Episode 302: Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" Ch. 4-7

The Literary Life Podcast

Angelina Stanford

Arts, Books, Education

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 108 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and our series on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Angelina Stanford, Thomas Banks, and Ella Hornstra open the conversation by sharing their commonplace quotes, then jump into the book discussion with some connections between Huxley and Lewis Carroll and how Brave New World is like Alice in Wonderland. Angelina also teaches about the medieval conception of the tripartite soul and how it relates to this story, as well as making some distinctions between literary satire and parody. They talk about more of the pictures of Freudian principles as illustrated in this society, as well as the way in which the characters live like machines. Ella goes into a little introductory information on Shakespeare's The Tempest and its connections to Brave New World to keep in mind as we continue reading.

Don't forget to check out this coming year's annual Literary Life Online Conference, happening January 23-30, 2026, "The Letter Killeth, but the Spirit Quickeneth: Reading Like a Human". Our speakers will be Dr. Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, Dr. Anne Phillips, and, of course, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks.

Also, we are excited to announce the upcoming spring course with Dr. Michael Drout, Viking and Old Norse Culture. Learn more and register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

To view the full show notes for this episode, including book links, quotes and more, please visit https://theliterary.life/302.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is not just another book chat podcast.
0:21.6	Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading well.
0:32.6	Explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter end to the great works of literature.
0:40.2	Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. Each week, we will rescue
0:47.1	story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute. The literary life is for everyone because in the
0:55.9	words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into
1:02.2	reality. Join us for an ever-unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world.
1:09.7	This is the Literary Life Podcast.
1:30.8	Hello and welcome back to the Literary Life podcast.
1:35.9	I'm Angelina Stanford, and I am here with The Mysterious Mr. Savage.
1:38.6	No, I don't think I could live very long in that world.
1:40.9	But you quote Shakespeare all the time.
1:42.3	That's true. And I like New Mexico.
2:01.0	I like New Mexico, which is also very dear to Aldous Huxley, as we will see. As we will see. Well, we're here, and we are here with our special guests, Ella Hornstra, who has joined us again for this second episode in our series on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Welcome back, Ella. Thank you for having me once again. Well, we are the lucky ones because we have got some
2:06.6	fantastic stuff to talk about today. And I'm eager to jump in. But before we do that,
2:13.7	let's talk a little bit about what's going on at the House of Humane Letter. So last week,
2:17.4	we mentioned a few things we have got going on.
2:19.3	Of course, my Edgar Allan Poe webinar is coming on too, but I wanted to highlight for you guys a couple of other things.
2:26.3	One is our annual literary life conference. This year we moved it.
2:31.3	We heard you guys saying you didn't like it in April. April's too hectic, so we moved it all the way to January.
2:38.5	And I wanted to highlight the conference this particular week because the theme of the conference is very apropos to the things we're talking about in Brave New World.
2:51.6	So let me tell you guys what's going on with this. The title of the conference is very apropos to the things we're talking about in Brave New World. So let me tell you guys what's going on with this. The title of the conference this year is, the letter killeth
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Angelina Stanford, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Angelina Stanford and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.