The Literary Life Podcast Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins
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Not just book chat! The Literary Life Podcast is an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading well and the lost intellectual tradition needed to fully enter into the great works of literature.
Experienced teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks (of www.HouseOfHumaneLetters.com) join lifelong reader Cindy Rollins (of www.MorningtimeForMoms.com) for slow reads of classic literature, conversations with book lovers, and an ever-unfolding discussion of how Stories Will Save the World.
And check out our sister podcast The Well Read Poem with poet Thomas Banks.
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E. M. Forster’s “Howards End”, Ch. 35-End
Welcome to The Literary Life Podcast and the final episode in our our series on Howards End by E. M. Forster. Today Angelina and Thomas seek to sum up the book and wrap up their thoughts on the way Forster weaves this story. The open with some comments on the almost allegorical nature of Howards End, then talk about the words “only connect” and their meaning in the context of the book. They discuss the problem of Helen and Leonard’s relationship and the romance of pity. Other topics of the conversation are the crisis point between Mr. Wilcox and Margaret, the contrast between Charles and Tibby, the fate of Leonard Bast, and the future of Howards End.
We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” 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: Life without dragons would be tame indeed.
Desmond MacCarthy, “The Poetry of Chesterton” Howards End is a novel of extraordinary ambition and wide scope. Written in prose with the texture of restrained poetry, it is consummately controlled and sure of purpose. It is Forster’s most complexly orchestrated work to its date, and it smoothly manipulates imagery and symbolism, plot and character, into an organic whole. In so doing, it gracefully integrates social comedy, metaphysical explorations, and political concerns. Howards End tests Forster’s liberal humanism, finds it wanting, and proposes a marriage of liberal values to conservative tradition. Without destroying the practical contributions of progressivism, it forcefully attacks the mindless materialism that yields rootlessness and spiritual poverty.
Claude J. Summers, from E. M. Forster Finis By Marjorie Pickthall
Give me a few more hours to pass With the mellow flower of the elm-bough falling, And then no more than the lonely grass And the birds calling. Give me a few more days to keep With a little love and a little sorrow, And then the dawn in the skies of sleep And a clear to-morrow. Give me a few more years to fill With a little work and a little lending, And then the night on a starry hill And the road's ending. Book List: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
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/
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 -
E. M. Forster’s “Howards End,” Ch. 26-34
Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and our series discussing Howards End by E. M. Forster. This week Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks cover chapters 26-34. Together they continue to talk about the ideas Forster is presenting in the book as seen in this section, including Howards End as a character, the echoes of Wind in the Willows (thanks to Jen Rogers!), Helen’s idealism, Margaret and Henry’s conflict, the idea of rootedness, and more.
On March 7, 2024 you can join Thomas and his brother James live for a webinar on King Alfred the Great. Register today at houseofhumaneletters.com. The webinar recording will also be available for lifetime access after that date.
We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” 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.
If you want to get the special literary themed teas created by our Patron Erin Miller, go to adagiotea.com to check them out!
Commonplace Quotes: Everything has been said already; but since nobody was listening, we shall have to begin all over again.
Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n’écoute, il faut toujours recommencer.
Andre Gide, from “Narcissus” It is under these “present conditions” of materialism, urbanization, and cosmopolitanism that Howards End poses the question, “Who shall inherit England?” This question is given a lyrical resonance shortly after Margaret tells Helen of her intention to marry Henry. The two women, visiting Aunt Julie at Swanage, gaze across Poole Harbor and watch the tide return. “England was alive, throbbing through all her estuaries, crying for joy through the mouths of all her gulls, and the north wind, with contrary motion, blew stronger against her rising sea,” the narrator records, and then asks: “What did it mean? For what end are her fair complexities, her change of soil, her sinuous coast? Does she belong to those who have moulded her and made her feared by other lands, or to those who had added nothing to her power, but have somehow seen her, seen the whole island at once, lying as a jewel in a silver sea, sailing as a ship of souls, with all the brave world’s fleet accompanying her towards eternity?” These questions are at the heart of the book. More crudely stated, they ask whether England belongs to the imperialist or to the yeoman, to those who see life steadily or to those who see it whole, to the prosaic or to the poet. Put another way, they ask whether the inheritors of England are to be people of action or vision.
Claude J. Summer, from “E. M. Foster” To E. M. Forster By W. H. Auden
Here, though the bombs are real and dangerous, And Italy and Kings are far away, And we're afraid that you will speak to us, You promise still the inner life shall pay. As we run down the slope of Hate with gladness You trip us up like an unnoticed stone, And just as we are closeted with Madness You interrupt us like the telephone. For we are Lucy, Turton, Phillip, we Wish international evil, are excited To join the jolly ranks of the benighted Where Reason is denied and Love ignored: But, as we swear our lie, Miss Avery Comes out into the garden with the sword. Book List: Theodore Dreiser
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/
Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Gr -
E. M. Forster’s “Howards End,” Ch. 17-25
On The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina and Thomas continue our series on Howards End by E. M. Forster with a discussion of chapters 17-25. In opening the conversation on this chapter, they consider the various houses and ask the question of what role Howards End plays in this whole story. They also delve into the seemingly unlikely romance between Margaret and Mr. Wilcox and the complexity of their personalities, as well as the reactions of their family members. Other ideas they share are about the seen and the unseen, connections versus transactions, and more! Keep listening next week as we cover chapters 26-34.
On March 7, 2024 you can join Thomas and his brother James live for a webinar on King Alfred the Great. Register today at houseofhumaneletters.com. The webinar recording will also be available for lifetime access after that date.
We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” 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: Sapiens est qui novit tacere.
Wise is he who knows when to keep silence.
St. Ambrose, from De Oficibus Ministrorum (On the Duties of the Clergy) But “Only connect” was the exact phrase I had been leading up to, and it has been precious to me ever since I read Howards End, of which it is the epigraph. Perhaps, indeed, it is the theme of all Forster’s writing, the attempt to link a passionate skepticism with the desire for meaning, to find the human key to the inhuman world about us, to connect the individual with the community, the known with the unknown, to relate the past to the present, and both to the future.
P. L. Travers, from “Only Connect” To My Dear and Loving Husband By Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the East doth hold. My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Nor ought but love from thee give recompense. Thy love is such I can no way repay; The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love let’s so persever, That when we live no more, we may live ever. Book List: The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories by E. M. Forster
Selected Stories by E. M. Forster
What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story by P. L. Travers
The Liberal Imagination by Lionel Trilling
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
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/
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
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E. M. Forster’s “Howards End”, Ch. 8-16
Welcome to The Literary Life Podcast and our second episode in our series on E. M. Forster’s book Howards End. This week, Angelina and Thomas cover chapters 8-16, continuing their discussion of the book and the overarching concept of “Story” along the way. In talking about different plot points and characters, Angelina and Thomas make some comparisons between the two couples presented in these chapters and share some thoughts on the friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox. Angelina points out that Forster is doing some medieval things in this story, as we will see as we go on further. They also bring out more of the significance and symbolism of Howards End the place in the story.
If you want to check out our previous episodes on two of E. M. Forster’s short stories, you can find those here:
Episode 17: “The Celestial Omnibus”
Episode 99: “The Machine Stops”
We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” 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.
This March you can join Thomas and his brother James back for a webinar on King Alfred the Great. You can sign up at houseofhumaneletters.com.
Commonplace Quotes: [The Greeks] were children with the intellects of men.
R. W. Livingstone, from The Greek Genius and Its Meaning to Us It is astonishing how little attention critics have paid to Story considered in itself. Granted the story, the style in which it should be told, the order in which it should be disposed, and (above all) the delineation of the characters, have been abundantly discussed. But the Story itself, the series of imagined events, is nearly always passed over in silence, or else treated exclusively as affording opportunities for the delineation of character. There are indeed three notable exceptions. Aristotle in the Poeticsconstructed a theory of Greek tragedy which puts Story in the centre and relegates character to a strictly subordinate place.
C. S. Lewis, from On Stories A Selection from “Terminus” By Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is time to be old,
To take in sail:—
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: “No more!
No farther shoot
Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
Fancy departs: no more invent;
Contract thy firmament
To compass of a tent.
There’s not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
Book List: Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster
The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster
Wendell Berry
An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis
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/
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 -
E. M. Forster’s “Howards End”, Introduction and Ch. 1-7
Welcome to a new series on The Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford and husband Thomas Banks. This week they begin talking about E. M. Forster’s book Howards End, giving some introductory information about Forster and also cover the first seven chapters of the book. Thomas shares some background on the Bloomsbury Group authors in contrast to their Victorian predecessors. Angelina highlights the literary tradition of naming books after houses and invites us to consider the importance of place in this story as we go forward.
We hope you will join us for the sixth annual Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.” 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.
Also, The House of Humane Letters is expanding to include more classes, and pre-registration for returning students and registration for new students opens soon. Sign up for their email list to find out when you can sign up at houseofhumaneletters.com.
Commonplace Quotes: We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.
E. M. Forster, Howards End Howards End is Mr. Forster’s first fully adult book. It is richly packed with meanings; it has a mellow brilliance, a kind of shot beauty of texture; it runs like a bright, slowish, flickering river, in which different kinds of exciting fish swim and dart among mysterious reedy leptons and are observed and described by a highly interested, humane, sympathetic, often compassionate, and usually ironic commentator. The effect is of uncommon beauty and charm; the fusion of humor, perception, social comedy, witty realism, and soaring moral idealism, weaves a rare captivating, almost hypnotic spell; and many people think it (in spite of the more impressive theme and more serious technique of A Passage in India) Mr. Forester’s best book.
Rose Macaulay, The Writings of E. M. Forster The Pity of It By Thomas Hardy
April 1915
I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar From rail-track and from highway, and I heard In field and farmstead many an ancient word Of local lineage like 'Thu bist,' 'Er war,' 'Ich woll', 'Er sholl', and by-talk similar, Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird At England's very loins, thereunto spurred By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are. Then seemed a Heart crying: 'Whosoever they be At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we, 'Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame; May their familiars grow to shun their name, And their brood perish everlastingly.' Source: Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Palgrave, 2001)
Book List: Howards End by E. M. Forster
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Rose Macaulay
Dorothy Parker
Virginia Woolf
George Eliot
Matthew Arnold
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Wendell Berry
An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis
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/
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 -
Reading “Beyond Mere Motherhood” with Cindy Rollins
Today on The Literary Life, Angelina and Thomas sit down with Cindy to chat about her new book Beyond Mere Motherhood: Moms Are People, Too. First Cindy shares some of what she has going on this year, and Angelina officially introduces the 2024 Literary Life Online Conference, “Dispelling the Myth of Modernity: A Recovery of the Medieval Imagination.”
Cindy shares how this book came to be and what the process was for developing the ideas she wanted to put into words. Angelina and Thomas bring up different aspects of the book that stood out to them as important messages for mothers. Cindy talks about her approach to encouraging moms toward tackling life-long learning without the overwhelm and anxiety.
Commonplace Quotes: “Bairns are a queer kind of blessing sometimes,” remarked the mother.
George MacDonald, from Salted with Fire One of the disadvantages of setting up a man as a god, is that his lapses from rectitude may be quoted by his worshippers in justification of their own.
Bernard Allen, from Augustus Caesar May the gods give you everything that your heart longs for. May they grant you a husband and a house and sweet agreement in all things, for nothing is better than this, more steadfast than when two people, man and his wife, keep a harmonious household, a thing that brings much distress to the people who hate them, and pleasure to their well-wishers, and for them the best reputation.
Homer, from The Odyssey To My Mother by Christina Rossetti
To-day’s your natal day,
Sweet flowers I bring;
Mother, accept, I pray,
My offering.
And may you happy live,
And long us bless;
Receiving as you give
Great happiness.
Book List: My Early Life by Winston Churchill
Possession by A. S. Byatt
Howards End by E. M. Forster
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
Customer Reviews
Wonderful bookish podcast!!
The Literary Life podcast is such a whimsical and insightful way to chat about reading. I especially love the episodes when Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas interview other readers and talk about their reading lives. I love hearing about what books other love, get insight on what the hosts think about books, and get a glimpse into what they’re putting in their commonplace books!
I recommend this podcast if you are a book-lover, reader, writer, or someone who just loves the literary life! 📖📚📔
My favorite podcast! 📚
When I started this podcast, I hadn’t read in years. I read Gaudy Night on my kindle and remember being stuck in the first 10% of the books for ages and ages because I had to reprogram my brain on how to read. Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy are wonderful teachers and I love that they share so much for FREE. Thank you all for offering something available nowhere else!
Excellent
It’s rare to listen to a podcast and feel like you actually learned something, and not in the typically “fact spewing” fashion. Each time I listen, it feels like there is an ongoing conversation, in which I’m fed little bits at a time. I always come away feeling inspired to read, look deeper, and understand literature more fully.