Episode 286: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, “Kaa’s Hunting”

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas continue their discussion of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. After sharing their commonplace quotes for this week, they begin talking about “Kaa’s Hunting.” Angelina asks Cindy about the age range for this book, which is recommended on AmblesideOnline for Year 3 students. They talk about Mowgli’s upbringing and training in the law of jungle, in contrast to the monkeys who are lawless. Other highlights of this conversation are the Edenic ability of Mowgli to speak to the animals, the complex role of the serpent in folklore, and the resurrection imagery in this story.

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Commonplace Quotes:

Mistaking pedantry for learning’s laws/He governs, sanctioned but by self-applause.

Lord Byron, from “On a Change of Masters at a Great Public School”

Our aim in education is to give a full life. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time. Not all doing, or all feeling, or all thinking–the strain would be too great–but all living; that is to say we should be in touch, wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest.

Charlotte Mason, from School Education

There are profounder wishes: such as the desire to converse with other living things. On this desire, as ancient as the Fall, is largely founded the talking of beasts and creatures in fairy-tales, and especially the magical understanding of their proper speech. This is the root, and not the ‘confusion’ attributed to the minds of men of the unrecorded past, an alleged ‘absence of the sense of separation of ourselves from beasts.’ A vivid sense of that separation is very ancient; but also a sense that it was a severance: a strange fate and a guilt lies on us. Other creatures are like other realms with which Man has broken off relations, and sees now only from the outside at a distance, being at war with them, or on the terms of an uneasy armistice. There are a few men who are privileged to travel abroad a little; others must be content with travellers’ tales. Even about frogs.

J. R. R. Tolkien, from “On Fairy-Stories“

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 could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Books Mentioned:

Amazon Affiliate links follow

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Stalky and Co. by Rudyard Kipling

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Pancatantra by Visnu Śarma, trans by Chandra Rajan

Jātaka Tales of the Buddha by Ken and Visakha Kawasaki

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

You can find Cindy Rollins at MorningTimeforMoms.com, over on her podcast The New Mason Jar, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. You can also check out her Patreon for additional content.

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