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

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

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

Listen Now:

Commonplace Quotes:

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

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

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

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

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

Northrop Frye, from Fables of Identity

Nondum

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

" Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself."
                                                      ISAIAH xlv. 15.

God, though to Thee our psalm we raise--
No answering voice comes from the skies;
To Thee the trembling sinner prays
But no forgiving voice replies;
Our prayer seems lost in desert ways,
Our hymn in the vast silence dies.

We see the glories of the earth
But not the hand that wrought them all:
Night to a myriad worlds gives birth,
Yet like a lighted empty hall
Where stands no host at door or hearth
Vacant creation's lamps appall.

We guess; we clothe Thee, unseen King,
With attributes we deem are meet;
Each in his own imagining
Sets up a shadow in Thy seat;
Yet know not how our gifts to bring,
Where seek Thee with unsandalled feet.

Books Mentioned:

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

Support The Literary Life:

Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support!

Connect with Us:

You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also!

Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Subscribe to The Lit Life: