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The Literary Life Podcast

By: Angelina Stanford Thomas Banks
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  • Summary

  • Not just book chat! The Literary Life Podcast is an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading well and the lost intellectual tradition needed to fully enter into the great works of literature. Experienced teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks (of www.HouseOfHumaneLetters.com) join lifelong reader Cindy Rollins (of www.MorningtimeForMoms.com) for slow reads of classic literature, conversations with book lovers, and an ever-unfolding discussion of how Stories Will Save the World. And check out our sister podcast The Well Read Poem with poet Thomas Banks.
    ©Cindy Rollins 2019
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Episodes
  • Episode 226: “Agnes Grey” by Anne Brontë, Ch. 12-18

    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
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    1 hr and 32 mins
  • Episode 225: “Agnes Grey” by Anne Brontë, Ch. 6-11

    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 behold
    A 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 be
    Bound 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
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    1 hr and 29 mins
  • Episode 224: “Agnes Grey” by Anne Brontë, Introduction and Ch. 1-5

    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
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    1 hr and 36 mins
Art Literary History & Criticism
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