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228 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Political Poems: 'Easter 1916' by W.B. Yeats
28 maart 2024 · 13 min
Yeats’s great poem about the uprising of Irish republicans against British rule on 24 April 1916 marked a turning point in Ireland’s history and in Yeats's career. Through four stanzas Yeats enacts the transfiguration of the movement’s leaders – executed by the British shortly after the event – from ‘motley’ acquaintances to heroic martyrs, and interrogates his own attitude to nationalist violence. Mark and Seamus discuss Yeats’s reflections on the value of political commitment, his embrace of the role of national bard and the origin of the poem’s most famous line. Lees meer
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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Read more in the LRB:
Terry Eagleton: https://lrb.me/eagletonpp
Colm Tóibín: https://lrb.me/toibinpp
Frank Kermode: https://lrb.me/kermode2pp
Tom Paulin: https://lrb.me/paulinpp
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Among the Ancients II: Herodotus
24 maart 2024 · 11 min
Some of the most compelling stories of the Classical world come from Herodotus‘ Histories, an account of the Persian Wars and a thousand things besides. Emily and Tom chart a course through Herodotus‘ history-as-epic, discussing how best to understand his approach to history, ethnography and myth. Exploring a work full of surprising, dramatic and frequently funny digressions, this episode illustrates the artfulness and deep structure underpinning the Histories, and, despite his obvious Greek bias, Herodotus‘ genuine interest in and respect for cultural difference. Lees meer
Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Peter Green: On Liking Herodotus
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n07/peter-green/on-liking-herodotus
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Medieval LOLs: Old English Riddles
18 maart 2024 · 43 min
Riddles are an ancient and universal form, but few people seem to have enjoyed them more than English Benedictine monks. The Exeter Book, a tenth century monastic collection of Old English verse, builds on the riddle tradition in two striking ways: first, the riddles don’t come with answers; second, they are sexually suggestive. Were they intended to test the moral purity of the reader? Are they simply mischievous rhetorical exercises? Mary and Irina read some of them and consider why Anglo-Saxon culture was so obsessed with the enigmatic. Lees meer
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Read more in the LRB:
Marina Warner: Doubly Damned:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n03/marina-warner/doubly-damned
Mary Wellesley: Marking Parchment
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n16/mary-wellesley/short-cuts
Barbara Everett: Poetry and Soda
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n02/barbara-everett/poetry-and-soda
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Human Conditions: ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ by Frantz Fanon
10 maart 2024 · 14 min
Begun as a psychiatric dissertation, Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (1952) became a genre-shattering study of antiblack racism and its effect on the psyche. At turns expressionistic, confessional, clinical, sharply satirical and politically charged, the book is dazzlingly multivocal, sometimes self-contradictory but always compelling. Judith Butler and Adam Shatz, whose biography of Fanon was released in January, chart a course through some of the most explosive and elusive chapters of the book, and show why Fanon is still essential reading. Lees meer
Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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Read more in the LRB:
Adam Shatz: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n02/adam-shatz/where-life-is-seized
Megan Vaughan: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n20/megan-vaughan/i-am-my-own-foundation
T.J. Clark: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n18/t.j.-clark/knife-at-the-throat
Judith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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On Satire: Ben Jonson's 'Volpone'
4 maart 2024 · 13 min
What did English satirists do after the archbishop of Canterbury banned the printing of satires in June 1599? They turned to the stage. Within months of the crackdown, the same satirical tricks Elizabethans had read in verse could be enjoyed in theatres. At the heart of the scene was Ben Jonson, who for many centuries has maintained a reputation as the refined, classical alternative to Shakespeare, with his diligent observance of the rules extracted from Roman comedy. In this episode, Colin and Clare argue that this reputation is almost entirely false, that Jonson was as embroiled in the volatile and unruly energies of late Elizabethan London as any other dramatist, and nowhere is this more on display than in his finest play, Volpone. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Political Poems: W.H. Auden's 'Spain 1937'
28 februari 2024 · 44 min
In their second episode, Mark and Seamus look at W.H. Auden's ‘Spain’. Auden travelled to Spain in January 1937 to support the Republican efforts in the civil war, and composed the poem shortly after his return a few months later to raise money for Medical Aid for Spain. It became a rallying cry in the fight against fascism, but was also heavily criticised, not least by George Orwell, for the phrase (in its first version) of ‘necessary murder’. Mark and Seamus discuss the poem’s Marxist presentation of history, its distinctly non-Marxist language, and why Auden ultimately condemned it as ‘a lie’. Lees meer
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
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Read more in the LRB:
Seamus Heaney: Sounding Auden
Alan Bennett: The Wrong Blond
Seamus Perry: That's what Wystan says
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Among the Ancients II: Aesop
24 februari 2024 · 11 min
Supposedly an enslaved man from sixth-century Samos, Aesop might not have ever really existed, but the fables attributed to him remain some of the most widely read examples of classical literature. A fascinating window into the ‘low’ culture of ancient Greece, the Fables and the figure of Aesop appear in the work of authors as diverse as Aristophanes, Plato and Phaedrus, serving new purposes in new contexts. Emily and Tom discuss how Aesop’s fables as we know them came to be, make sense of their moral contradictions and unpack some of the fables that are most opaque to modern readers. Lees meer
Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Tim Whitmarsh: Crashing the Delphic Party
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n12/tim-whitmarsh/crashing-the-delphic-party
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Medieval LOLs: The Colloquies of Aelfric Bata
18 februari 2024 · 36 min
All teachers know that the best way for students to learn a language is through swear words, and nobody knew this better than Aelfric Bata, a monk from Winchester whose Colloquies, compiled in around the year 1000, instructed pupils to swear in Latin with elaborate and vivid fluency. Mary and Irina work through some of Aelfric’s fruitier dialogues, and ask whether his examples can be taken purely in good humour. Lees meer
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Human Conditions: ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir
10 februari 2024 · 13 min
Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz to discuss a landmark in feminist thought, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). Dazzling in its scope, The Second Sex incorporates anthropology, psychology, historiography, mythology and biology to ask an ‘impossible’ question: what is a woman? Focusing on three key chapters, Adam and Judith navigate this dense and dizzying book, exploring the nuances of Beauvoir’s original French phrasing and drawing on Judith’s own experiences teaching and writing about the text. They discuss the book’s startling relevance as well as its stark limitations for contemporary feminism, Beauvoir’s refusal to call herself a philosopher, and the radical possibilities released by her claim that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Lees meer
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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Judith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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On Satire: John Donne's Satires
4 februari 2024 · 14 min
In their second episode, Colin and Clare look at the dense, digressive and often dangerous satires of John Donne and other poets of the 1590s. It’s likely that Donne was the first Elizabethan author to attempt formal verse satires in the vein of the Roman satirists, and they mark not only the chronological start of his poetic career, but a foundation of his whole way of writing. Colin and Clare place the satires within Donne’s life and times, and explain why the secret to understanding their language lies in the poet's use of the ‘profoundly unruly parenthesis’. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Political Poems: Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland'
31 januari 2024 · 36 min
In the first episode of their new Close Readings series on political poetry, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’ by Andrew Marvell, described by Frank Kermode as ‘braced against folly by the power and intelligence that make it possible to think it the greatest political poem in the language’. Lees meer
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
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Read the poem here
Further reading in the LRB:
Blair Worden: Double Tongued: https://lrb.me/wordenpp
Frank Kermode: Hard Labour: https://lrb.me/kermodepp
David Norbrook: Political Verse: https://lrb.me/norbrookpp
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Among the Ancients II: Hesiod
24 januari 2024 · 13 min
Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones kick off their second season of Among the Ancients with a return to the eighth century BCE, exploring the poems of Homer’s near contemporary, Hesiod, the first western writer to craft a poetic persona. In Works and Days, brilliantly translated by A.E. Stallings, Hesiod weaves his personality into a narrative that encompasses everything from brotherly bickering to cosmic warfare. Emily and Tom unpack this wildly entertaining window into Ancient Greek life, and discuss how Stallings’s translation highlights the humour and linguistic flavour of the original text. Lees meer
Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Barbara Graziosi
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n16/barbara-graziosi/where-s-the-gravy
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Medieval LOLs: Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale'
17 januari 2024 · 31 min
Were the Middle Ages funny? In this bonus Close Readings series running throughout this year, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley begin their quest for the medieval sense of humour with Chaucer’s 'Miller’s Tale', a story that is surely still (almost) as funny as when it was written six hundred years ago. But who is the real butt of the joke? Mary and Irina look in detail at the mechanics of the plot and its needless but pleasurable complexity, and consider the social significance of clothes and pubic hair in the tale. Lees meer
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Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignup
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Human Conditions: ‘Anti-Semite and Jew’ by Jean-Paul Sartre
14 januari 2024 · 56 min
Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz for the first episode of Human Conditions to look at Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1946 book Anti-Semite and Jew, originally published in French as Réflexions Sur La Question Juive. Sartre’s ‘portraits’ of the ‘anti-Semite’ and the ‘Jew’, as he saw them, caused controversy at the time for directly confronting anti-Jewish bigotry in France and how Jewish people had been treated under the Vichy government and before the war. Lees meer
Judith and Adam discuss Sartre’s attempt to develop a philosophical understanding of this kind of hatred and the apparent moral satisfaction it brings, and his contentious suggestion that not only does the antisemite owe his identity to the Jew, but that 'the Jew' is a creation of the antisemitic gaze. They also consider some of the criticisms levelled at the book, such as its focus on the bourgeois personality, and Sartre’s definition of Jews in entirely negative terms.
NOTE: This episode was recorded on 5 October 2023.
Subscribers will only hear an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Read more in the LRB:
Adam Shatz: Sartre in Cairo
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n22/adam-shatz/one-day-i-ll-tell-you-what-i-think
Jonathan Rée: Being and Nothingness
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n08/jonathan-ree/peas-in-a-matchbox
Judith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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On Satire: 'The Praise of Folly' by Desiderius Erasmus
4 januari 2024 · 13 min
Clare and Colin begin their twelve-part series on satire with the big question: what is satire? Where did it come from? Is it a genre, or more of a style, or an attitude? They then plunge into their first text, The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus, a prose satire from 1511 that lampoons pretty much the whole of sixteenth century life in the voice of Folly herself. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Find out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plus
Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Introducing: Among the Ancients II
3 januari 2024 · 12 min
For the final introduction to next year’s full Close Readings programme, Emily Wilson, celebrated classicist and translator of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, returns for a second season of Among the Ancients, to take on another twelve vital works of Greek and Roman literature with the LRB’s Thomas Jones, loosely themed around ‘truth and lies’ – from Aesop’s Fables to Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Lees meer
Authors covered: Hesiod, Aesop, Herodotus, Pindar, Plato, Lucian, Plautus, Terence, Lucan, Tacitus, Juvenal, Apuleius, Marcus Aurelius.
First episode released on 24 January 2024, then on the 24th of each month for the rest of the year.
How to Listen
Close Readings subscription
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Introducing: On Satire
1 januari 2024 · 15 min
In the first of three introductions to our full 2024 Close Readings programme, starting in January, Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell present their series, On Satire. Over twelve episodes, Colin and Clare will attempt to chart a stable course through some of the most unruly, vulgar, incoherent, savage and outright hilarious works in English literature, as they ask what satire is, what it’s for and why we seem to like it so much. Lees meer
Authors covered: Erasmus, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Earl of Rochester, John Gay, Alexander Pope, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark.
Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, and regular contributors to the LRB.
First episode released on 4 January 2024, then on the fourth of each month for the rest of the year.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full series, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Introducing: Human Conditions
1 januari 2024 · 26 min
In the second of three introductions to our full Close Readings programme for 2024, Adam Shatz presents his series, Human Conditions, in which he’ll be talking separately to three guests – Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards – about some of the most revolutionary thought of the 20th century. Lees meer
Judith, Pankaj and Brent will each discuss four texts over four episodes, as they uncover the inner life of the 20th century through works that have sought to find freedom in different ways and remake the world around them. They explore, among other things, the development of arguments against racism and colonialism, the experience of artistic expression in oppressive conditions and how language has been used in politically substantive ways.
Authors covered: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, V. S. Naipaul, Ashis Nandy, Doris Lessing, Nadezhda Mandelstam, W. E. B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, Amiri Baraka and Audre Lorde.
Episodes released once a month throughout 2024, on the 4th of each month.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full series, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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The Long and Short: Elizabeth Bowen
24 december 2023 · 12 min
In the final episode of The Long and Short, we turn to Elizabeth Bowen, widely considered one of the finest writers of the short story. Mark and Seamus unpack ‘the Bowen effect’ and her singularly haunting style: subtle social commentary cut through with humour, and occasionally outright romanticism. A culmination of the short fiction explored in this series, Bowen’s work proves that life ‘with the lid on’ can be just as exhilarating, moving and funny as any sensationalist story. Lees meer
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full series, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
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Among the Ancients: Seneca
14 december 2023 · 12 min
For the final episode in Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at Seneca, whose life is relatively well known to us. A child of the established Roman Empire, born around the same time as Jesus, Seneca had turbulent relationships with the emperors of his time: exiled by Caligula, he returned to tutor the young Nero, but was eventually forced to commit suicide after being accused of a treasonous plot. For a long time, Seneca the Philosopher was often assumed to be a different person from Seneca the Tragedian, as they seemed such different writers. As a philosopher, he is the main source of what we know about Roman Stoicism, which prioritises virtue and the dispelling of false beliefs. Seneca's dramas, however, are full of extreme emotions and violence. Emily and Tom focus on two of these tragedies, Thyestes and Trojan Women, and consider how the two sides of Seneca fit together. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Find out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plus
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
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Medieval Beginnings: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
4 december 2023 · 52 min
For the final episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina look at by far the most popular text (in its time) of all that have featured in the series: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. The fictional traveller’s fantastical descriptions of different places, peoples and animals across the Holy Land and Asia are almost certainly drawn mainly from other textual sources, rather than direct experience by the unknown author, and yet the work was often used as a source of reference as well as entertainment or prurient interest. Many of the writer’s observations of different political and religious practices could be taken as radical critiques of his homeland. Yet while it often urges appreciation of other cultures, the book is undoubtedly xenophobic and racist in places, foreshadowing the European quest for colonisation: indeed, Christopher Columbus had a copy with him when the Santa Cruz sighted land on 12th October 1492. Lees meer
Get 50% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings with the code 'SUMMER50' at checkout when you sign up here:
https://lrb.me/travel26pod
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: Alice Oswald's ‘Dart’ and ‘Memorial’
24 november 2023 · 13 min
The eleventh episode of the Long and Short brings us to the present day and the distant past, as we turn to two multivocal, monumental poems by Alice Oswald. The dazzlingly polyphonic Dart (2002) celebrates the voices of the river Dart, and the people, animals and supernatural forces entwined with it. Memorial (2011) translates and transfigures the Iliad, stripping back the narrative to reveal the epic’s ‘bright unbearable reality’. Mark and Seamus explore the thematic throughlines in Oswald’s work, unpicking allusions and influences at play in these poems. Lees meer
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full series, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
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Among the Ancients: Ovid
14 november 2023 · 12 min
Ovid was perhaps the most prolific poet of Ancient Rome, certainly in the amount of his poetry which has survived (around 30,000 lines). This episode focuses on his 15-book epic, the Metamorphoses, a patchwork of hundreds of stories of transformation, including numerous retellings of famous myths from Apollo and Daphne to the Trojan War. Lees meer
In this episode from Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom consider the poem’s depictions of trauma, redemption and the transformation of gender roles, and the formal practices which shape the poetry, such as declamatio and suasoria. They also ask how Ovid’s writing in the time of Emperor Augustus affected his work, and the circumstances around his later exile from Rome.
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
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Medieval Beginnings: The Digby Mary Magdalene Play
4 november 2023 · 13 min
For sheer scale and spectacle, surely few plays of any period can match The Digby Play of Mary Magdalene. Boasting at least fifty speaking parts, with multiple locations, scaffolds and pyrotechnics, including an ascent into heaven, this wildly ambitious piece of late Medieval theatre mixes traditional hagiographic drama with magical adventure, romance and broad comedy. For audiences of the time this was not just entertainment, but a profound social and religious experience which, despite its fantastical elements and radical departure from the gospel stories, reflected important moments in their daily lives. Irina and Mary try to make sense of the outlandish plot, how it might have been staged, and the complex, composite figure of Mary Magdalene. Lees meer
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full series, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: Nella Larsen's 'Passing' and Langston Hughes's 'Montage of a Dream Deferred'
24 oktober 2023 · 12 min
In the tenth episode of the series, Seamus and Mark turn to two figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nella Larsen’s ‘Passing’ is taut, tense and tartly stylish take on the Jamesian short story, redolent with ironies and ambiguities, and feels just as relevant today. Widely considered his masterwork, Langston Hughes’s ‘Montage of a Dream Deferred’ draws on the modernist tradition, a documentarian sensibility and the freedoms of bebop to capture the multiplicity of Harlem voices. Lees meer
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full series, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
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Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
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Among the Ancients: Horace
15 oktober 2023 · 10 min
Emily and Tom follow Virgil with one of his contemporaries, Horace, whose poetry played an important political role in the early years of Augustan Rome and has had an enormous influence on subsequent European lyric verse. They consider the original meanings of some of Horace’s famous phrases – carpe diem, in medias res, nunc est bibendum – and look at the ways his often complex poetics interrogate the art and value of poetry itself. Lees meer
Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
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In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Nicholas Horsfall:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n12/nicholas-horsfall/ach-so-herr-major
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
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Medieval Beginnings: Middle English Lyrics
4 oktober 2023 · 12 min
From the first recorded instance of the word ‘fart’ in English, to nuanced vignettes of sexual power dynamics, the numerous Middle English lyrics that have survived down the centuries, often scribbled in the margins of more ‘serious’ texts, offer a vivid snapshot of everyday medieval life. In the tenth episode of Medieval Beginings, Irina and Mary analyse several of these short, fleeting verses, probably set to music, and consider their possible origins and purpose, their delicious ambiguity, and their equivocal relationship to the sacred manuscripts in which they've been found. Lees meer
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts at the top of this feed, or here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n10/barbara-newman/i-was-such-a-lovely-girl
Listen to 'Sumer is icumen in' sung by The Hilliard Ensemble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMCA9nYnLWo
Some of the lyrics discussed in this episode can be found online:
Sumer is icumen in:
https://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medlyric/cuckou.php
I Have a Yong Suster
https://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medlyric/suster.php
Maiden in the mor
https://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medlyric/maideninthemoor.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_in_the_mor_lay
I have a gentil cock
https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/i-have-gentil-cook
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: Ted Hughes's 'Gaudete'
24 september 2023 · 14 min
Originally conceived as a film script, 'Gaudete' is Ted Hughes’s apocalyptic vision of an English village in the throes of pagan forces. While it may be ‘the weirdest poem by a very weird poet’, as Mark puts it in this episode, 'Gaudete' shines a light on many Hughesian preoccupations and paved the way for his best-selling collection, Birthday Letters. A strange fusion of Twin Peaks and Midsomer Murders, 'Gaudete' is the former Poet Laureate at his most uninhibited and brilliant. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Among the Ancients: Virgil
14 september 2023 · 13 min
In the ninth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom arrive at Virgil, focusing on his 12-book epic the Aeneid, which describes the wanderings of the Trojan prince Aeneas after the fall of Troy. They discuss the political background to Virgil’s life, which saw the fall of the Roman Republic, and the complex, ambiguous space his poetry inhabits, blending the mythical and historical, the geographical and imaginary, while interrogating the costs of empire and triumph in his own time. Lees meer
Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Denis Feeney:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n01/denis-feeney/simile-world
Rebecca Armstrong
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n05/rebecca-armstrong/all-kinds-of-unlucky
Colin Burrow:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n05/colin-burrow/imperiumsinefinism
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n08/colin-burrow/you-ve-listened-long-enough
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
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Medieval Beginnings: Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde
4 september 2023 · 12 min
Chaucer’s 14th century tale of ‘double sorrow’, Troilus and Criseyde, set during the siege of Troy, is the subject of Irina and Mary’s ninth episode of Medieval Beginnings. Based largely on Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato, Chaucer’s novelistic long poem displays a psychological realism that would make Henry James envious, and, with the matchmaker-uncle Pandarus, introduces a character of startling and often perplexing opacity. Lees meer
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts at the top of this feed, or here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Barbara Newman: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n22/barbara-newman/kek-kek!-kokkow!-quek-quek!
Irina Dumitrescu: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n17/irina-dumitrescu/how-to-read-aloud
Mary Wellesley: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n11/mary-wellesley/on-the-nightingale
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: James Joyce's Dubliners
24 augustus 2023 · 11 min
James Joyce wrote most of the short stories in his landmark collection, Dubliners, when he was still in his 20s, but a tortuous publishing history, during which printers refused or pulped them for their profanity, meant they weren’t published until 1914, when Joyce was 33. In their eighth episode, Mark and Seamus discuss the astonishing confidence of Joyce’s early work, which not only launched his literary career, but also initiated the grand project of his writing life. In Dubliners, the reader experiences already the vastness of Joyce’s literary imagination, his harsh criticism of the Catholic Church, his shameless plundering of the lives of his contemporaries, and a writer’s self-conscious vocation to ‘forge the uncreated conscience of his race’. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
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Among the Ancients: Lucretius
14 augustus 2023 · 11 min
In their eighth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at a contemporary of Catullus, Lucretius, and the only poem we have from him, De rerum natura (The Nature of Things), which sets out ideas about how to live one’s life based on the Epicurean philosophical tradition, embracing friends, gardens, materialism and moderation. Lees meer
Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
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Further reading in the LRB:
Richard Jenkyns: Coaxing and Seducing
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n17/richard-jenkyns/coaxing-and-seducing
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
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Medieval Beginnings: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
4 augustus 2023 · 12 min
In this episode of Medieval Beginnings, Irina and Mary jump to the 14th century for an introspective Arthurian romance about a knight trying to live up to his perfect reputation. The mysterious and intricate Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is perhaps best understood as a series of games within games, in which our hero, a recurring character throughout medieval literature, is never sure what adventure he’s playing. Lees meer
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts at the top of this feed, or here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Read more in the LRB:
Mary Wellesley: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n08/mary-wellesley/diary
Frank Kermode: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n05/frank-kermode/who-has-the-gall
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’
24 juli 2023 · 12 min
Seamus and Mark step into the counterculture with two long poems, ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’, by Allen Ginsberg, a Beat poet-celebrity with a utopian vision for an America rescued from its corrupted institutions and vested interests. Seamus and Mark discuss some of Ginsberg’s influences – including Whitman, Carlos Williams, O’Hara and Blake – and the far-reaching impact of his work, as well as Mark’s own experiences meeting the poet. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
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Among the Ancients: Catullus
14 juli 2023 · 12 min
For the second half of their Among the Ancients series, Emily and Tom move to Ancient Rome, starting with the late Republican poet Catullus. Described by Tennyson, somewhat misleadingly, as ‘the tenderest of Roman poets’, Catullus combined a self-conscious technical virtuosity with a broad emotional range and a taste for paradox, often using obscene diction to skirt across the boundaries of gender and aesthetics. Lees meer
Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further Reading in the LRB:
Elspeth Barker:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n19/elspeth-barker/o-filth-o-beastliness
William Fitzgerald:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n04/william-fitzgerald/badmouthing-city
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.
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Medieval Beginnings: Havelok the Dane
4 juli 2023 · 11 min
In their seventh episode of Medieval Beginnings, Irina and Mary continue their run of Romances with the Middle English Havelok the Dane, a double Cinderella story of sex, fishing and surprisingly graphic violence, written at the end of the 13th century and set in a pre-Conquest, legendary English past. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: D.H. Lawrence's short stories
23 juni 2023 · 12 min
Controversial, compulsive, and overwhelmingly charismatic, D.H. Lawrence continues to exert an undeniable magnetism through his novels and poetry. But, as Mark argues in this episode, the quintessential Lawrence lies in his shorter fiction. Focusing on five stories that span Lawrence’s career, Mark and Seamus discuss the strange mix of uninhibitedness and meticulous detail that make Lawrence’s work essential reading. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
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Among the Ancients: Aristophanes
14 juni 2023 · 12 min
In their sixth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom discuss the comedies of Aristophanes, in particular Clouds and Lysistrata. How did an Aristophanes comedy differ from a satyr play? Was he a conservative or a radical? And what happened to comedy after Aristophanes? Lees meer
Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
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In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Emily Wilson:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n20/emily-wilson/punishment-by-radish
Thomas Jones:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n19/thomas-jones/short-cuts
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.
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Medieval Beginnings: Le Roman de Silence
5 juni 2023 · 10 min
For the sixth episode in their Medieval Beginnings series, Mary and Irina go full Romance with one of the most elaborate and surprising narrative poems in medieval literature, Le Roman de Silence, a complex, 13th-century Old French tale about gender, power and transformation. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: Hart Crane's 'The Bridge'
24 mei 2023 · 11 min
In their fifth episode, Mark and Seamus reach their first 20th century poet of the series, the Ohio-born, New York-loving ad man Hart Crane, and his epic 1930 work The Bridge. Directly inspired by The Waste Land, The Bridge sought to address modernity, as Eliot had done, with all its conflicts, contradictions and difficulties, but infuse it with a Whitman-esque expression of American greatness. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
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Among the Ancients: Euripides
17 mei 2023 · 12 min
Euripides was the youngest of the fifth-century Athenian tragedians, and is often described as the most radical. But how daring was he? How far did he push the boundaries of dramatic form? Focusing on Medea and Hippolytus, Emily and Tom discuss the ways Euripides sought to shock his audiences, make them laugh, and explore their anxieties in a time of cultural change. Lees meer
Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Robert Cioffi: Euripides Unbound
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n18/robert-cioffi/euripides-unbound
Anne Carson: Euripides to the Audience
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n17/anne-carson/euripides-to-the-audience
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.
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Medieval Beginnings: The Lais of Marie de France
4 mei 2023 · 13 min
If a Middle Ages full of castles, jousts, hawking, illicit love affairs and playful singing in the meadows is what you’re looking for, then look no further than the Lais of Marie de France. These 12th century love stories, written in Anglo-Norman by a writer who was unusually keen to make her name known, describe noble stories of passion, devotion, betrayal, self-sacrifice and magical transformations played out in enchanted woodlands and richly-draped chambers. Lees meer
Irina and Mary discuss Marie’s various portrayals of love, her luscious powers of description, and the frequent deployment of animals in her stories to expose and resolve human problems.
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: Katherine Mansfield's short stories
24 april 2023 · 12 min
In episode four of The Long and Short, Mark and Seamus turn to the squarely modernist Katherine Mansfield, whose writing famously attracted the envy of Virginia Woolf. They discuss how in Mansfield's work the modernist story makes a decisive break from its 19th century predecessors. At turns lyrical, ruthless, moving and darkly comic, these stories demonstrate her knack for close observation and mimicry – no wonder one of them is Mark’s ‘desert island’ story. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Among the Ancients: Sophocles
14 april 2023 · 14 min
In the fourth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom ask: what was it like to go to the theatre in Athens in 468 BC? And how far do modern ideas about tragedy, derived from Aristotle, apply to Sophocles’ plays? They then look in more detail at Oedipus Tyrannos and Antigone and what the plays have to say about agency and knowledge, and consider issues particular to Sophocles’ time, including civic responsibility and the role of immigrants in Athenian society. Lees meer
Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
High Lloyd Jones:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n24/hugh-lloyd-jones/gods-and-heroes
James Davidson:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n19/james-davidson/an-easy-lay
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.
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Medieval Beginnings: The Ancrene Wisse
4 april 2023 · 12 min
In the fourth episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina climb inside a tiny cell to explore the Ancrene Wisse, a guidebook written in the early 13th century, originally intended for three anchoresses, but which enjoyed a much wider audience (there was even a copy in Henry VIII’s library). Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
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The Long and Short: Henry James's short stories
24 maart 2023 · 11 min
The third episode of The Long and Short turns to the short stories of Henry James. Mark and Seamus look in particular at ‘The Aspern Papers’, which, like Tennyson’s ‘Maud’, offers a diagnosis of obsession, in this case through a sensuous, excruciating and often comedic Venetian psychodrama. Mark and Seamus discuss the emergence of the short story at the end of the 19th century, and how certain features of the form – its attachment to unresolved endings, its debt to the dramatic monologue – can be found in James’s own stories, along with his other major themes, such as the tortured relationship between the public and private, and the experience of Americans in Europe. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Among the Ancients: Sappho
14 maart 2023 · 13 min
In the third episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom move from epic to lyric, with the poems of Sappho, or what remains of them. They consider what we know, and don’t know, about her life, and how her poetry challenges the heroic tradition, both in its subversion of Homeric ideas of war and nostos, and in its playful use of language. Lees meer
Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Emily Wilson:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n01/emily-wilson/tongue-breaks
Terry Castle:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n19/terry-castle/always-the-bridesmaid
Mary Beard:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n19/mary-beard/sappho-speaks
Peter Green:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n22/peter-green/what-we-know
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.
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Medieval Beginnings: Bede's Life of Cuthbert
3 maart 2023 · 11 min
In the third episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina explore the much-chronicled life of St Cuthbert, as told by the most famous writer of the early medieval period, the so-called Venerable Bede. From Cuthbert’s childhood interest in naked handstands, to his later work as a charismatic preacher who could elicit total confession, and as a hermit who enjoyed the assistance of friendly sea otters, it was a life which, as told by Bede, both challenged and conformed to the expected patterns of hagiography. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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The Long and Short: Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'
24 februari 2023 · 11 min
In the second episode of The Long and Short, Mark and Seamus turn to Walt Whitman's ‘Song of Myself’, from Leaves of Grass (1855), for Mark ‘one of the most exciting things literature has to offer’. They discuss the extraordinary physicality and exuberance of this seminal American poem, its relationship with urbanism, capitalism and sexuality, and its Johnny Appleseed-spirit, among many other things. Lees meer
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Among the Ancients: The 'Odyssey'
14 februari 2023 · 50 min
In episode two of Among the Ancients, Tom and Emily turn to Homer’s Odyssey. They discuss the twisting, turning nature of both the narrative and its hero, the poem’s complex interrogation of the idea of ‘home’, and the violence Odysseus brings with him on his return from the Trojan War. Lees meer
Get 50% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings with the code 'SUMMER50' at checkout when you sign up here:
https://lrb.me/atasummer50
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.
Readings by Hazel Holder
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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