In this episode, I wanted to share an essay I recently presented at a Great Books group on reading imaginative literature. Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren describe a paradox regarding the reading of imaginative literature: it is the most difficult kind of reading and yet it is also the most common. It is easy to be moved by literature, yet it is difficult to know why we are moved. In this essay, I try to unpack the paradox a bit and explore the difficulty in analyzing beauty. The essential idea presented here is that while being moved by literature is subjective and personal, the cause of the movement is always objective and transcendental. I present Adler and van Doren's method for reading imaginative literature in a way that goes beyond the subjective experience to the transcendental movement that makes great literature great.
Show Notes
How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren
Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education, Stratford Caldecott
FestinaLentePodcast.com
Description
In this episode, we welcome back as our guest Pope St. John Paul II as we continue reading through his encyclical letter, Fides et Ratio. This episode features chapter one followed by my commentary and a few points of reflection as we look at this text through the lens of festina lente. A new resource I’ve introduced this episode is an active listening guide. You can find a link to this guide in the shownotes below.
Show Notes
Time Stamps:
Fides et Ratio Text
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html
Active Listening Guide
http://festinalentepodcast.com/index.php/2019/07/20/active-listening-guide-for-chapter-one-of-fides-et-ratio/
In this episode, we welcome as our guest Pope St. John Paul II as we begin reading through his encyclical letter, Fides et Ratio. This episode features the opening address and introduction followed by a few points of reflection as we look at this text through the lens of festina lente.
Show Notes
Time Stamps:
Fides et Ratio Text
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html
In the first episode of the Festina Lente Podcast, we spend some time exploring the idea of festina lente. Topics include a brief overview of the history of festina lente, ideas in the life of the minds, festina lente as a life principle, festina lente and virtue, and the future of this podcast.
Show Notes
Time Stamp for Part 2-12:26
Arvo Pärt: Festina Lente for Strings Orchestra and Harp
Dr. Christopher Perrin’s Video on Festina Lente
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Waiting for God, Simone Weil
Alexander Books Podcast Interview
Leisure: the Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper
Person and Being, W. Norris Clarke, S.J.
Reading Fides et Ratio, Youtube