The Destructive Power of Rumor in Literature

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

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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!

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