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 stories. Angelina also seeks to teach something about symbolism and structure of literature and art as seen through the Harry Potter books.

Visit HouseofHumaneLetters.com for updates on classes with Angelina, Thomas, and other members of their teaching team.

Previous episodes mentioned in this podcast:

The Importance of the Detective Novel (Episode 3/174)

Series on Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (Episodes 4-8)

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (Episode 79)

Commonplace Quotes:

The wise man combines the pleasures of the senses and the pleasures of the spirit in such a way as to increase the satisfaction he gets from both.

W. Somerset Maugham, from The Narrow Corner

For it is through symbols that man finds his way out of his particular situation and “opens himself” to the general and the Universal. Symbols awaken individual experience and transmute it into a spiritual act, into metaphysical comprehension of the world.

Mircea Eliade, from The Sacred and the Profane

The Fairies

By William Allingham

Up the airy mountain,
 Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
  For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
  Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
  And white owl’s feather!

Down along the rocky shore
  Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
  Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
  Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
  All night awake.

High on the hill-top
  The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
  He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
  Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
  From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
  On cold starry nights
To sup with the Queen
  Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
  For seven years long;
When she came down again
  Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
  Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
  But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
  Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
  Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,
  Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
  For pleasure here and there.
If any man so daring
  As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
  In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,
  Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
 For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
  Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
  And white owl’s feather!

Book List:

Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Agatha Christie

Margery Allingham

Ngaio Marsh

Fanny Burney

Northrop Frye

The Odyssey by Homer

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J. K. Rowling

The Book of Beasts trans. by T. H. White

The Once and Future King by T. H. White

Fabulous Tales and Mythical Beasts by Woody Allen

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

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