Episode 65: Til We Have Faces, Ch. 8-11

This week on The Literary Life, we continue our series on C. S. Lewis’ masterpiece Til We Have Faces, and our hosts discuss chapters 8-11 today. Before we get started, we want you to know there is still time to sign up for Cindy’s Morning Time Q&A on September 23. Register at CindyRollins.net today! Also, Thomas will be teaching a mini-class series on Shakespeare’s Roman Plays in October, and you can find out more and register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Angelina starts off the conversation asking for everyone’s impressions of this section of reading, and Thomas and Cindy bring up the melancholy nature of much of this story. Themes discussed in this episode include: seeing and not seeing, reason’s response to faith, the dream motif, the similarities with the story of Iphigenia, baptism and crossing the river, and the ways relationships change over time. Another topic our hosts highlight is the tension between mysticism and rationalism and the truth that transcends the inadequacy of these.

Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes:

“Self-consciousness is a great barrier to faith.

A. B. Simpson

It is a mark of true folklore that even the tale that is evidently wild is eminently sane.

G. K. Chesterton

The poet’s job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always takes place.

Northrup Frye Requiescat

by Matthew Arnold

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required; She bathed it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning, In mazes of heat and sound. But for peace her soul was yearning, And now peace laps her round.

Her cabin’d, ample spirit, It flutter’d and fail’d for breath. Tonight it doth inherit The vasty hall of death.

Book List:

(Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.)

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies by Robert Kirk

St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton

The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

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