The Literary Life Podcast

Latest Episodes:

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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:

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Episode 151: The Literary Life Podcast Reading Challenge 2023 Dec 13, 2022

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

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