Description

In this special episode of Hot Takes on the Classics, Emily Maeda and Tim McIntosh unveil the reading lineup for Season 2, themed around love. Drawing from C.S. Lewis’s framework of the four loves—Storge (affection), Philia (friendship), Eros (romantic love), and Agape (charity)—they nominate and debate the classic works that best represent each love. From Shakespeare and ancient epics to religious poetry and modern novels, the hosts haggle, reflect, and wrestle with what makes love so difficult to portray well in literature. Tim also offers a spicy hot take: that most romantic

Episode Outline

• Introduction: Why a selection show, and why start with love
• Definitions of the Four Loves from C.S. Lewis
• Tim’s and Emily’s nominations for Storge (affection)
• Friendship and Philia: Ancient texts to children’s stories
• Nominations for Eros (romantic love) and literary love triangles
• Agape: Self-giving love in theology, poetry, and fiction
• Debates and tie-breakers: Making the final cuts
• Plans for poetry episodes and bonus content
• Teaser for future discussion on art and music

Key Topics & Takeaways

• Lewis’s Framework Shapes the Season: C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves provides the guiding structure for curating literature around distinct types of love.
• Love of Family and Place: Storge (affection) is often familial or connected to love of place; selecting books for this category was surprisingly challenging.
• The Richness of Companionship: Philia (friendship) led to a rich list—from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Wind in the Willows.
• Beauty and Cost: Eros (romantic) selections ranged from Shakespeare and Austen to Dante and Tolstoy, with a possible poetry special to include Donne, Catullus, and Dante’s Inferno.
• Selfless and Divine Love: Agape (charity) prompted deep reflections on divine love and self-sacrificial relationships, featuring mystics, theologians, and unexpected novels.
• Blended Loves: Overlapping and Porous Categories: The categories are porous: many books express multiple forms of love, showing their complexity and interconnection.
• Wildcards: Unclassifiable but Powerful: The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry are suggested as wildcard entries that transcend easy categorization.

Questions & Discussion

• Which literary works have best captured the love of family, friends, romance, or God in your experience? Share a book that moved you deeply in its portrayal of love.
• Are some types of love harder to depict in fiction than others? Consider whether Agape (charity) or Philia (friendship) is harder to write compellingly than Eros (romantic love).
• What role does self-sacrifice play in true love across the genres discussed? Reflect on examples from this episode like The Road, The Gospel of John, or The Gift of the Magi.

Suggested Reading

Storge (Affection)

• Antigone by Sophocles
• The Odyssey by Homer translated by Emily Wilson
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
• Poems by Tibullus

Philia (Friendship)

• The Epic of Gilgamesh translated by Sophus Helle
• Plato’s Symposium translated by Jowett
• On Friendship by Cicero
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle: Books 8 & 9
• All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
• Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Old Testament: David and Jonathan
• The Iliad by Homer translated by Emily Wilson: Achilles and Patroclus

Eros (Romantic Love)

• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Phaedrus by Plato
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
• The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne by John Donne (especially “Batter My Heart”)
• The Poems of Catullus by Catullus
• Dante’s Inferno translated by Anthony Esolen: Canto V, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta
• The Wife of Bath by Chaucer
• The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
• The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
• The Aeneid by Virgil: Dido and Aeneas

Agape (Charity)

• Confessions by St. Augustine translated by Sarah Ruden
• The Gospel of John and 1 John (Bible)
• The Revelation of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich
• The Temple by George Herbert
• Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich
• Awaiting God by Simone Weil translation by Brad Jersak
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• The Treatise on Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards
• Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Dante's Paradiso translated by Anthony Esolen
• Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry