Episode 39: The Literary Life of Karen Glass

03/03/20 • 109 min

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On today’s episode of The Literary Life, Angelina and Cindy interview Karen Glass. Karen is part of the Advisory of AmblesideOnline. She has four children, ages 13 to 27, who have been homeschooled using Charlotte Mason’s methods from beginning to end. She has been studying and writing about Charlotte Mason and Classical Education for over twenty years, and has written Consider This to share the most important things she has discovered about the connection between them. We are giving away a copy of her newest book, In Vital Harmony, to 2 lucky listeners who share about this podcast episode on Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #invitalharmony.

After sharing their commonplace quotes, our hosts dive into this conversation with Karen about how she became a lover of books. She talks about her voracious reading as a child and teen. Karen also recounts how her mediocre education did not discourage her reading life but just gave her more time and reason to read. This leads into a meaty discussion among Karen, Cindy and Angelina about self-education, homeschooling and lifelong learning.

Commonplace Quotes:

Let us consider an apple. If we approach it synthetically, we take it as we find it–in its state of wholeness and completeness–and we eat it. Once eaten, it is digested, absorbed, and becomes a part of us. If we approach it analytically, we take it apart–not in a natural way, which is merely a smaller portion (here is half an apple!), but rather, here is the fiber, here are the vitamins, here is a bit of water, and some sugar. Suppose we ingest each bit–a spoonful of fiber, a vitamin pill, a swallow of sugar-and-water. On paper, we have consumed the same thing in both cases–equal portions of nutrition–but there is a very, very large difference. Only one of those meals tasted good and created an appetite for more.

Karen Glass

However difficult it may be to characterize correctly the medieval class system, it is even more difficult to grasp medieval thinking, which was broadly metaphorical and analogical, rather than merely logical and rational.

Thomas Cahill

Remember that the uttermost penalty was reserved for him who could say to his brother “Thou fool!” because contempt was the most un-godlike quality which man could display. Beware above all things lest a little knowledge only reinforce conceit and lead you into a false world where self is enthroned, far away from the true world which is illuminated by the love of God, manifested in the Person of the Incarnate Word.

Mandell Creighton A Poison Tree

by William Blake

I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I waterd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears: And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night. Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine. And into my garden stole, When the night had veild the pole; In the morning glad I see; My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Book List:

Amazon Affiliate links are used in this content.

Consider This by Karen Glass

Mind to Mind by Karen Glass

Know and Tell by Karen Glass

In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass

Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill

Thoughts on Education by Mandell Creighton

Bedtime for Frances by Russel Hoban

Petunia by Roger Duvoisin

Dorrie’s Magic by Patricia Coombs

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkein

The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss

Lovey by Mary MacCracken

A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz

The Philosophy of Christian School Education

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Thomas Lynley Mysteries by Elizabeth George

Jan Karon’s Mitford Series

Support The Literar...

Commonplace Quotes:

Karen Glass

Thomas Cahill

Mandell Creighton A Poison Tree

by William Blake

Book List:

Amazon Affiliate links are used in this content.

Consider This by Karen Glass

Mind to Mind by Karen Glass

Know and Tell by Karen Glass

In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass

Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill

Thoughts on Education by Mandell Creighton

Bedtime for Frances by Russel Hoban

Petunia by Roger Duvoisin

Dorrie’s Magic by Patricia Coombs

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkein

The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss

Lovey by Mary MacCracken

A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz

The Philosophy of Christian School Education

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Thomas Lynley Mysteries by Elizabeth George

Jan Karon’s Mitford Series

Support The Literar...

Previous Episode

Episode 38: "A Winter's Tale" Act 5

On today’s episode of The Literary Life, we wrap up our discussion of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale with a look at Act 5. Our hosts, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks also announce our next book to read together, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Angelina notes that Act 5 is all about reconciliation and redemption. Thomas points out that Shakespeare had a challenge here in how to bring this play to a close with all those relationships resolved. Cindy brings up Paulina’s character and the significance of her name.

Our hosts discuss the truth that though in an ultimate sense all will be made right, this play reminds us that in this life, there are some things that are not fully redeemed. They also talk about how Shakespeare plays with both the audience’s expectations and with the form in this act. Leontes’ imagination is also in need of redemption, and we see that happen here at the end of the play. Thomas makes the connection between the myth of Pygmalion, Euripedes’ Alcestis and A Winter’s Tale.

The theme of resurrection is so prevalent in this final act, particularly in the case of Hermoine, but also in other characters and plot points. The winter is over, and spring has come to Sicily. The old order is not restored. A new order has been brought into being.

Upcoming Events:

We are excited to announce a new online conference coming on March 13-14, 2020. Our theme will be Re-enchanting the World: The Legacy of the Inklings. Our keynote speaker is Inklings scholar, Joseph Pearce. Go to Angelina and Thomas’ new website HouseofHumaneLetters.com for all the info and to register.

Commonplace Quotes:

An ancient rhetorician delivered a caution against dwelling too long on the excitation of pity; for nothing, he said, dries so soon as tears; and Shakespeare acted conformably to this ingenious maxim, without knowing it.

William Hazlitt

A work of art is a world unto itself, but all works of art belong to one world.

Harold Goddard

In all narration there is only one way to be clever, and that is to be exact.

Robert Louis Stevenson Hermione in the House of Paulina

by C. S. Lewis

How soft it rains, how nourishingly soft and green Has grown the dark humility of this low house Where sunrise never enters, where I have not seen The moon by night nor heard the footfall of a mouse, Nor looked on any face but yours Nor changed my posture in my place of rest For fifteen years–oh how this quiet cures My pain and sucks the burning from my breast.

It sucked out all the poison of my will and drew All hot rebellion from me, all desire to break The silence you commanded me. . . . Nothing to do, Nothing to fear or wish for, not a choice to make, Only to be; to hear no more Cock-crowing duty calling me to rise, But slowly thus to ripen laid in store In this dim nursery near your watching eyes.

Pardon, great spirit, whose tall shape like a golden tower Stands over me or seems upon slow wings to move, Coloring with life my paleness, with returning power, By sober ministrations of severest love; Pardon, that when you brought me here, Still drowned in bitter passion, drugged with life, I did not know . . . pardon, I thought you were Paulina, old Antigonus’ young wife.

Book List:

Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays by William Hazlitt

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Poems by C. S. Lewis

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 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 pr...

Next Episode

Episode 40: The Art of Writing, Part 1

This week on The Literary Life podcast, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas sit down with Karen Glass for a conversation centering on the topic of writing. They discuss the problem of trying to teach writing in a formulaic way. They also talk about the challenge of helping students learn to think well in order to write well.

Karen highlights narration as a tool to teach thinking well in the form of oral composition. Cindy digs into the idea of imitation as an integral part of the learning process. Angelina and Karen both emphasize the importance of addressing skill and form on an individual basis, depending on what your student needs to improve.

Tune in again next week for Part 2 of this great conversation!

Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes:

To write or even speak English is not a science, but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.

George Orwell

Rhetoric, or the art of writing, is not governed by arbitrary laws. Its rules are not statutes passed long ago by some assembly of critical scholars; they are merely common-sense principles derived from the observed practices of persons who have succeeded in writing well,–that is, from the method of good authors. Hence, when we study composition, we investigate these methods, in order to apply them in our own writing.

from “Manual of Composition and Rhetoric”

When a child is reading, he should not be teased with questions as to the meaning of what he has read, the signification of this word or that; what is annoying to older people is equally annoying to children.

Charlotte Mason Follow Your Saint

by Thomas Campion

Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet; Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet. There, wrapp’d in cloud of sorrow, pity move, And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love: But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne’er return again.

All that I sung still to her praise did tend, Still she was first; still she my songs did end; Yet she my love and music both doth fly, The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy. Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight: It shall suffice that they were breath’d and died for her delight.

Book List:

Amazon Affiliate links are used in this content.

Manual of Composition and Rhetoric edited by Gardiner, Kittredge and Arnold

Home Education by Charlotte Mason

Know and Tell by Karen Glass

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

Writing to Learn by William Zinsser

Range by David Epstein

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 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