The Literary Life Podcast

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

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

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 Neil Gaiman Bill Bryson Ursula Le Guin Terry Pratchett 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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