620 Necromantics (with Renee Fox) | Herman Hesse on What We Learn from Trees

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

Books, Arts, History

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2024

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What was the deal with the Victorians and their obsession with reanimating corpses? How did writers like Mary Shelley, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, W.B. Yeats, Bram Stoker, and others breathe life into the undead - and why did they do it? We can attribute their efforts to the present's desire to remake the past in its own image - but what does that mean exactly? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Renée Fox about her book The Necromantics: Reanimation, the Historical Imagination, and Victorian British and Irish Literature. PLUS Jacke explores what notable German-Swiss author Herman Hesse learned from trees. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamrut Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:10.0	Hello, we begin today with German Swiss writer and painter Hermann Hess,
0:15.0	or Hermann Heseh, if you prefer.
0:18.7	And his 1920 collection of notes and fragments wandering.
0:24.0	Hess is an author you might know from his books,
0:26.6	Sid Hartha or Stepenwolf or The Glassbeed Game.
0:29.7	He's a great 20th century spiritual writer looking for authenticity and self-knowledge.
0:36.7	And in this essay which comes to us courtesy of the Marginalian hat-tip to that website
0:42.3	which used to be called brain pickings I think and which always pops up in my timelines
0:47.5	with a welcome dose of non-political and non-news news news
0:55.3	news I guess what is it a grand review of the world it gives us a reminder that all
1:01.2	things must pass and there are beauties in the universe and meaning too,
1:06.4	hopefully and there are forerunners of ours who have thought their way through some of these problems and have delivered that wisdom to us.
1:15.4	As I've gotten older I've found more consolation in simpler things in nature,
1:21.0	things I ignored before, but which now seem to me incredible and inspiring.
1:27.0	Hesse is with me on this. This passage is about trees.
1:32.0	And then we're going to talk about necromantics,
1:35.0	which I'll explain after our theme song,
1:37.0	and we do all that.
1:38.0	But first, let's just hear Hess
1:41.0	on what trees teach us about belonging and life.
1:45.0	Quote, for me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers.
	...

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