أفضل بودكاسات Close Reading (2024)

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Medieval LOLs: Fabliaux 34:45

5d ago34:45

34:45

Fabliaux were short, witty tales originating in northern France between the 12th and 14th centuries, often featuring crafty characters in rustic settings and overwhelmingly concerned with money and sex. In this episode Irina and Mary look at two of these comic verses, both containing surprisingly explicit sexual language, and consider the ways in w…

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Human Conditions: ‘The Human Condition’ by Hannah Arendt 11:49

13d ago11:49

11:49

In the fourth episode of Human Conditions, the last of the series with Judith Butler, we fittingly turn to The Human Condition (1956). Hannah Arendt defines action as the highest form of human activity: distinct from work and labour, action includes collaborative expression, collective decision-making and, crucially, initiating change. Focusing on …

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On Satire: The Earl of Rochester 13:14

19d ago13:14

13:14

According to one contemporary, the Earl of Rochester was a man who, in life as well is in poetry, ‘could not speak with any warmth, without repeated Oaths, which, upon any sort of provocation, came almost naturally from him.’ It’s certainly hard to miss Rochester's enthusiastic use of obscenities, though their precise meanings can sometimes be obsc…

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Political Poems: 'Easter 1916' by W.B. Yeats 33:54

26d ago33:54

33:54

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 int…

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Emily Wilson on Sappho ("Ode to Aphrodite") 1:27:15

29d ago1:27:15

1:27:15

This is the kind of conversation I dreamed about having when I began this podcast. Emily Wilson joins Close Readings to talk about Sappho's "Ode to Aphrodite," a poet and poem at the root of the lyric tradition in European poetry. You'll hear Emily read the poem in the Ancient Greek and then again in Anne Carson's English translation. We talk about…

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Among the Ancients II: Herodotus 10:30

1M ago10:30

10:30

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 f…

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Medieval LOLs: Old English Riddles 41:58

1M ago41:58

41:58

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 …

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Robert Volpicelli on W. H. Auden ("In Memory of W. B. Yeats") 1:52:26

1M ago1:52:26

1:52:26

"Poetry," according to this episode's poem, "makes nothing happen." But as our guest, Robert Volpicelli, makes clear, that poem, W. H. Auden's "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," offers that statement not as diminishment of poetry but instead as a way of valuing it for the right reasons. Robert Volpicelli is an associate professor of English at Randolph-Ma…

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Human Conditions: ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ by Frantz Fanon 12:58

1M ago12:58

12:58

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. Judit…

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On Satire: Ben Jonson's 'Volpone' 11:51

2M ago11:51

11:51

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…

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Political Poems: W.H. Auden's 'Spain 1937' 42:55

2M ago42:55

42:55

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 cr…

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Margaret Ronda on Walt Whitman ("This Compost") 1:49:36

2M ago1:49:36

1:49:36

How does life grow from death? When we taste a fruit, are we, in some sense, ingesting everything the soil contains? Margaret Ronda joins the podcast to discuss a poem that poses these questions in harrowing ways, Walt Whitman's "This Compost." [A note on the recording: from 01:10:11 - 01:12:59, Margaret briefly loses her internet connection and I …

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Among the Ancients II: Aesop 10:26

2M ago10:26

10:26

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 Aristophan…

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Michelle A. Taylor on Patricia Lockwood ("The Ode on Grecian Urn") 1:56:45

2M ago1:56:45

1:56:45

What is a poem worth? What does beauty do to the person who wants it, or to the person who makes it? Michelle A. Taylor joins the pod to talk about Patricia Lockwood's poem "The Ode on a Grecian Urn," a wild and funny and ultimately quite moving poem (which is also, obviously, a riff on Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn"). Michelle A. Taylor is a Postd…

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Medieval LOLs: The Colloquies of Aelfric Bata 35:28

2M ago35:28

35:28

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,…

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Sylvie Thode on Tim Dlugos ("The Far West") 1:32:58

2M ago1:32:58

1:32:58

How might a poem map the passage from life to death? Sylvie Thode joins the podcast to talk about a fascinating poem by Tim Dlugos, "The Far West." Sylvie is a graduate student in English at UC Berkeley, where she works on poetry and poetics, with particular interest in the poetry of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Though that focus roots her in the 20th cent…

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Human Conditions: ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir 11:56

2M ago11:56

11:56

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…

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Marisa Galvez on William IX ("The Song of Nothing") 1:03:44

3M ago1:03:44

1:03:44

For the first time in the run of this podcast (though certainly not the last!) today we have a poem in translation. Marisa Galvez joins Close Readings to discuss "The Song of Nothing," a poem by the first attested troubadour, William IX. The poem is something like 900 years old, and Marisa helps us see both its strangeness and the sense in which it…

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On Satire: John Donne's Satires 12:49

3M ago12:49

12:49

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 foundati…

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Political Poems: Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland' 35:29

3M ago35:29

35:29

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’. Mar…

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Among the Ancients II: Hesiod 12:00

3M ago12:00

12:00

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 encom…

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Stephanie Burt on Allan Peterson ("I thought all life came from the alphabet") 1:23:01

3M ago1:23:01

1:23:01

Very few scholars have as much enthusiasm for poetry as Stephanie Burt, and so it was a delight to have her back for this episode. Steph has been in the news of late for offering a (very popular) course at Harvard on Taylor Swift, and we begin this episode by talking in fascinating ways about the long history of the relation between popular music a…

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Medieval LOLs: Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale' 30:03

3M ago30:03

30:03

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 a…

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Paul Fry on William Wordsworth ("A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal") 1:31:17

3M ago1:31:17

1:31:17

Some of the most profound insights I have ever had as a student of poetry occurred in the classroom of Paul Fry, and so this episode really is a dream for me. Paul Fry joins the podcast to talk about William Wordsworth's poem "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal." Just an eight-line poem, but it opens for us into some big questions: Where does Wordsworth …

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Human Conditions: ‘Anti-Semite and Jew’ by Jean-Paul Sartre 12:06

3M ago12:06

12:06

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…

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Keegan Cook Finberg on Harryette Mullen ("Dim Lady") 1:32:35

4M ago1:32:35

1:32:35

What kind of love do we find in comparison? Keegan Cook FInberg joins the podcast to discuss Harryette Mullen's poem "Dim Lady," which is simultaneously a love poem and a (perhaps?) loving tribute to Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 (itself a love poem and parody). Keegan is an assistant professor of English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.…

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On Satire: What is satire? 11:56

4M ago11:56

11:56

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 vo…

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Eric Lindstrom on James Schuyler ("Empathy and New Year") 2:00:05

4M ago2:00:05

2:00:05

"New Year is nearly here / and who, knowing himself, would / endanger his desires / resolving them / in a formula?" So asks James Schuyler in this episode's poem, "Empathy and New Year." No resolutions for me this year, but instead an indulgence, a gift to myself, and I hope to you: my friend Eric Lindstrom rejoins the podcast to talk once again ab…

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The Long and Short: Elizabeth Bowen 11:27

4M ago11:27

11:27

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 t…

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David B. Hobbs on George Oppen ("Ballad") 1:57:10

4M ago1:57:10

1:57:10

Why might a poet set poetry aside for more than two decades and then return to it? What would the return sound like? When, as a young man, George Oppen stopped writing poetry, it was because, in his words, "I couldn't make the art I wanted to make while also pursuing the politics I wanted to pursue." David Hobbs joins the podcast to discuss "Ballad…

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Among the Ancients: Seneca 11:28

4M ago11:28

11:28

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 com…

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Jahan Ramazani on Derek Walcott ("A Far Cry from Africa") 1:41:42

4M ago1:41:42

1:41:42

How can a poet choose between his language and his idea of home? A postcolonial turn this week, as Jahan Ramazani joins the podcast to talk about Derek Walcott's "A Far Cry from Africa." Jahan Ramazani is University Professor and Edgar F. Professor and the Director of Modern and Global Studies in the Department of English at the University of Virgi…

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Medieval Beginnings: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville 11:09

5M ago11:09

11:09

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 …

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Elisa Gabbert on Sylvia Plath ("Lady Lazarus") 1:42:46

5M ago1:42:46

1:42:46

What a searching, stimulating conversation this was. Elisa Gabbert joins the podcast to talk about a poem she and I have both long loved, Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus." Elisa is a poet, critic, and essayist—and the author of several books. Her recent titles include Normal Distance (Soft Skull, 2022), The Unreality of Memory (FSG Originals, 2020), a…

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The Long and Short: Alice Oswald's ‘Dart’ and ‘Memorial’ 11:50

5M ago11:50

11:50

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…

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Hanif Abdurraqib on Umang Kalra ("Job Security") 1:13:10

5M ago1:13:10

1:13:10

A conversation I've been wanting to have for a long time: Hanif Abdurraqib joins the podcast to talk about Umang Kalra's poem "Job Security." Hanif is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, A Fortune for Your Disaster, Go Ahead in the Rain: Note…

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Next Year on Close Readings: Among the Ancients II 11:41

5M ago11:41

11:41

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 Ae…

1
Next Year on Close Readings: Human Conditions 25:33

5M ago25:33

25:33

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. Judith, Pankaj and Brent will each discu…

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Next Year on Close Readings: On Satire 14:15

5M ago14:15

14:15

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 literatur…

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Among the Ancients: Ovid 11:08

5M ago11:08

11:08

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. In this ep…

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Ellen Bryant Voigt on Louise Glück ("Brooding Likeness") 1:05:29

6M ago1:05:29

1:05:29

The last of three episodes in our cluster on Louise Glück: one of her oldest and dearest friends, the marvelous poet Ellen Bryant Voigt joins the podcast to talk about Louise's poem "Brooding Likeness." Ellen's books of poetry have recently been assembled into a staggering single volume, Collected Poems (Norton, 2023). She is also the author of two…

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Langdon Hammer on Louise Glück ("A Foreshortened Journey") 1:24:52

6M ago1:24:52

1:24:52

The second episode in our cluster on the great Louise Glück, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, and who passed away on October 13. Lanny Hammer rejoins the podcast to talk about his friend and colleague Louise and her poem "A Foreshortened Journey." Langdon Hammer is Niel Gray, Jr. Professor of English at Yale University, where he studies …

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Elisa Gonzalez on Louise Glück ("A Village Life") 1:43:40

6M ago1:43:40

1:43:40

After a little hiatus, the podcast returns with a cluster of new episodes on the great, late poet Louise Glück, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. Louise passed away on October 13. First up we have the brilliant poet and writer Elisa Gonzalez, who knew Louise as both teacher and friend. Elisa has chosen the poem "A Village Life" for o…

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Medieval Beginnings: The Digby Mary Magdalene Play 11:54

6M ago11:54

11:54

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, roma…

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The Long and Short: Nella Larsen's 'Passing' and Langston Hughes's 'Montage of a Dream Deferred' 11:40

6M ago11:40

11:40

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’ dra…

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Among the Ancients: Horace 9:17

6M ago9:17

9:17

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…

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Medieval Beginnings: Middle English Lyrics 11:18

7M ago11:18

11:18

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 …

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The Long and Short: Ted Hughes's 'Gaudete' 12:52

7M ago12:52

12:52

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 Lett…

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Among the Ancients: Virgil 12:03

7M ago12:03

12:03

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…

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Medieval Beginnings: Troilus and Criseyde 11:36

8M ago11:36

11:36

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 P…

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