Episode 205: The “Best of” Series – Intro to Shakespeare and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Ep. 118
The Literary Life Podcast
Angelina Stanford
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2024
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to this new season of The Literary Life podcast! During the month of January 2024, we will be re-airing our series of episodes on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
This week we bring you an introduction both to William Shakespeare and his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas seek to give new Shakespeare readers a place from which to jump into his work and more experienced readers eyes to see more layers in his stories. Cindy begins with some perspective on how to start cultivating a love for Shakespeare. Angelina shares her “hot take” on whether you should read the play or watch the play. They suggest some books for further digging into Shakespeare’s works, and Angelina gives an overview of the format of his comedies. Thomas goes into some detail about Roman comedy.
Next week we will be back with a discussion of Acts I and II of the play.
Even though the spring 2022 Literary Life Conference “The Battle Over Children’s Literature” featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian is over, you can still purchase the recordings at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.
To sign up for Thomas Banks and Anne Phillips' webinar on Herodotus on January 30, 2024, head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com/webinars.
Commonplace Quotes:
If certain tendencies within our civilization were to proceed unchecked, they would rapidly take us towards a society which, like that of a prison, would be both completely introverted and completely without privacy. The last stand of privacy has always been, traditionally, the inner mind….It is quite possible, however, for communications media, especially the newer electronic ones, to break down the associative structures of the inner mind and replace them by the prefabricated structures of the media . A society entirely controlled by their slogans and exhortations would be introverted because nobody would be saying anything: there would only be echo, and Echo was the mistress of Narcissus….the triumph of communication is the death of communication: where communication forms a total environment, there is nothing to be communicated.
Northrop Frye
No writer can persist for five hundred pages in being funny at the expense of someone who is dead.
Harold Nicolson
Originality was a new and somewhat ugly idol of the nineteenth century.
Janet Spens
Unwisdom
by Siegfried Sassoon
To see with different eyes
From every day,
And find in dream disguise
Worlds far away—
To walk in childhood’s land
With trusting looks,
And oldly understand
Youth’s fairy-books—
Thus our unwisdom brings
Release which hears
The bird that sings
In groves beyond the years.
Book List:
Amazon affiliate links
“The Practice of Biography” by Harold Nicolson
The Modern Century by Northrop Frye
An Essay on Shakespeare’s Relation to Tradition by Janet Spens
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Tales from Shakespeare by Marcia Williams
Leon Garfield’s Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield
Stories from Shakespeare by Marchette Chute
Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare by Isaac Asimov
The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard
The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard
Shakespeare’s Problem Plays by E. M. Tillyard
Shakespeare’s Early Comedies by E. M. Tillyard
Shakespeare’s History Plays by E. M. Tillyard
Great Stage of Fools by Peter Leithart
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
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Literary Life Podcast. |
| 0:03.0 | We've grown quite significantly since our debut in 2019, |
| 0:07.0 | and we've had many requests to highlight older episodes that new listeners may have missed, |
| 0:12.0 | as well as revisit listener favorites. |
| 0:15.3 | To honor that request, I present to you this episode of the Best of the Literary Life |
| 0:20.3 | podcast. This is not just another book chat podcast. |
| 0:26.0 | Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an |
| 0:32.0 | ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading well. |
| 0:37.0 | Explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter into the great works of literature. |
| 0:44.0 | Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. |
| 0:49.0 | Each week we will rescue a story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute. |
| 0:57.0 | The literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott to be enchanted a deeper insight into reality. |
| 1:08.0 | Join us for an ever unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world. This is the Literary Life Podcast. Hello, my name is Thomas Banks and I wanted to tell you today about an event that is coming up later in January. |
| 1:43.0 | At the end of the month on Tuesday, January 30th, |
| 1:46.3 | Dr. Anne Phillips and myself |
| 1:48.8 | will be hosting a webinar |
| 1:52.0 | about the great Greek historian Herodotus, the father of history or as he's sometimes known the father of lies. |
| 2:00.0 | And we are going to be talking about why it is that he holds both of these titles and why it is that history has its own muse. |
| 2:14.0 | Cleo, if you know your myth, is one of the nine muses who superintends history and inspires those who write it. |
| 2:21.0 | And talking about Herodotus, we want to explore the idea that history |
| 2:29.2 | is more of an art properly than a science. We also want to open up the great panorama of Herodotus |
| 2:37.8 | histories, the Persian Wars, the various peoples of the ancient world and the great colorful and adventurous |
... |
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