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PODCAST

The Literary Life Podcast

Angelina Stanford Thomas Banks

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

arts books

All Episodes

01:14:00

Episode 299: Best of Series – “Dracula” by Bram...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/10/21

Our hosts are back on The Literary Life podcast today to continue our series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This week we are covering chapters 12-17, and in the introduction to this episode, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss the purpose of the Gothic novel in reorienting us to realize there is more to the world than the physical and empirical. As they cover the plot in these chapters, other ideas shared are the effective blending of modern technology with ancient wisdom in fighting evil, the many

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01:01:15

Episode 298: Best of Series – “Dracula” by Bram...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/10/14

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast today and our series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This week Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks cover chapters 8-11 of the book. Angelina explains both the “New Woman” and “Angel in the House” ideas of the Victorian era and makes some observations about Dr. Seward’s interactions with Renfield in contrast to the nuns ministrations to Jonathan Harker. We are also introduced to Dr. Van Helsing in this section of the book as the foil for Dracula, and

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01:14:11

Episode 297: Best of Series - Bram Stoker's "Dracula"...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/10/07

On The Literary Life Podcast this week, our hosts continue with part 2 of their series on Bram Stoker's Dracula. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin discussing how to properly read Dracula and other books written in this tradition. (Hint: It's not the Freudian or psychoanalytical approach!) Angelina argues that Bram Stoker was trying, among other things, to reintroduce the traditional forms and metaphors into the modern era. Thomas shares the dark etymology of

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01:28:07

Episode 296: Best of Series – Introduction to...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/09/30

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford is joined as always by Thomas Banks and Cindy Rollins for the opening of their series on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Today our hosts focus on the background and historical context for this piece of literature, as well as going over the highlights of the first two chapters. They talk about the question of the role of the monster in literature in modernity versus its historical interpretation. Understanding the form of the Gothic novel

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01:35:14

Episode 295: “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/09/23

Today on The Literary Life podcast Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks continue their two-part series on Christina Rossetti’s narrative poem “Goblin Market.” They begin discussing this poem by connecting it with the larger conversation on art and the literary tradition, pointing out the flaws of modern ways of reading. Angelina emphasizes the importance of understanding this poem, as well as other classic works of fantasy, in terms of the fairy world and how symbolism and allegory work in fairy

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01:03:01

Episode 294: “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/09/16

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast! This week we begin a brief, two-episode series covering Christina Rossetti's narrative poem "Goblin Market." Our hosts, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks, look at the life and family background of Christina Rossetti, highlighting her devout Christian faith as key to understanding her poetry. Thomas shares the dates for the Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite periods in terms of art and literature. Angelina asks what the form of this poem is as we approach this

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01:43:23

Episode 293: The Literary Tradition

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/09/09

On today's episode of The Literary Life podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks attempt to get us closer to an answer to the question "What is the literary tradition?" After acknowledging the difficulty of approaching this question, Angelina shares an analogy for understanding the literary tradition as differing degrees of ability to see. The first big idea she wants us to consider is that literature is not a closed system but is a coherent, consistent, self-referential world of

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01:40:42

Episode 292: The Age of Innocence on Screen

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/09/01

On today’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina and Thomas are joined by Atlee Northmore to discuss film adaptations of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Atlee begins outlining the history of screen adaptations of Edith Wharton’s novels, some of which were made during her own lifetime. Angelina and Thomas talk about their high standards for movie adaptations of books and how Scorsese’s film surpassed their expectations. Together they discuss

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01:38:09

Episode 291: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/08/26

This week on The Literary Life Podcast we wrap up the book discussion portion of our series on Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. Today, Angelina and Thomas begin with chapter 22, going through the significant scenes all the way to the end of the book. They talk about the ways in which this book is an elegy, as well as the continued glimpses of “the family” as the main character. They also discuss the ways in which May shows herself to be more cunning that she pretends in contrast to Ellen’s lack

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01:53:57

Episode 290: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/08/19

Welcome to The Literary Life Podcast and our series covering The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Angelina and Thomas open with their commonplace quotes, then begin discussing the events and characters of this section of the book. Some of the ideas they build on this week are the challenges to social conventions, the many references to the goddess Diana and May’s “boyishness”, examples of the pretense of society, and the language of flowers. In addition, Thomas shares his feelings about the

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01:39:49

Episode 289: “The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/08/12

Welcome to The Literary Life Podcast and a new series featuring the book The Age of Innocence. Our hosts, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks introduce us to American Gilded Age author, Edith Wharton, the "First Lady of American Letters." They also share their own experiences with reading Wharton's stories, novels, and letters, as well as some background on the time period and cultural context in which she was writing. In discussing the first several chapters of this book, Angelina and Thomas point

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01:29:24

Episode 288: Literary Milestones

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/08/05

On today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina and Thomas will be talking about the milestones of a reader’s literary life. This episode developed in response to the many questions they’ve received over the years about challenges people face throughout their reading lives. They begin by thinking back to childhood and recalling the first time they each chose a book for themselves and fell in love with the story, as well as the feeling of getting their first library cards as children

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01:14:29

Episode 287: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/07/29

On today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas wrap up their discussion of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling with the final Mowgli story–“Tiger, Tiger.” Before beginning to talk about the story, the chat a little about Kipling’s other works and his place in literary history and what sort of writer he was. In this section, Angelina points out the parallels to the first story, as well as the mythic qualities of the whole tale. Together they cover the various ideas in

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01:20:39

Episode 286: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/07/22

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas continue their discussion of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. After sharing their commonplace quotes for this week, they begin talking about “Kaa’s Hunting.” Angelina asks Cindy about the age range for this book, which is recommended on AmblesideOnline for Year 3 students. They talk about Mowgli’s upbringing and training in the law of jungle, in contrast to the monkeys who are lawless. Other highlights of this conversation are

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01:26:36

Episode 285: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/07/15

Today on The Literary Life podcast, we begin a new series of episodes on The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling with our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks! After sharing their commonplace quotes, each of them talks about their own reading histories with Rudyard Kipling’s work. Thomas gives us some biographical information about Kipling and sets up the literary period in which he wrote. They then begin talking about the structure and form of this book as it is set up as a series of

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01:17:12

Episode 284: Best of – “The Garden Party” by...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/07/08

This week on The Literary Life, we bring you an episode from deep in the archives in which Cindy and Angelina discussed Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Garden Party.” After a great chat over their commonplace quotes, Angelina and Cindy dig into this week’s story. They start with how Cindy found this story and the connections she was making to Little Women. Angelina gives a brief biographical sketch of Katherine Mansfield and highlights how Mansfield’s own illness and death give us insight

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01:32:06

Episode 283: Catching Up with Jason Baxter – Dante,...

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/07/01

This week on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina and Thomas are once again joined Dr. Jason Baxter, author of Why Literature Still Matters. In this episode, our hosts sit down with Dr. Baxter for a chat about a wide variety of topics, including teaching the old books, reading poetry to understand it, the delight of teaching students at HHL, their hot takes on hot takes, making reading recommendations, and translating Dante, and so much more. We will be back next week with a "best of" episode

en

02:02:12

Episode 282: Best of - “Harry Potter” Book 1, Ch. 13-End

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/06/24

This week on The Literary Life, Angelina and Thomas wrap up our encore series on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter: Book 1. Angelina and Thomas begin the episode with some thoughts on their Aristotelian approach to literature as seen in this series of episodes. After sharing their commonplace quotes, they dive into their discussion of the last few chapters of the book. Some of the ideas they consider are how the entire plot is a series of symbols, alchemy and the allegory of the soul, and the figure of

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01:51:18

Episode 281: “Best of” – “Harry Potter” Book 1, Ch. 8-12

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/06/17

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and our series on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter: Book 1. After sharing some thoughts on detective fiction as it relates to Rowling, our hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks discuss chapters 8-12. Some of the ideas they share are the following: Homeric echos and classical allusions in this book, the identity quest, the significance of characters’ names, the four houses and the bestiary, the three parts of the soul, the Christian influence on Rowling’s

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01:36:00

Episode 280: “Best of” – “Harry Potter” Book Ch. 3-7

The Literary Life Podcast ·

2025/06/10

This week we are back with the second part of our remix of Angelina and Thomas’ podcast series on Harry Potter: Book 1 by J. K. Rowling. This week we are covering chapters 3-7. Angelina opens the book discussion with an overview of the literary motifs used by Rowling in the Harry Potter books to help modern readers better understand these kinds of stories. One of the motifs she highlights is the identity quest and how we see Harry on a journey of the soul. She also shares some thoughts on the fairy

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