Episode 341: Watership Down by Richard Adams, Ch. 11-20

Welcome to The Literary Life Podcast and the second episode in our series on Richard Adams’ Watership Down. This week Angelina and Thomas will be discussing chapters 11-20. In addition to covering the main plot points and characters in these chapters, they share connections with other stories in the literary tradition and highlight elements of the journey story seen in this section of the book. The contrasts between the Aeneid and the Odyssey and Illiad are part of the conversation in context of the ways in which Watership Down reflects the Aeneid. Angelina also brings out some of the beast fable elements we find in this part of the story. Be back here next week when we will talk about chapters 21-30.

Don’t forget to check out everything going on over at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay up to date on all the upcoming new autumn classes and webinars.

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Commonplace Quotes:

Whenever a man writes, “The fact is” or “Doubtless,” he is always going to rush into the realms of purest fancy or conjecture.

G.M. Trevelyan, from “Clio: a Muse“

All themes and character and stories that you encounter in literature belong to one big interlocking family.

Northrop Frye, from The Educated Imagination

Selection from “To A Mouse”

by Robert Burns

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
          But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
          An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
          Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
          For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
          On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
          I guess an’ fear!

Book List:

Amazon affiliate links below

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Aeneid by Virgil

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

The Oresteian Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Choephori, The Eumenides by Aeschylus

Lilith by George MacDonald

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