Episode 64: Til We Have Faces, Ch. 6-7

Today on The Literary Life Podcast our hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss chapters 6-7 of C. S. Lewis’ mythical retelling Til We Have Faces. Before we get started, we want you to know about Cindy’s Morning Time Q&A on September 23. Register at CindyRollins.net. They open the discussion this week talking about Lewis’ writings on love and jealousy. Angelina points out similarities to this story and other classical myths and even Spenser’s Faerie Queene. They also talk about Orual’s desires as opposed to Psyche’s expectations.

Cindy mentioned Peter Kreeft’s talk on Til We Have Faces a couple of times. Here is the link to that audio for those who are interested in listening to that.

Commonplace Quotes:

The stage is an epitome, a better likeness of the world, with the dull part left out.

William Hazlitt

The motto was Pax, but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Pax: peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort, seldom with a seen result; subject to constant interruptions, unexpected demands, short sleep at nights, little comfort, sometimes scant food; beset with disappointments and usually misunderstood; yet peace all the same, undeviating, filled with joy and gratitude and love. “It is My own peace I give unto you.” Not, notice, the world’s peace.

Rumer Godden

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. . . . I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; . . . I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.

C. S. Lewis A Woman Homer Sung

by William Butler Yeats

If any man drew near
When I was young,
I thought, “He holds her dear,’
And shook with hate and fear.
But O! ’twas bitter wrong
If he could pass her by
With an indifferent eye.
Whereon I wrote and wrought,
And now, being grey,
I dream that I have brought
To such a pitch my thought
That coming time can say,
“He shadowed in a glass
What thing her body was.’
For she had fiery blood
When I was young,
And trod so sweetly proud
As ’twere upon a cloud,
A woman Homer sung,
That life and letters seem
But an heroic dream.

Book List:

Affiliate links are used in this content.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

Christian Behavior by C. S. Lewis

The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

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

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