The Literary Life Podcast Episode 157: The "Best of" Series – The Literary Life of Thomas Banks, Ep. 78
Inner Disorder Drives Political Chaos
- Angelina highlights that authors like Milton show political disorder reflects inner moral disorder.
- Reordering society requires reordering the soul, not merely political fixes.
From Homeschool To Classical School
- Banks was homeschooled until about fifth grade, then his parents later put him into conventional school.
- He credits homeschooling for strong humanities grounding but acknowledges gaps were later filled at school.
Poetry Beginnings
- Banks fell in love with poetry early, naming Shakespeare and John Keats as pivotal influences.
- He began writing poetry in junior high and composed many sonnets by age 16 for practice.
This week on the podcast, we bring you another of our "Best of The Literary Life Podcast" episode replays. On today's episode we delve into the literary life of the mysterious Mr. Banks.
Cindy begins the interview asking Thomas about his family background and the influence of his parents on his own reading life. He shares about many of the books he loved in childhood and how that shaped his tastes in literature. He also talks about how he approached school learning as opposed to his personal reading. Angelina asks Thomas to tell about how he fell in love with poetry and how he ended up going to college even though that was not his original goal. He also shares more about his reading as an adult, as well as his habit of commonplacing quotations.
Commonplace Quotes:…but I was glad to sing again too; it had been a greater loss that I realized in that particular wintering which saw the waning of my voice. It wasn't about the vanity of being able to trill out a fine song; it was about the joy of singing for its own sake.
Katherine MayMichael explains to Adam in the last book of Milton's Paradise Lost, that tyranny exists in human society because every individual in such a society is a tyrant within himself, or at least is if he conforms acceptably to his social surroundings.
Northrup FryeThe Gods that are wiser than Learning
But kinder than Life have made sure
No mortal may boast in the morning
That even will find him secure.
from "A Rector's Memory" by Rudyard Kipling Time, Real and Imaginaryby Samuel Taylor Coleridge
On the wide level of a mountain's head, (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails out-spread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother ! This far outstripp'd the other ; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind : For he, alas! is blind! O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last.
Book List:Wintering by Katherine May
The Double Vision by Northrop Frye
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Oxford Book of Children's Verse
Praeterita by John Ruskin
The Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J. R. R. Tolkien
Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis
The Saga of the Volsungs by Anonymous
The Adventures of Tintin by Herge
Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare
The Complete Poems of John Keats
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Hardy the Novelist by David Cecil
Hawthorne's Short Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The James Bond Dossier by Kingsley Amis
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Mishima (not recommended)
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
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