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Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and our \\u201cBest of\\u201d re-air of the series on Shakespeare\\u2019s A Midsummer Night\\u2019s Dream. After kicking off the episode with their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas start digging into the play itself. Thomas brings up the importance of the timing of this story being midsummer. Angelina gives a little background into the names and characters in this play as well as some of the major ideas we can be looking for in the story.

To sign up for Thomas Banks and Anne Phillips\\u2019 webinar on Herodotus taking place January 30, 2024, head over to\\xa0HouseofHumaneLetters.com/webinars.

Find Angelina\\u2019s webinar \\u201cJonathan Swift: Enemy of the Enlightenment\\u201d at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Even though the spring 2022 Literary Life Conference \\u201cThe Battle Over Children\\u2019s Literature\\u201d featuring special guest speaker Vigen Guroian is over, you can still purchase the recordings at HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.

John Dryden, in a letter to Jonathan Swift

It would be difficult indeed to define wherein lay the peculiar truth of the phrase \\u201cmerrie England\\u201d, though some conception of it is quite necessary to the comprehension of A Midsummer Night\\u2019s Dream. In some cases at least, it may be said to lie in this, that the English of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, unlike the England of today, could conceive of the idea of a merry supernaturalism.

G. K. Chesterton

And yet, there are people who say that Shakespeare always means, \\u201cjust what he says.\\u201d He thinks that to find over and under meanings in Shakespeare\\u2019s plays is to take unwarranted liberties with them, is like a man who holds the word \\u201cspring\\u201d must refer only to a particular period of the year, and could not possibly mean birth, or youth or hope. He is a man who has never associated anything with anything else. He is a man without metaphors, and such a man is no man at all, let alone a poet.

Harold Goddard

Advice to Lovers

by Robert Graves

I knew an old man at a Fair Who made it his twice-yearly task To clamber on a cider cask And cry to all the yokels there:--  "Lovers to-day and for all time Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him.  "Whistle, and Love will come to you, Hiss, and he fades without a word, Do wrong, and he great wrong will do, Speak, he retells what he has heard.  "Then all you lovers have good heed Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not pardon nor forget."  The old man\'s voice was sweet yet loud And this shows what a man was he, He\'d scatter apples to the crowd And give great draughts of cider, free.

Book List:

Amazon affiliate links

\\u201cBattle of the Books\\u201d by Jonathan Swift

Gulliver\\u2019s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. Tillyard

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

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Connect with Us:

You can find Angelina and Thomas at\\xa0HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram\\xa0@angelinastanford,\\xa0and on Facebook at\\xa0www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at\\xa0morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram\\xa0@cindyordoamoris\\xa0and on Facebook at\\xa0www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. Check out\\xa0Cindy\\u2019s own Patreon page\\xa0also!

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