Episode 86: "Silas Marner" by George Eliot, Ch. 16-End
The Literary Life Podcast
Angelina Stanford
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2021
⏱️ 96 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week's episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks wrap up their discussion of George Eliot's Silas Marner. In this episode, Angelina reveals her light bulb moment connecting this story with Shakespeare's play, The Winter's Tale. Thomas talks about the changes in Silas as he has integrated back into the community through his love for Eppie. Cindy points out the characteristics we see in Nancy as a woman who has been through suffering and come out more gracious on the other side.
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:
We are all willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.
E. M. Forster
Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keep the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't.
Aldous Huxley
The worst evil in the world is brought about not by the open and self-confessed vices but by the deadly corruption of the proud virtues.
Dorothy Sayers
A Prayer in Spring
by Robert Frost
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating 'round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
To which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.
Book List:
Two Cheers for Democracy by E. M. Forster
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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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!
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 | 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 podcast. |
| 0:50.0 | Today I, Angelina Stamford, along with my two cohorts in crime but not in gold theft. I hope not. |
| 0:58.0 | We are going to try to finish up Silas Warner. |
| 1:02.8 | Good morning, Cindy and Mr. Banks. |
| 1:05.0 | Ladies, good to be here as always. |
| 1:07.0 | Good morning. |
| 1:08.0 | Well, I am very excited about closing this out because, um, and I know we'll do announcements before we jump in but I just feel like I can get this off my chest. |
| 1:17.0 | I liked this book so much that I found myself asking why did I like it when I read it 30 years ago? |
| 1:23.4 | What was wrong with me, Cindy? |
| 1:26.8 | Yeah, I've been wrestling with that all morning. |
| 1:29.7 | I think I have some answers, but yes. |
| 1:31.6 | That's good. That should offer our listeners hope that you don't have to always |
| 1:36.0 | like something the first time and the fault I think the fault was in me I really do I mean yeah I didn't I didn't care for it the first time I read it either when I was 15 I mean there was just like a lack of |
| 1:48.1 | Maturity but it's kind of interesting. I was thinking about this too and it's it's strange I mean looking back because the |
| 1:56.4 | the emotional situation in the book is one which I think a child could feel as keenly as an adult |
| 2:01.6 | given that you know a child's future |
| 2:04.8 | is on the line here. |
... |
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