The Great Conversation
March Retrospective
Literary Life and Commonplace Quotation
Something that has added a lot to me this month has been revisiting The Literary Life Podcast, which I’m beginning to like very much, alongside the sister podcast The Well-Read Poem. There are many things that are so helpful and edifying about these podcasts but it’s struck me through listening how developing a literary life implies a certain relationship to the past which connects to the theological notion of catholicity. In this sense the concepts of catholicity, tradition and conservatism all go together. What do I mean? The Literary Life Podcast takes literature very seriously in the sense that it promotes engagement with “The Great Conversation”. The Great Conversation refers to the canon of literature that is expanded and handed down from generation to generation as something worthy of preservation. It encompasses the salient themes of human life and experience and the worthiest and wisest and most beautiful things that human authors have w…
