Episode 339: Ask Us (Almost) Anything
This week on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks return from their summer break with a fun “Ask Us (Almost) Anything” episode. The questions they answer include the following:
- How does Mr. Banks choose the poem for the end of each episode?
- How do they go about finding sources of good secondary research or literary criticism?
- How did Angelina first learn about alchemy in the literary tradition?
- Is Mr. Banks any relation to the sculptor Thomas Banks?
- Can you give a brief definition of each of the building blocks of stories?
- What exactly is the “objective correlative”?
- Is re-reading important in the literary life and, if so, what makes it profitable?
- How do you keep up with the many images when reading?
- How should an author approach trying to write in the literary tradition?
- How do you deal with reading slumps?
- What is your favorite book?
- How do you defend an education in the humanities in an age obsessed with STEM?
- How many books do you own?
- Does Angelina actually hate John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress?
- And more….
Don’t forget to check out everything going on over at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay up to date on all the upcoming new summer classes and webinars.
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Commonplace Quotes:
The human mind, which creates forms and institutions, is the last thing to be tamed by its creatures.
Sir Keith Feiling, from “England Under the Tutors and Stuarts“
All these plays are to the reader what they must have been to the author, revelations of profundity and grandeur: the mystery of human fate – though still a mystery to the intellect is intuitively apprehended as we endure to the end of great tragedy. In essence, our understanding is a mystic understanding, and our sense of victory a mystic joy. Tragedy and our religion are inter-significant. The Christian cross is only the symbol of the greatest of tragedies.
G. Wilson Knight, from “The Crown of Life“
Prospero’s Speech from The Tempest, Act IV, Sc. 1
by William Shakespeare
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Book List:
Amazon affiliate links below
Waverly by Sir Walter Scott
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Watership Down by Richard Adams
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2 Comments
Laura T Hardin
I really like the analogy of revisiting a location or eating a feast or returning to eat food for the importance of rereading. It’s overwhelming to think one should revisit cool places or and it may be too simple to comparing it to the need to eat. But both still work when I include that point you mentioned regarding our limitations. With limited funds, it’s unlikely that I will revisit the coolest or most interesting places I’ve ever been. But I have favorite spots locally that I return to and places i frequent more due to its proximity to family members we visit. A favorite place to go to reminds me of The Nest Egg in Jayber Crow. I will not reread most books I’ve read. Usually I reread books i particularly love or value for one reason or another or because I’m reading with a child or something. I see the same with a feast. I may try everything once but I’ll only come back for the items I enjoyed most and desire to have again.
Anthony Jamerson
Coincidentally enough, prior to Thomas mentioning it, I was thinking about the book King Solomon’s Mines and debating whether or not I should revisit it. I loved it the one and only time I read it and I didn’t want to ruin how good it was for me when I was younger. When Thomas mentioned it, I about lost it. I think I know what I’m reading next.