Episode 85: "Silas Marner" by George Eliot, Ch. 10-15
The Literary Life Podcast
Angelina Stanford
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2021
⏱️ 105 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to this episode of The Literary Life Podcast, in which our hosts discuss George Eliot's book Silas Marner, chapters 10-15. Thomas kicks off the discussion by highlighting the character of Dolly Winthrop. Angelina talks about Silas Marner opening himself to grace in these chapters. She also points out the way that Eliot uses Godfrey's character to point out our own potential lack of moral courage. Cindy points out the problem of addiction for Molly in causing her to neglect her own baby. Angelina also talks about the Rumpelstiltskin parallels and other fairy tale elements in the book thus far.
Don't forget to head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to find out all about the exciting line-up for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 with special guest speaker Wes Callihan.
Commonplace Quotes:
Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge.
Samuel Johnson
Philosophy, like medicine, has a great number of drugs, and precious few genuine remedies.
Nicolas Chamfort
The feudal ownership of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of moveables is reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to the civilization of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the middle classes accreted possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty.
E. M. Forster
On My First Daughter
by Ben Johnson
Here lies, to each her parents' Ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth;
Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due,
It makes the father less to rue.
At six months' end she parted hence
With safety of her innocence;
Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears,
In comfort of her mother's tears,
Hath placed amongst her virgin-train:
Where, while that severed doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth;
Which cover lightly, gentle earth!
Book List:
The Year of Our Lord, 1943 by Alan Jacobs
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
Complete Maxims and Thoughts by Nicolas Chamfort
Howard's End by E. M. Forster
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The History of the Devil by Daniel Defoe
Sir Roger de Coverley by Joseph Addison
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
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Connect with Us:
You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/
Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're going to go. Welcome to the literary life podcast where your hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins, explore a life shaped by books, |
| 0:26.4 | stories, and poetry. Each week we will rescue story from the Ivory Tower and bring it to your |
| 0:32.2 | couch, your kitchen, and your commute. |
| 0:35.0 | The literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, |
| 0:39.0 | to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. |
| 0:44.0 | Hello and welcome back to the literary life |
| 0:50.0 | podcast. |
| 0:51.0 | I am here. I was going to say I'm here with the blonde bombshell, but |
| 0:54.8 | Cindy you may have been displaced by the other blonde bombshell Eppy. |
| 0:59.2 | Ah, well, there we go. I have to defer to her. The golden curl. So I am Angelita Stanford and I make |
| 1:09.2 | lame jokes as an introduction. But I am here with Sydney Rollins and the mysterious |
| 1:14.0 | Mr Banks on this cold frozen day. Lovely to be here as always. Yes it is very nice to be |
| 1:20.8 | here even though I know hopefully by the time this airs everybody in our listening |
| 1:26.1 | audience will have power and will be warm. Yes we're we're on winter break here and so we were getting ahead of the of the podcast |
| 1:35.2 | schedule by recording all of the Silas Warner episodes this week so our |
| 1:38.9 | timeline is very confusing about exactly when you're going to be listening to this |
| 1:42.4 | but we're recording it in the midst of the blue very confusing about exactly when you're going to be listening to this. |
| 1:42.5 | But we're recording it in the midst of the blizzard in Texas, |
| 1:46.6 | and I'm just absolutely heartbroken for all of our Texas friends |
| 1:49.6 | and the suffering that they are encountering. |
| 1:51.4 | It just keeps on being one crazy thing after another |
| 1:56.0 | unprecedented may be the most used word of the last 12 months huh? |
... |
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