Episode 327: The Power of Story and “Galahad and the Grail” with Malcolm Guite

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This week on The Literary Life Podcast, we have a special episode in which our hosts Angelina Stanford, Thomas Banks, and Cindy Rollins and joined by poet, priest, scholar, and musician Malcolm Guite. Together they discuss not only Father Guite’s newest book, Galahad and the Grail, but also the underlying ideas of why stories matter and what power they have in our lives. Malcolm Guite shares some thoughts on the value of both metrical poetry and the ballad form, as well as his own composition habits. He retells the Arthurian legend his own mother told him as a child and how this story is a powerful picture of the Gospel. Other topics they explore are how we see gospel echoes in “pre-Christian” stories and what it is like to have people find new layers of meaning in your writing.

Join us again next week for an episode from the vault on Tolkien’s “Why Read Fairy Stories,” which will be followed by an additional “update” episode on the same essay with Jenn Rogers.

Don’t forget to check out everything going on over at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay up to date on all the upcoming new summer classes and webinars! Cindy also has some exciting things happening at MorningTimeforMoms.com, including registration for her summer discipleship group.

Books:

The Coming of Arthur by Malcolm Guite

David’s Crown by Malcolm Guite

Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton

The Eve of St. Agnes by John Keats

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron

Don Juan by Lord Byron

The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning

Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis

Holding and Letting Go

by Malcolm Guite

We have a call to live, and oh

A common call to die.

I watched you and my father go

To bid a friend goodbye.

I watched you hold my father’s hand,

How can it not be so?

The gentleness of holding on

Helps in the letting go.

For when we feel our frailty

How can we not respond?

And reach to hold another’s hand

And feel the common bond?

For then we touch the heights above

And every depth below.

We touch the very quick of love;

Holding and letting go.

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Connect with Us:

You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

You can find Cindy Rollins at MorningTimeforMoms.com, over on her podcast The New Mason Jar, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. You can also check out her Patreon for additional content.

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