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Published: Jan. 24, 2023, 6 a.m.

Welcome to another episode in our \u201cBest of The Literary Life Podcast\u201d series. Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins tackle the topic of fairy stories, discussing the what, why and how of reading them. Angelina shares the distinctive characteristics of fairy stories in contrast to other types of stories, such as myths. They deal with the question of whether fairy tales are \u201cescapist\u201d, the influence of the Grimm brothers scholarly work on interpreting fairy stories, and allowing the story to unveil its deeper truths without forcing meaning onto it.

Angelina gives an illustration of how to see the gospel messages in fairy tales by talking us through the story of Sleeping Beauty. She refutes the ideas that fairy tales are about human romance or are misogynistic. She also highlights some of the Enlightenment and Puritan responses to fairy tales that still linger with us today. Cindy and Angelina also discuss some common concerns such as the magical, weird, or scary aspects of fairy tales. Angelina also makes a distinction between folk tales, literary fairy tales, and cautionary tales.

Other Literary Life series openers referenced in this episode:

Episode 20: An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

Episode 71: Phantastes by George MacDonald

Episode 30: The Literary Life of Caitlin Beauchamp

Commonplace Quotes:

After a certain kind of sherry party, where there have been cataracts of culture but never on word or one glance that suggested a real enjoyment of any art, any person, or any natural object, my heart warms to the schoolboy on the bus who is reading Fantasy and Science Fiction rapt and oblivious of all the world beside.\xa0

C. S. Lewis

Children are not deceived by fairy tales. They are often and gravely deceived by school stories. Adults are not deceived by science fiction. They can be deceived by stories in women\u2019s magazines.

C. S. Lewis

Both fairy stories and realistic stories engage in wish fulfillment, but it is actually the realistic stories that are more deadly. Fairy stories do awaken desires in children, but most often it is not a desire for the fairy world itself. Most children don\u2019t really want there to be dragons in modern England. Instead, the desire is for they know not what. This desire for something beyond does not empty the real world, but actually gives it new depths. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods. The reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.

C. S. Lewis

Ancient History

by Siegfried Sassoon

Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain,\xa0\xa0\xa0
Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees;\xa0\xa0
Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees,\xa0\xa0
He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain;\xa0\xa0
\u2018He was the grandest of them all\u2014was Cain!\xa0\xa0\xa0
\u2018A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire;\xa0\xa0
\u2018Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain,
\u2018Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.\u2019

Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair\u2014
A lover with disaster in his face,
And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair.\xa0\xa0
\u2018Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? \u2026
\u2018God always hated Cain\u2019 \u2026 He bowed his head\u2014
The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead.

Book List:

Phantastes by George MacDonald

The World\u2019s Last Night by C. S. Lewis

An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis

\u201cOn Three Ways of Writing for Children\u201d by C. S. Lewis

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

The Princess and The Goblin by George MacDonald

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Connect with Us:

You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford,\xa0and on Facebook at\xa0Angelina Stanford \u2013 House of Humane Letters.

Find Cindy at\xa0MorningTimeforMoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris\xa0and on Facebook at\xa0Cindy Rollins \u2013 Writer. Check out Cindy\u2019s own Patreon page also!

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