Today on The Literary Life Podcast, we bring you another episode in our “Best of” series in which Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks discuss the importance of reading old books. They begin the conversation by addressing head on the idea that old books are irrelevant. They touch on the fact that when we use the phrase “old books” we mean not just any piece of literature from the past, but those which have stood the test of time.
It’s not too late to join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination” happening this week! During the live or later series of webinars, we will seek to dis-spell the Myth of Modernity and gain eyes to see and ears to hear Reality as it truly is. Speakers include Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, and Kelly Cumbee, in addition to Angelina and Thomas.
Commonplace Quotes:So, when his Folly opens
The unnecessary hells,
A Servant when He Reigneth
Throws the blame on some one else.
I am informed by philologists that the “rise to power” of these two words, “problem” and “solution” as the dominating terms of public debate, is an affair of the last two centuries, and especially of the nineteenth, having synchronised, so they say, with a parallel “rise to power” of the word “happiness”—for reasons which doubtless exist and would be interesting to discover. Like “happiness”, our two terms “problem” and “solution” are not to be found in the Bible—a point which gives to that wonderful literature a singular charm and cogency. . . . On the whole, the influence of these words is malign, and becomes increasingly so. They have deluded poor men with Messianic expectations . . . which are fatal to steadfast persistence in good workmanship and to well-doing in general. . . . Let the valiant citizen never be ashamed to confess that he has no “solution of the social problem” to offer to his fellow-men. Let him offer them rather the service of his skill, his vigilance, his fortitude and his probity. For the matter in question is not, primarily, a “problem”, nor the answer to it a “solution”.
L. P. Jacks, Stevenson LecturesMost of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.
C. S. Lewis To Walter de la Mareby T. S. Elliot
The children who explored the brook and found
A desert island with a sandy cove
(A hiding place, but very dangerous ground,
For here the water buffalo may rove,
The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound
In the dark jungle of a mango grove,
And shadowy lemurs glide from tree to tree –
The guardians of some long-lost treasure-trove)
Recount their exploits at the nursery tea
And when the lamps are lit and curtains drawn
Demand some poetry, please. Whose shall it be,
At not quite time for bed?…
Or when the lawn
Is pressed by unseen feet, and ghosts return
Gently at twilight, gently go at dawn,
The sad intangible who grieve and yearn;
When the familiar is suddenly strange
Or the well known is what we yet have to learn,
And two worlds meet, and intersect, and change;
When cats are maddened in the moonlight dance,
Dogs cower, flitter bats, and owls range
At witches’ sabbath of the maiden aunts;
When the nocturnal traveller can arouse
No sleeper by his call; or when by chance
An empty face peers from an empty house;
By whom, and by what means, was this designed?
The whispered incantation which allows
Free passage to the phantoms of the mind?
By you; by those deceptive cadences
Wherewith the common measure is refined;
By conscious art practised with natural ease;
By the delicate, invisible web you wove –
The inexplicable mystery of sound.
The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
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
Episode 105: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by R. L. Stevenson, Part 1
Episode 104: Witches, Wizards, and Magic, Oh My!!
Episode 103: “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D. H. Lawrence
Episode 102: The Literary Life of Atlee Northmore
Episode 101: “Reunion” by Fred Uhlman
Celebrating Episode 100: Live Q&A with Patrons
Episode 99: “The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster
Episode 98: “How Much Land Does a Man Need” by Leo Tolstoy
Season 3, Episode 97: Antigone by Sophocles, Part 2
Episode 96: Introduction to Antigone
Episode 95: An Introduction to Edmund Spenser with Kelly Cumbee
Episode 94: “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, Part 3
Episode 93: “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, Part 2
Episode 92: "Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, Part 1
Episode 91: "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," Part 2
Episode 90: “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” Part 1
Episode 89: The Literary Life of Adrienne Freas
Episode 88: How to Read Don Quixote
Episode 87: The Literary Life of Wes Callihan
Episode 86: “Silas Marner” by George Eliot, Ch. 16-End
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