Our passage from the Word of God today is Luke 1:63 which reads: "And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, His name is John. And they marvelled all."
Our quote today is from Ezra Pound. He said: "Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."
In this podcast, we are using as our texts: "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt, and "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.
Our first topic for today is "Spirituality as Quest, Part 21" from the book, "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt.
Today, we will continue reading a selection from Augustine's "Confessions."
This selection is from Book I - Childhood / Chapter 6 - The Infant Augustine
Still, dust and ashes as I am, allow me to speak before thy mercy. Allow me to speak, for, behold, it is to thy mercy that I speak and not to a man who scorns me. Yet perhaps even thou mightest scorn me; but when thou dost turn and attend to me, thou wilt have mercy upon me. For what do I wish to say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence I came hither into this life-in-death. Or should I call it death-in-life? I do not know. And yet the consolations of thy mercy have sustained me from the very beginning, as I have heard from my fleshly parents, from whom and in whom thou didst form me in time - for I cannot myself remember. Thus even though they sustained me by the consolation of womans milk, neither my mother nor my nurses filled their own breasts but thou, through them, didst give me the food of infancy according to thy ordinance and thy bounty which underlie all things...
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Our second topic for today is "Reading a Story, Part 25" from the book, "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.
Today, we will continue taking a look at How Much Does a Narrator Know?
In the objective point of view, the narrator does not enter the mind of any character but describes events from the outside. Telling us what people say and how their faces look, he or she leaves us to infer their thoughts and feelings. So inconspicuous is the narrator that this point of view has been called "the fly on the wall." This metaphor assumes the existence of a fly with a highly discriminating gaze, who knows which details to look for to communicate the deepest meaning. Some critics would say that in the objective point of view, the narrator disappears altogether. Consider this passage by a writer famous for remaining objective, Dashiell Hammett, in his mystery novel The Maltese Falcon, describing his private detective Sam Spade.
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Our passage from the Word of God today is 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 which reads: "Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."
Our quote today is from W. H. Auden. He said: "A real book is not one that’s read, but one that reads us."
In this podcast, we are using as our texts: "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt, and "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.
Our first topic for today is "Spirituality as Quest, Part 20" from the book, "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt.
Today, we will continue reading a selection from Augustine's "Confessions."
This selection is from Book I - Childhood / Chapter 5 - Augustine's Prayer
Who shall bring me to rest in thee? Who will send thee into my heart so to overwhelm it that my sins shall be blotted out and I may embrace thee, my only good? What art thou to me? Have mercy that I may speak. What am I to thee that thou shouldst command me to love thee, and if I do it not, art angry and threatenest vast misery? Is it, then, a trifling sorrow not to love thee? It is not so to me. Tell me, by thy mercy, O Lord, my God, what thou art to me. “Say to my soul, I am your salvation." So speak that I may hear. Behold, the ears of my heart are before thee, O Lord; open them and “say to my soul, I am your salvation.” I will hasten after that voice, and I will lay hold upon thee. Hide not thy face from me. Even if I die, let me see thy face lest I die.
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Our second topic for today is "Reading a Story, Part 23" from the book, "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.
Today, we're taking a look at How Much Does a Narrator Know?
The all-knowing (or omniscient) narrator sees into the minds of all (or some) characters, moving when necessary from one to another. This is the point of view in "Godfather Death," in which the narrator knows the feelings and motives of the father, of the doctor, and even of Death himself. Since he adds an occasional comment or opinion, this narrator may be said also to show editorial omniscience (as we can tell from his disapproving remark that the doctor "should have remembered" and his observation the the father did not understand "how wisely God shares our wealth and poverty"). A narrator who shows impartial omniscience presents the thoughts and actions of the characters, but does not judge them or comment on them.
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