagination, in proportion to the rightness that is in it, will tend. The reveries even of the wise man will make him stronger for his work; his dreaming as well as his thinking will render him sorry for past failure, and hopeful of future success.

George MacDonald Earth’s Secret

by George Meredith

Not solitarily in fields we find Earth's secret open, though one page is there; Her plainest, such as children spell, and share With bird and beast; raised letters for the blind. Not where the troubled passions toss the mind, In turbid cities, can the key be bare. It hangs for those who hither thither fare, Close interthreading nature with our kind. They, hearing History speak, of what men were, And have become, are wise. The gain is great In vision and solidity; it lives. Yet at a thought of life apart from her, Solidity and vision lose their state, For Earth, that gives the milk, the spirit gives. Book List:

Fossett’s Memory by Christopher Hollis

A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald

A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

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

Episode 120: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III Feb 01, 2022

Today on The Literary Life podcast, we continue our series on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with coverage of Act 3. Angelina talks about the pacing of this act and the importance of the characters’ madcap, lunatic behavior. She also highlight’s Shakespeare’s wrestling with the relationship between the imagination and art and reality. Thomas highlights the structure of the play as reflecting a dreamlike state. Cindy shares some of her thoughts on being concerned about making sure our children know what is real and pretend.

On February 8th, Angelina will be offering a webinar on Jonathan Swift: Enemy of the Enlightenment. Check it out at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

The most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life.

Samuel Pepys, describing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in his diary

Or the lovely one about the Bishop of Exeter, who was giving the prizes at a girls’ school. They did a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the poor man stood up afterwards and made a speech and said [piping voice]: ‘I was very interested in your delightful performance, and among other things I was very interested in seeing for the first time in my life a female Bottom.’

C. S. Lewis in a conversation with Kingsley Amis and Brian Aldiss

Still, if Homer’s Achilles isn’t the real Achilles, he isn’t unreal either. Unrealities don’t seem so full of life after three thousand years as Homer’s Achilles does. This is the kind of problem we have to tackle next–the fact that what we meet in literature is neither real nor unreal. We have two words, imaginary, meaning unreal, and imaginative, meaning what the writer produces, and they mean entirely different things.

Northrop Frye A Dream

by William Blake

Once a dream did weave a shade O'er my angel-guarded bed, That an emmet lost its way Where on grass methought I lay. Troubled, wildered, and forlorn, Dark, benighted, travel-worn, Over many a tangle spray, All heart-broke, I heard her say: "Oh my children! do they cry, Do they hear their father sigh? Now they look abroad to see, Now return and weep for me." Pitying, I dropped a tear: But I saw a glow-worm near, Who replied, "What wailing wight Calls the watchman of the night? "I am set to light the ground, While the beetle goes his round: Follow now the beetle's hum; Little wanderer, hie thee home!" Book List:

Of Other Worlds by C. S. Lewis

The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Golden Ass by Apuleius

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

Episode 119: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Acts I and II Jan 25, 2022

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and our series on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. After kicking off the episode with their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas start digging into the play itself. Thomas brings up the importance of the timing of this story being midsummer. Angelina gives a little background into the names and characters in this play as well as some of the major ideas we can be looking for in the story.

In February Angelina will be offering a webinar on Jonathan Swift: Enemy of the Enlightenment. Check it out at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.

John Dryden, in a letter to Jonathan Swift

It would be difficult indeed to define wherein lay the peculiar truth of the phrase “merrie England”, though some conception of it is quite necessary to the comprehension of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In some cases at least, it may be said to lie in this, that the English of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, unlike the England of today, could conceive of the idea of a merry supernaturalism.

G. K. Chesterton

And yet, there are people who say that Shakespeare always means, “just what he says.” He thinks that to find over and under meanings 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 no man at all, let alone a poet.

Harold Goddard Advice to Lovers

by Robert Graves

I knew an old man at a Fair Who made it his twice-yearly task To clamber on a cider cask And cry to all the yokels there:-- "Lovers to-day and for all time Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him. "Whistle, and Love will come to you, Hiss, and he fades without a word, Do wrong, and he great wrong will do, Speak, he retells what he has heard. "Then all you lovers have good heed Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not pardon nor forget." The old man's voice was sweet yet loud And this shows what a man was he, He'd scatter apples to the crowd And give great draughts of cider, free. Book List:

“Battle of the Books” by Jonathan Swift

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

Mansfield Park 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 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

Episode 118: An Intro to Shakespeare and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Jan 18, 2022

Welcome to this new season of The Literary Life podcast! This week we bring you an introduction both to William Shakespeare and his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas seek to give new Shakespeare readers a place from which to jump into his work and more experienced readers eyes to see more layers in his stories. Cindy begins with some perspective on how to start cultivating a love for Shakespeare. Angelina shares her “hot take” on whether you should read the play or watch the play. They suggest some books for further digging into Shakespeare’s works, and Angelina gives an overview of the format of his comedies. Thomas goes into some detail about Roman comedy.

Next week we will be back with a discussion of Acts I and II of the play. Also, if you would like to join the free live read-along over at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Join us this spring for our next Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian. The live online conference will take place April 7-9, 2022, and you can go to HouseofHumaneLetters.com for more information.

Commonplace Quotes:

If certain tendencies within our civilization were to proceed unchecked, they would rapidly take us towards a society which, like that of a prison, would be both completely introverted and completely without privacy. The last stand of privacy has always been, traditionally, the inner mind….It is quite possible, however, for communications media, especially the newer electronic ones, to break down the associative structures of the inner mind and replace them by the prefabricated structures of the media . A society entirely controlled by their slogans and exhortations would be introverted because nobody would be saying anything: there would only be echo, and Echo was the mistress of Narcissus….the triumph of communication is the death of communication: where communication forms a total environment, there is nothing to be communicated.

Northrop Frye

No writer can persist for five hundred pages in being funny at the expense of someone who is dead.

Harold Nicolson

Originality was a new and somewhat ugly idol of the nineteenth century.

Janet Spens Unwisdom

by Siegfried Sassoon

To see with different eyes From every day, And find in dream disguise Worlds far away— To walk in childhood's land With trusting looks, And oldly understand Youth's fairy-books— Thus our unwisdom brings Release which hears The bird that sings In groves beyond the years. Book List:

“The Practice of Biography” by Harold Nicolson

The Modern Century by Northrop Frye

An Essay on Shakespeare’s Relation to Tradition by Janet Spens

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

Stage Fright on a Summer Night by Mary Pope Osborne

Leon Garfield’s Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield

Stories from Shakespeare by Marchette Chute

Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare by Isaac Asimov

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

Shakespeare’s Problem Plays by E. M. Tillyard

Shakespeare’s Early Comedies by E. M. Tillyard

Shakespeare’s History Plays by E. M. Tillyard

Great Stage of Fools by Peter Leithardt

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

Episode 117: Our 2021 Literary Life Reading Wrap-up Dec 14, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas share a wrap up of their year in reading–their favorite books of the year, their most hated books read in 2021, and how they each did with covering the categories of the #LitLife192021 Reading Challenge. They also talk a little about how they will be approaching their reading for next year.

Download the Two for ’22 adult reading challenge PDF here, and the kids’ reading challenge PDF here.

The Literary Life Commonplace Books published by Blue Sky Daisies are back with new covers for 2022! Also, check out the Christmas sale at HouseofHumaneLetters.com!

Coming up on The Literary Life podcast in the new year, we have Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream coming up in January and after that, Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis. Then we will be reading The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim and Charles Dickens’ Hard Times later in the year. Our children’s classic novel this year will be The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Commonplace Quotes:

Literature’s world is a concrete human world of immediate experience. The poet uses images and objects and sensations much more than he uses abstract ideas. The novelist is concerned with telling stories, not with working out arguments.

Northrop Frye

The moon is the only one of the heavenly bodies that, whilst rising resplendently like the other luminaries, nevertheless changes and waxes and wanes as we do.

Malcolm Guite

I almost think that the same skin

For one without has two or three within.

Lord Byron, from “Don Juan” The Poetry of Shakespeare

by George Meredith

Picture some Isle smiling green ‘mid the white-foaming ocean; – Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays; Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like above it; Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warm’d by one great human heart.

Book List:

Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah by Cindy Rollins

The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye

Faith, Hope, and Poetry by Malcolm Guite

David’s Crown by Malcolm Guite

Savior of the World by Charlotte Mason

The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side by Agatha Christie

Anthony Horowitz

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Hiking Through by Paul Stutzman

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Wintering by Katherine May

The Narnian by Alan Jacobs

In the Year of Our Lord 1943 by Alan Jacobs

Elizabeth Goudge

Assignment in Brittany by Helen Macinnes

Look Back with Love by Dodie Smith

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

The Atonement by Ian McEwan

Desmond MacCarthay

David Cecil

Letters by a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens

Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells

The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Odd Women by George Gissing

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

If Walls Could Talk by Lucy Worsley

Corsets and Codpieces by Karen Bowman

*The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall (not recommended)

*Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt (not recommended)

MacBeth by William Shakespeare

As the Indians Left It by Robert Sparks Walker

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth

A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and A World War by Joseph Laconte

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Neil Gaiman

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

Mythos by Stephen Fry

Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope

Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope

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

Episode 116: The “Two for ’22” Literary Life Reading Challenge Dec 07, 2021

“Two for ’22” Literary Life Reading Challenge! This coming year Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are challenging us to read books in 11 categories, but choose 2 books in each category, with a bit of a twist. In today’s episode they briefly go over each category and give a few examples of books would fit into those categories. They also take us through the Kids’ “Two for ’22” Reading Challenge topics. Next time we will be back with a wrap-up episode for our 19 for 2022 Reading Challenge.

The Literary Life Commonplace Books published by Blue Sky Daisies are back with new covers for 2022!

Coming up on The Literary Life podcast in the new year, we have Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dreamcoming up in January and after that, Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis. Then we will be reading The Enchanted Aprilby Elizabeth von Arnim and Charles Dickens’ Hard Times later in the year. Our children’s classic novel this year will be The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Commonplace Quotes:

The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful. One must sense him everywhere, but not see him.

Gustave Flaubert

There reigns thro’ all the blank verse poems such a perpetual trick of moralizing every thing–which is very well, occasionally–but never to see or describe any interesting appearance in nature, without connecting it by dim analogies with the moral world, proves faintness of Impression. Nature has her proper interest; and he will know what it is, who believes and feels, that everything has a Life of its own, and that we are all one Life.

Malcolm Guite

The principle behind modern methods of reading is stated in the form: if there is to be a meaning, it shall be ours.

C. S. Lewis There is No Frigate Like a Book

by Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry – This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll – How frugal is the Chariot That bears the Human Soul –

Book List:

Faith, Hope and Poetry by Malcolm Guite

The Allegory of the Faerie Queene by Pauline Parker

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

The Splendid Century by W. H. Lewis

The Fellowship by Philip and Carol Zaleski

Bandersnatch by Diana Pavlac Goyer

Tolkein and The Great War by John Garth

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe and a Great War by Joseph Loconte

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin

Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey

Elizabeth the Great by Elizabeth Jenkins

The Daughter of Time by Josephine They

Elizabeth von Arnim

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

J. K. Rowling/Roberth Galbraith

A Collection of Essays by George Orwell

Essays of G. K. Chesterton by G. K. Chesterton

David Bentley Hart

In a Cardboard Belt! by Joseph Epstein

Padraic Colum

The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Bill Peet: An Autobiography by Bill Peet

Kingfisher Book of Russian Tales by James Mayhew

Paul Galdone

The Cooper Kids Adventure Series by Frank Peretti

Harriet the Spy Series by Louise Fitzhugh

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

Episode 115: In Search of the Austen Adaptation – Pride and Prejudice Nov 30, 2021

This week on The Literary Life podcast we have a fun episode for you to kick off a fun series of episodes that will come up from time to time, “In Search of the Austen Adaptation.” This week our hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are joined by Atlee Northmore, and together they are debating which film version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is the best. Atlee shares some of the history of the Pride and Prejudice adaptations that were made for TV and film. Angelina highlights different ideas of what makes a good film adaptation of a book. Cindy brings up the importance of the casting, and Angelina talks about why she still feels like no film has gotten Mr. Darcy right. She also talks about the difficulty of embodying the virtues that Jane Austen gives her characters. Our hosts critique each major movies from over the decades, sharing what they like and dislike about each one.

Click here to download the PDF Atlee created for all the Pride and Prejudice film adaptations.

Commonplace Quotes:

If we cannot get the better of life, at any rate, we can be so free as to laugh at it.

Desmond MacCarthy

Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader’s mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial.

Virginia Woolf

The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.

G. K. Chesterton

Never judge a book by its movie.

Anonymous False Though She Be

by William Congreve

FALSE though she be to me and love, I'll ne'er pursue revenge; For still the charmer I approve, Though I deplore her change. In hours of bliss we oft have met: They could not always last; And though the present I regret, I'm grateful for the past. Book List:

The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf

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

Episode 114: The Literary Life of Dr. Carolyn Weber Nov 23, 2021

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to bring you a much anticipated interview with Dr. Carolyn Weber, author of the popular memoir, Surprised by Oxford. She is also currently a professor at New College Franklin. To keep up with Carolyn, visit carolynweber.com or follow her on Facebook. Angelina and Cindy kick off the conversation by asking Carolyn about her childhood and how she came to love reading. They talk about her experience in school education and whether that differed from her personal reading life. Carolyn talks about her love of teaching and her immersive literary education experience at Oxford. She also expands on the way that reading the Bible for the first time opened her eyes to so many more of the truths in the literature she had read.

Commonplace Quotes:

Unexpectedly, it was Oxford that taught me it was okay to be both feminine and smart, that intelligence was, as a friend put it, a “woman’s best cosmetic.”

Carolyn Weber

I’m like an addict when it comes to books. Compelled to read, understand, savor, wrangle with, be moved by, learn to live from these silent companions who speak so loudly. Surely some language must have a word for such a “book junkie”?

Carolyn Weber

We must not, that is, try to behave as though the Fall had never occurred nor yet say that the Fall was a Good Thing in itself. But we may redeem the Fall by a creative act.

Dorothy Sayers Batter my heart, three-person’d God

by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. Book List:

Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber

Holy Is the Day by Carolyn Weber

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

Mousekins books by Edna Miller

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Paradise Lost by John Milton

The Crosswicks Journals by Madeleine L’Engle

Elizabeth Goudge

Frederick Buechner

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass by Adrian Plass

A Small Cup of Light by Ben Palpant

Letters from the Mountain by Ben Palpant

Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon

Come Away, My Beloved by Frances J. Roberts

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

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

Episode 113: “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen, Vol. 3, Ch. 9-17 Nov 16, 2021

Welcome to the final episode in our series covering Mansfield Park by Jane Austen here on The Literary Life podcast. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas dive right into the book chat today in order to cover as much as possible as they wrap up Fanny Price’s story. Angelina brings out the parallels to Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Cindy talks about how Julia and Maria’s upbringing is instructive for parents. Another topic is how, in a way, the characters continue their roles from “Lover’s Vows” in real life unless they repent. Our hosts also highlight Fanny’s journey toward finding a home throughout this story.

Get in on the Western Films and Fiction webinar on November 22nd with Thomas and James Banks! Register here to join in! Also, check out the House of Humane Letters newsletter to get in on the read-a-long of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

To view the schedule for upcoming episodes, see our Upcoming Events page. Also, if you want to join our members-only forum off Facebook, check out our Patreon page to learn more!

Commonplace Quotes:

To educate means to help the human soul enter into the totality of the real.

Luigi Giussani, from the forward to Beauty for Truth’s Sake

The man who is endowed with logical astuteness is very apt to keep himself in practice by taking up indefensible positions for the fun of defending them.

G. M. Young

Information can thrill, but only once.

Wendell Berry Amoretti Sonnet XXII

by Edmund Spenser

This holy season, fit to fast and pray, Men to devotion ought to be inclin'd: Therefore I likewise on so holy day, For my sweet saint some service fit will find. Her temple fair is built within my mind, In which her glorious image placed is, On which my thoughts do day and night attend, Like sacred priests that never think amiss. There I to her as th' author of my bliss, Will build an altar to appease her ire: And on the same my heart will sacrifice, Burning in flames of pure and chaste desire: The which vouchsafe, O goddess, to accept, Amongst thy dearest relics to be kept. Book List:

Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah by Cindy Rollins

The Risk of Education by Luigi Giussani

Beauty for Truth’s Sake by Stratford Caldecott

Daylight and Champaign by G. M. Young

A Preface to the Faerie Queene by Graham Hough

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber

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

Episode 112: “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen, Vol. 3, Ch. 1-8 Nov 09, 2021

Welcome back for another installment in our series covering Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas share their commonplace quotes which leads them into discussing Fanny’s character in contrast to the heroine of a gothic novel. They talk about what makes a good marriage in the Regency period and Jane Austen’s own personal life, as well as the contrast between the household of Sir Thomas compared to Fanny’s own family home.

Get in on the Western Films and Fiction webinar on November 22nd with Thomas and James Banks! Register here to join in! Also, check out the House of Humane Letters newsletter to stay in the know about our upcoming read-a-long of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

To view the schedule for the episodes in this series, see our Upcoming Events page. Also, if you want to join our members-only forum off Facebook, check out our Patreon page to learn more!

Commonplace Quotes:

Fear the man who says he knows how things should be. He doesn’t

Alexander Galich

Things were easier for us. We were brought up on stories with happy endings and on the Prayer Book.

C. S. Lewis

One of the most dangerous of literary ventures is the little, shy, unimportant heroine whom none of the other characters value. The danger is that your readers may agree with the other characters. Something must be put into the heroine to make us feel that the other characters are wrong, that she contains the depths they never dreamed of. That is why Charlotte Brontë would have succeeded better with Fanny Price. To be sure, she would have ruined everything else in the book; Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris would have been distorted from credible types of pompous dullness, lazy vapidity and vulgar egoism into fiends complete with horns, tails and rhetoric. But through Fanny there would have blown a storm of passion which made sure that we at least would never think her insignificant.

C. S. Lewis Something Nasty in the Bookshop

by Kingsley Amis

Between the Gardening and the Cookery Comes the brief Poetry shelf; By the Nonesuch Donne, a thin anthology Offers itself. Critical, and with nothing else to do, I scan the Contents page, Relieved to find the names are mostly new; No one my age. Like all strangers, they divide by sex: Landscape Near Parma Interests a man, so does The Double Vortex, So does Rilke and Buddha. “I travel, you see”, “I think” and “I can read” These titles seem to say; But I Remember You, Love is my Creed, Poem for J., The ladies’ choice, discountenance my patter For several seconds; From somewhere in this (as in any) matter A moral beckons. Should poets bicycle-pump the human heart Or squash it flat? Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart; Girls aren’t like that. We men have got love well weighed up; our stuff Can get by without it. Women don’t seem to think that’s good enough; They write about it. And the awful way their poems lay them open Just doesn’t strike them. Women are really much nicer than men: No wonder we like them. Deciding this, we can forget those times We stayed up half the night Chock-full of love, crammed with bright thoughts, names, rhymes, And couldn’t write.

Book List:

Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah by Cindy Rollins

That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis

Pamela by Samuel Richardson

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Jane Austen by Peter Leithart

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

Episode 111: “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen, Vol. 2, Ch. 6-13 Nov 02, 2021

On The Literary Life Podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are back to discuss the next several chapters of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. They pick back up with the continuation of the Cinderella theme in these chapters, and much of the conversation centers around the Crawfords and their ambitions and schemes. Once again, Fanny is demonstrated to be the embodiment of temperance.

Get in on the Western Films and Fiction webinar on November 22nd with Thomas and James Banks! Register here to join in!

To view the schedule for the episodes in this series, see our Upcoming Events page. Also, if you want to join our members-only forum off Facebook, check out our Patreon page to learn more!

Commonplace Quotes:

Lewis learnt that focusing on the state of his own mind was precisely the wrong way to obtain the imaginative pleasures that he had been seeking for ten years and more.

Michael Ward

Through seas of knowledge we our course advance, Discov’ring still new worlds of ignorance; And these discov’ries make us all confess That sublunary science is but guess; Matters of fact to man are only known, And what seems more is mere opinion; The standers-by see clearly this event; All parties say they’re sure, yet all dissent; With their new light our bold inspectors press, Like Ham, to show their fathers’ nakedness, By who example after ages may Discover we more naked are than they.

Sir John Denham, “The Progress of Learning”

The Inklings is now really very well provided, with Fox as chaplain, you as army, Barfield as lawyer, Havard as doctor–almost all the estates, except of course, anyone who could actually produce a single necessity of life: a loaf, a boot, or a hut.

C. S. Lewis Sly Thoughts

by Coventry Patmore

“I saw him kiss your cheek!”—“T’is true.” “O Modesty!”—“’T was strictly kept: He thought me asleep; at least, I knew He thought I thought he thought I slept.”

Book List:

Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah by Cindy Rollins

After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man by Michael Ward

That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis

Experiment in Criticism 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 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

Episode 110: “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe Oct 26, 2021

On this special Halloween episode of The Literary Life, Angelina (Harriet Vane), Cindy (Professor MacGonagall), and Thomas (Lord Peter Wimsey), talk about Edgar Allan Poe’s tale, “The Masque of the Red Death.” If you are a Patron, you can watch this episode and see our hosts in their costumes as they discuss the story!

Angelina begins the chat with a little background on Edgar Allan Poe and his thoughts on the imagination and why he wrote the way he did, as well as connections with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Thomas points out the connection between this story and Boccaccio’s Decameron. Highlights of the discussion include Poe’s use of medieval motifs, the imagery and symbolism in Poe’s writing, the modern person’s avoidance of considering death, and Poe’s idea of life as a play within a play.

Get in on the Western Films and Fiction webinar on November 22nd with Thomas and James Banks! Register here to join in!

Next week we will continue our series on Mansfield Park. To view the schedule for the episodes in the series, see our Upcoming Events page. Also, if you want to join our members-only forum off Facebook, check out our Patreon page to learn more!

Commonplace Quotes:

I am more concerned by what “the Bomb” is doing already. One meets young people who make the threat of it a reason for poisoning every pleasure and evading every duty in the present. Didn’t they know that, bomb or no bomb, all men die, many in horrible ways? There is no good moping and sulking about it.

C. S. Lewis

There are certain evil men who would be less dangerous if there were not some scrap of virtue in them.

La Rochefoucauld

This handmaiden (poesy) is not forbidden to moralize in her own fashion. She is not forbidden to depict but to reason and preach of virtue.

Edgar Allan Poe, from his review of Longfellow’s Ballads Sonnet – To Science

by Edgar Allan Poe

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car, And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Source: The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe (1946)

Book List:

Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis

Maxims and Reflections by François de La Rochefoucauld

“The Philosophy of Composition” by Edgar Allan Poe

The Murders in the Rue Morge by Edgar Allan Poe

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccacio

Comus by John Milton

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The Castle of Utronto by Horace Walpole

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Oxford Book of English Verse ed. by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Hamlet 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 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

Episode 109: “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen, Vol. 2, Ch. 1-5 Oct 19, 2021

On The Literary Life Podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are continuing their series on Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. This is the third episode in the series. They open their discussion talking about the virtue of temperance and how Fanny Price embodies temperance. In looking at the plot and the reaction of various characters to Sir Thomas’ return, they bring out more of Fanny’s virtues in contrast to the vices of other players in this section. Other themes highlighted in this section are the harp as a symbol of harmony, the problem of self-focus, the qualities of nature, and the Cinderella story parallels Austen is playing with.

Get in on the Western Films and Fiction webinar on November 22nd with Thomas and James Banks! Register here to join in!

To view the schedule for the episodes in this series, see our Upcoming Events page. Also, if you want to join our members-only forum off Facebook, check out our Patreon page to learn more!

Commonplace Quotes:

He had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute any mischief.

Edward Hyde

Here, again, I would urge that appreciation is not a voluntary offering, but a debt we owe, and a debt we must acquire the means to pay by patient and humble study. In this, as in all the labours of the conscience seeking for instruction, we are enriched by our efforts; but self-culture should not be our object. Let us approach Art with the modest intention to pay a debt that we owe in learning to appreciate. So shall we escape the irritating ways of the connoisseur!

Charlotte Mason

The temperate man is so well-ordered that he does not feel the temptations of passion or desire. There is a difficulty about temperance, too, since it is a virtue that consists chiefly of not doing things. The liveliness of action and imagery must occur chiefly among its opponents, and we know what is liable to happen in this situation, even when there is no doubt about where our moral sympathy should lie. We have seen it in many works of fiction. But Guyon remains a colorless hero, and there is neither a heroic trial nor a radiant climax to his quest.

Graham Hough To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

by Robert Herrick

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he’s a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may forever tarry.

Book List:

Lord Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion by Edward Hyde

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

A Preface to the Faerie Queene by Graham Hough

“Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth

Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

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

Episode 108: “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen, Vol. 1, Ch. 10-18 Oct 12, 2021

Today on The Literary Life, we continue our conversation on Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas share their commonplace quotes, then dive into the book chat, beginning with some commentary on Fanny’s education in contrast to that of the Bertram sisters. They also talk about the concepts of restraint, temptation, and boundaries and how we see these ideas play out in the various characters. Angelina points out how Fanny is the fixed moral center throughout this whole section. She also talks about the play within the novel and how Austen’s use of this form reflects Shakespeare. We hope that the discussion opens up new levels of understanding for you as you read this novel along with us!

To view the schedule for the episodes in this series, see our Upcoming Events page. Also, if you want to join our members-only forum off Facebook, check out our Patreon page to learn more!

Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes:

I entirely agree that it’s no good trying to coerce or argue artists into giving what they haven’t got. Either they burst into tears, or go sullen, or–if they are hearty extraverts–they cheerfully turn out fifteen new versions, each worse than the last. Actors too. They’re the most kittle cattle of the lot.

Dorothy Sayers, in a letter to C. S. Lewis

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 on 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 the child goes through with little consciousness.

Charlotte Mason

She is almost a Jane Austen heroine condemned to a Charlotte Brontë situation. We do not even believe in what Jane Austen tells us of her good looks; whenever we are looking at the action through Fanny’s eyes, we feel ourselves sharing the consciousness of a plain woman.

C. S. Lewis, “A Note on Jane Austen” Sonnet 23

by William Shakespeare

As an unperfect actor on the stage Who with his fear is put beside his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart; So I for fear of trust forget to say The perfect ceremony of love’s rite, And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay, O’ercharged with burden of mine own love’s might. O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, Who plead for love and look for recompense More than that tongue that more hath more expressed. O, learn to read what silent love hath writ. To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

Book List:

Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason

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

Episode 107: “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen, Vol. 1, Ch. 1-9 Oct 05, 2021

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks. Today our hosts embark on a new series of discussions as we read through Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park together. To view the schedule for the episodes in this series, see our Upcoming Events page.

Our hosts open the conversation with their first experience with this book and some thoughts on why people may struggle with Mansfield Park more than any other Austen novel. Angelina highlights the similarities some people note between Austen and Shakespeare and how this book illustrates that point. Thomas responds to criticisms that Fanny is a “prig.” Cindy brings up the importance of place in this book thematically. Other ideas they discuss in this episode are moving from blindness to sight, the importance of triangles in this book, and appearances versus reality.

Commonplace Quotes:

Many come to wish their tower a well…

W. H. Auden, from “The Quest”

Sadly, we do not have a Christian culture today that easily discriminates between a person of spiritual depth and a person of raw talent. Like the wheat and the tares of Jesus’ parable, they can be difficult to distinguish. The result is that more than a few people can be fooled into thinking they are being influenced by a spiritual giant when, in fact, they are being manipulated by a dwarf.

Gordon MacDonald

Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the clock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? But I would rather get away from that whole idea of clocks. We all want to progress. But progress mean getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man… If you look at the present state of the big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.

C. S. Lewis Fairy-tale Logic

by A. E. Stallings

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks: Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat, Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat, Select the prince from a row of identical masks, Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote, Or learn the phone directory by rote. Always it’s impossible what someone asks—

You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe That you have something impossible up your sleeve, The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak, An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke, The will to do whatever must be done: Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.

As printed in Poetry Magazine, March 2010

Book List:

Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald

Voyage of the Dawn Treader 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 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

Episode 106: “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” Part 2 Sep 14, 2021

This week on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts are continuing their discussion of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. If you missed last week’s episode, you will want to go back and catch Part 1 here. Angelina kicks of the book chat with a look at the format of the story and how it keeps us in suspense. Thomas brings up the idea of forbidden knowledge found in this book and the similarities between it and Frankenstein. Some other topics covered in this episode include the dangers of dehumanizing victims of crime, the nature of sin and addiction, the Renaissance idea of the well-ordered man, and the mythic qualities of this story.

Be sure to check out Thomas’ class on The French Revolution and other fall webinars at House of Humane Letters. Don’t forget to check out our sister podcast, The Well Read Poem, as well as Cindy’s new podcast, The New Mason Jar! We will be back here on The Literary Life in two weeks with our first in a series of episodes on Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

Commonplace Quotes:

One beautiful starry-skied evening, we two stood next to each other at a window, and I, a young man of about twenty-two who had just eaten well and had good coffee, enthused about the stars and called them the abode of the blessed. But the master grumbled to himself: “The stars, hum! hum! The stars are only a gleaming leprosy in the sky.”

Heinrich Heine

It is a mistake, perhaps, to think that, to do one thing well, we must just do and think about that and nothing else all the time. It is our business to know all we can and to spend a part of our lives in increasing our knowledge of Nature and Art, of Literature and Man, of the Past and the Present. That is one way in which we become greater persons, and the more a person is, the better he will do whatever piece of special work falls to his share. Let us have, like Leonardo, a spirit ‘invariably royal and magnanimous.’

Charlotte Mason

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 The Land of Nod

by Robert Louis Stevenson

From breakfast on through all the day At home among my friends I stay, But every night I go abroad Afar into the land of Nod.

All by myself I have to go, With none to tell me what to do — All alone beside the streams And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

The strangest things are there for me, Both things to eat and things to see, And many frightening sights abroad Till morning in the land of Nod.

Try as I like to find the way, I never can get back by day, Nor can remember plain and clear The curious music that I hear.

Book List:

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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

Episode 105: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by R. L. Stevenson, Part 1 Sep 07, 2021

Welcome to today’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast! Today our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks explore Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. After their commonplace quote discussion, each cohost shares some personal thoughts on Robert Louis Stevenson. Be aware that this episode will contain some spoilers, though we will not spoil the full ending. Thomas shares some biographical information about R. L. Stevenson. Angelina points out the mythic quality of this story and the enduring cultural references inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She and Thomas also discuss some of the differences between early and late Victorian writers. They also begin digging into the first section of the book.

Join us again next week for the second part of this discussion. The fall schedule for the podcast will be posted soon on our Upcoming Events page for those who want to know what we will be reading and talking about on the podcast next!

Don’t forget to check out our sister podcast, The Well Read Poem, as well as Cindy’s new podcast, The New Mason Jar!

Commonplace Quotes:

I would rather (said he) have the rod to be the general terrour to all, to make them learn, than tell a child, if you do thus, or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there’s an end on’t; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other.

Samuel Johnson, as quoted by James Boswell

Do not talk about Shakespeare’s mistakes: they are probably your own

G. M. Young

The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn… They disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we see it for ourselves, but with a singular change–that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, struck out.

Robert Louis Stevenson R L S

by A. E. Houseman

Home is the sailor, home from sea: Her far-borne canvas furled The ship pours shining on the quay The plunder of the world. Home is the hunter from the hill: Fast in the boundless snare All flesh lies taken at his will And every fowl of air.

‘Tis evening on the moorland free, The starlit wave is still: Home is the sailor from the sea, The hunter from the hill.

Book List:

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Daylight and Champaign by G. M. Young

“Books Which Have Influenced Me” by Robert Louis Stevenson

David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Ryder Haggard

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Beowulf

Robert Louis Stevenson by G. K. Chesterton

God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Body Snatcher and Other Stories 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 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

Episode 104: Witches, Wizards, and Magic, Oh My!! Aug 31, 2021

Welcome to this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast! Today our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks tackle the tough questions so many people ask about reading stories dealing with magic. First off, Angelina affirms the need to discernment and the desire to steer clear of that which would be a stumbling block for our children. Cindy shares a little about her own concern when her children were very young. Then they set the groundwork by defining some terms and considering the kinds of questions we need to ask, beginning with Scripture and the church fathers. Be sure to listen to the end when Angelina, Cindy and Thomas suggest some criteria for evaluating magic elements in books before handing them to their students.

Come back next week when we will explore Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Don’t forget to check out our sister podcast, The Well Read Poem, as well as Cindy’s new podcast, The New Mason Jar!

Commonplace Quotes:

I am not conscious of having ever bought a book from a motive of ostentation.

Edward Gibbon

There is no language and no knowledge without symbol and metaphor. Two consequences arise from this: one is that we require imagination both to make and to interpret symbols, and the other is that symbols themselves beckon us through language to that which is beyond language. In other words, symbols are energized between the two poles (as Coleridge would say) of immanence and transcendence.

Malcolm Guite

Incidentally, we do not know of a single healthy and powerful book used to educate people (and that includes the Bible) in which such delicate matters do not actually appear to an even greater extent. Proper usage sees no evil here, but finds, as an attractive saying has it, a document of our hearts. Children can read the stars without fear, while others, so superstition has it, insult angels by doing the same thing.

Wilhelm Grimm The Queen Mab Speech

by William Shakespeare

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Over men’s noses as they lie asleep; Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’ legs, The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; Her traces, of the smallest spider web; Her collars, of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams; Her whip, of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film; Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid; Her chariot is an empty hazelnut, Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies straight; O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees; O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometimes she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail Tickling a parson’s nose as ‘a lies asleep, Then dreams he of another benefice. Sometimes she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscades, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled much misfortune bodes. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage. This is she!

Book List:

Memoirs of My Life by Edward Gibbon

Faith, Hope, and Poetry by Malcolm Guite

Wings and the Child by Edith Nesbit

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

Episode 103: “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D. H. Lawrence Aug 24, 2021

We are back this week on The Literary Life with the final another episode in our 2021 Summer Short Story series, a discussion of D. H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner.” After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks begin the literary chat with some background information on the writer D. H. Lawrence. Cindy talks about her reaction to this story and the running thread of bitterness underlying throughout. Angelina highlights the significance of the cultural climate of the 1920s in this story. As the story unfolds, we see magical and fairy tale elements, as well as some significant symbols, including the rocking horse.

Come back next week for an important episode on magic in literature and how to approach books with magical elements. Following that, we will explore Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Don’t forget to check out our sister podcast, The Well Read Poem, as well as Cindy’s new podcast, The New Mason Jar!

Commonplace Quotes:

Rather than being restricted to the simple material they can read on their own, young children need to listen to their teachers read more complex books aloud and engage in discussions about what they’ve heard—and, depending on their age, write about it. At the same time, teaching disconnected comprehension skills boosts neither comprehension nor reading scores. It’s just empty calories. In effect, kids are clamoring for broccoli and spinach while adults insist on a steady diet of donuts.

Natalie Wexler

Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.

Alexander Pope, “Essay on Man”

Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

D. H. Lawrence The Wooden Horse of Myth

by Oscar Williams

The wooden horse of myth stands on the air arching a traitorous neck on roofed mankind: the clocks are eyeballs round with mock despair hunting in sanguine skylines of the mind: and cherub faces fluttering in position, dolls tethered by the nerves behind the curtain and soldiers draped about the foiled ignition portend an end momentously uncertain. Meanwhile the white-haired meadows of the sea sing in the fixtures of the music box: the crowning glory of the verb to be marches its fields of fire among the rocks-- while tides of flowers topple from the blood and horseless hills affirm their mountainhood. Book List:

Studies in Classic American Literature by D. H. Lawrence

The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence (not recommended)

Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence

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

Episode 102: The Literary Life of Atlee Northmore Aug 03, 2021

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are chatting with their indispensable assistant, Atlee Northmore, about his literary life. Atlee shares what it was like for him growing up in a family that supported reading and kept books around at all time. He talks about his school years and both his positive and negative memories of reading for school. Talking about college, Atlee tells about wanting to be a film maker and his experience studying writing screen plays. He shares how college and life circumstances temporarily dampened his love for story, but taking classes with Angelina and listening to the podcast has brought it all back.

Also, if you are listening to this episode on the day it drops, you are not too late to sign up and join our 2021 Back to School online conference with special guest James Daniels! Get all the info and register at morningtimeformoms.com!

On August 5th, Cindy Rollins’ New Mason Jar podcast will be officially launching, so head over to thenewmasonjar.com to learn more and subscribe!

Commonplace Quotes:

One’s life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand. Even if we have the happy chance to fall in love, it is because we have been conditioned by what we have read, and if I had never known love at all, perhaps it was because my father’s library had not contained the right books.

Graham Greene

…there is also a sort of wild fairy interest in them, which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the imagination and soften the heart of childhood than the good-boy stories which have been in later years composed for them.

Sir Walter Scott, from German Popular Stories

Information can thrill, but only once.

Wendell Berry

All suffices reckoned rightly:

Spring shall bloom where now the ice is,

Roses make the bramble sightly,

And the quickening sun shine brightly,

And the latter wind blow lightly,

And my garden teem with spices.

Christina Rossetti, “Amen” Inventory

by Dorothy Parker

Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I’d been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

Book List:

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene

The Way of Ignorance by Wendell Berry

Stephen King

The Harry Potter Collection

The Spiderwick Chronicles

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

Notting Hill by Richard Curtis

How to Read the Bible at Literature by Leland Ryken

Dune by Frank Herbert

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters

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

Episode 101: “Reunion” by Fred Uhlman Jul 27, 2021

Welcome back to this week’s episode of The Literary Life and our discussion of Fred Uhlman’s novella “Reunion.” After they finished sharing their commonplace quotes, Cindy shares how she came across this novella and why she wanted to discuss it on the podcast. Thomas talks about the historical backdrop of the book as well as a little biographical info about the Uhlman. Angelina points out how much this story drove home the point of how assimilated the Jewish people were into European society and culture. They talk about the friendship between Hans and Konradin and their common taste in great literature. Other topics discussed were the unreality of what was happening in Germany, personal loyalty versus political loyalty, the dilemma of understanding pre-World War II Germany, and the power of a faithful life. Join us back here next week for an episode on The Literary Life of Atlee Northmore!

We are excited to announce our third annual Literary Life Back to School Online Conference! This year’s theme 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.

Cindy also has some exciting announcements, including the debut of the new expanded edition of her book Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love, is now available! AND she is starting a new Charlotte Mason podcast called The New Mason Jar, set to begin airing on August 5, 2021!

Commonplace Quotes:

Literature is full of teaching, by precept and example, concerning the management of our physical nature. I shall offer a lesson here and there by way of sample, but no doubt the reader will think of many better teachings; and that is as it should be; the way such teaching should come to us is, here a little and there a little, incidentally, from books which we read for the interest of the story, the beauty of the poem, or the grace of the writing.

Charlotte Mason

I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War. I read early and voraciously and indiscriminately–Andrew Lang’s colored Fairy Book, Hans Andersen, King Arthur, Robin Hood, and my very favorite book, Asgard and the Gods, a German scholarly text, with engravings, about Norse mythology, which my mother had used as a crib in her studies of Ancient Norse. I never really like stories about children doing what children do–quarreling and cooking and camping. I like magic, the unreal, the more than real. I learned from the Asgard book that even the gods can be defeated by evil. I knew nothing about the Wagnerian Nordic pageantry of the Third Reich. Nor did I have any inkling that the British occupying forces in Germany after the war were going to ban the Grimms because they fed a supposedly bloodthirsty German imagination. Indeed, I retreated into them from wartime anxieties.

A. S. Byatt

Every fairy tale worth recording at all is the remnant of tradition possessing true historical value; historical, at least, insofar as it has arisen out of the mind of a people under special circumstance, and risen not without meaning, nor removed altogether from their sphere of religious faith.

John Ruskin Sonnet 104

by William Shakespeare

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

Book List:

Reunion by Fred Uhlman

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

Possession by A. S. Byatt

The Children’s Book by A. S. Byatt

Paris, 1919 by Margaret MacMillan

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (not recommended)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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

Celebrating Episode 100: Live Q&A with Patrons Jul 20, 2021

Today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast is in celebration of our 100th episode! Our host held a LIVE Q&A session in the Patreon group, fielding questions from patrons and social media followers alike. Questions range from topics such as what has surprised them about their reading lives this year, to what writing projects they have going on behind the scenes, to literary landmarks and so much more! Thank you to all our listeners and supporters for making this journey possible and for just listening every week. We appreciate each and every one of you!

Join us again next week for our discussion of Frank Uhlman’s short story “Reunion.”

We are excited to announce our third annual Literary Life Back to School Online Conference! This year’s theme 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.

Cindy also has some exciting announcements, including the debut of the new expanded edition of her book Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love, is now available! AND she is starting a new Charlotte Mason podcast called The New Mason Jar, set to begin airing on August 5, 2021!

Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes:

If you’ve got something you want to say, just think first as to whether it’s really worthwhile, and you’re sure to find that it isn’t.

Hugh Walpole, “The Enemy in Ambush”

The vicar’s wife would not be quite that endless whimper of self-pity which she now is, if she did not in a sense “love” the family. The continued disappointment of her continued and ruthless demand for sympathy, for affection, for appreciation has helped to make her what she is. The greed to be loved is a fearful thing. Some of those who say, and almost with pride, that they live only for love, come at last to live in incessant resentment.

C. S. Lewis

Lastly, from the properties (the castle on the mountain, the cottage in the wood, the helpful beasts, the guardian dragons, the cave, the fountain, the trysting lane, etc.), he will acquire the basic symbols to which he can add railway trains, baths, wrist-watches and what-have-you from his own experience, and so build up a web of associations which are the only means by which his inner and outer life, his past and his present, can be related to, and mentally enrich, each other. Half our troubles, both individual neuroses and collective manias like nationalism, seem to me to be caused largely by our poverty of symbols, so that not only do we fail to relate one experience to another but also we have to entrust our whole emotional life to the few symbols we do have.

W.H. Auden, In Praise of the Brothers Grimm, The New York Times Book Review, 12 November 1944 Imagination

by John Davidson

There is a dish to hold the sea, A brazier to contain the sun, A compass for the galaxy, A voice to wake the dead and done! That minister of ministers, Imagination, gathers up The undiscovered Universe, Like jewels in a jasper cup.

Its flame can mingle north and south; Its accent with the thunder strive; The ruddy sentence of its mouth Can make the ancient dead alive. The mart of power, the fount of will, The form and mould of every star, The source and bound of good and ill, The key of all the things that are,

Imagination, new and strange In every age, can turn the year; Can shift the poles and lightly change The mood of men, the world’s career.

Book List:

God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis

Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall by Sir Thomas Browne

The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

A. W. Tozer

Trusting God by Jerry Bridges

Between Walden and the Whirlwind by Jean Fleming

Edith Schaeffer

Esther de Waal

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

Northrop Frye

George Lyman Kittredge

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes by Ken Meyers

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard

Dorothy L. 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

Episode 99: “The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster Jul 13, 2021

This week on The Literary Life, we bring you another episode in our 2021 Summer Short Story series. This week Angelina, Cindy and Thomas talk about E. M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops.” If you are interested in more E. M. Forster chat, you can go listen to our hosts discuss “The Celestial Omnibus” in Episode 17. Angelina points out how this story made her think of Dante. Thomas and Cindy share their personal reactions to reading “The Machine Stops.” They marvel at how prescient Forster was to imagine a world that comes so close to our current reality. They also discuss how to stay human in an increasingly de-humanizing world.

On July 15, 2021, we 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. The recording will air on July 20th.

We are excited to announce our third annual Literary Life Back to School Online Conference! This year’s theme 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.

Cindy also has some exciting announcements, including the debut of the new expanded edition of her book Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love, is now available! AND she is starting a new Charlotte Mason podcast called The New Mason Jar, set to begin airing on August 5, 2021!

Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes:

Imagination, in its earthbound quest,

Seeks in the infinite its finite rest.

Walter de la Mare (from “Books”) from “The Hollow Men”

by T. S. Eliot

This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man’s hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death’s other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone.

The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death’s twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men.

Book List:

Two Stories and a Memory by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Howards End by E. M. Forster

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison

1984 by George Orwell

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

Episode 98: “How Much Land Does a Man Need” by Leo Tolstoy Jul 06, 2021

This week on The Literary Life, we bring you our first Summer Short Story episode covering “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” by Leo Tolstoy. To start off the discussion of this short story, Thomas gives us some background to help answer Angelina’s question about why this story seems so very different from other Tolstoy works. Angelina shares how to approach this story like a parable. Cindy brings up the question of the difference between ambition and vocation in terms of contentment.

On July 15, 2021, we 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. The recording will air on July 20th.

We are excited to announce our third annual Literary Life Back to School Online Conference! This year’s theme 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.

Cindy also has some exciting announcements, including the debut of the new expanded edition of her book Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love, which will be available in early July. AND she is starting a new Charlotte Mason podcast called The New Mason Jar, set to drop on August 5, 2021!

Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes:

It is a mistake, perhaps, to think that, to do one thing well, we must just do and think about that and nothing else all the time. It is our business to know all we can and to spend a part of our lives in increasing our knowledge of Nature and Art, of Literature and Man, of the Past and the Present. That is one way in which we become greater persons, and the more a person is, the better he will do whatever piece of special work falls to his share. Let us have, like Leonardo, a spirit invariably royal and magnanimous.

Charlotte Mason Earth’s Eternity

by John Clare

Man, Earth’s poor shadow! talks of Earth’s decay: But hath it nothing of eternal kin? No majesty that shall not pass away? No soul of greatness springing up within? Thought marks without hoar shadows of sublime, Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win Eternity, stand laughing at old Time For ages: in the grand ancestral line Of things eternal, mounting to divine, I read Magnificence where ages pay Worship like conquered foes to the Apennine, Because they could not conquer. There sits Day Too high for Night to come at–mountains shine, Outpeering Time, too lofty for decay.

Book List:

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

Book of Virtues ed. by William Bennett

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

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

Season 3, Episode 97: Antigone by Sophocles, Part 2 Jun 29, 2021

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

Episode 96: Introduction to Antigone Jun 22, 2021

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

Episode 95: An Introduction to Edmund Spenser with Kelly Cumbee May 25, 2021

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

Episode 94: “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, Part 3 May 18, 2021

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

Episode 93: “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, Part 2 May 11, 2021

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

Episode 92: "Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, Part 1 May 04, 2021

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

Episode 91: "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," Part 2 Apr 27, 2021

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

Episode 90: “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” Part 1 Apr 20, 2021

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 Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Episode 89: The Literary Life of Adrienne Freas Apr 13, 2021

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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

The Once and Future King by T. H. White

Men of Iron by Howard Pyle

Links Mentioned:

AmblesideOnline

The Well Read Poem

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

Episode 88: How to Read Don Quixote Apr 06, 2021

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

Episode 87: The Literary Life of Wes Callihan Mar 16, 2021

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

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

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

Episode 86: “Silas Marner” by George Eliot, Ch. 16-End Mar 09, 2021

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

Episode 85: "Silas Marner" by George Eliot, Ch. 10-15 Mar 02, 2021

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

Episode 84: “Silas Marner” by George Eliot, Ch. 4-9 Feb 23, 2021

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

Episode 83: "Silas Marner" by George Eliot, Ch. 1-3 Feb 16, 2021

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

Episode 82: The Literary Life of Charlotte Mason Feb 09, 2021

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

Episode 81: 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff Feb 02, 2021

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

Episode 80: Why Read Old Books Jan 26, 2021

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!