‘I want to write a poem of a new class — a Don Juan, without the mockery and impurity,’ Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to a friend in 1844, ‘and admitting of as much philosophical dreaming and digression (which is in fact a characteristic of the age) as I like to use.’ The poem she had in mind turned out to be her verse novel, Aurora Leigh, published in 1854, and described by Ruskin as the greatest long poem of the 19th century. It tells the story of an aspiring poet, Aurora, born in Florence to an Italian mother and an English father, who loses both her parents as a child and moves to England and the care of her aunt. From there she pursues her poetic ambitions to London, Paris, Italy and back to England while negotiating a traumatic love triangle between the vicious Lady Waldemar, the impoverished seamstress Marian, and the austere social-reformer Romney. In this episode, Clare is joined by Stefanie Markovits and Seamus Perry to discuss the wide range of innovations Barrett Browning deploys to fulfil her commitment to immediacy and narrative drive in the poem, and the ways in which she uses her characters to explore the extent of her own emancipatory politics. Read the poem: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/56621/pg56621-images.html Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Read more in the LRB: John Bayley: https://lrb.me/nabrowning1 Ruth Yeazell: https://lrb.me/nabrowning2 Audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksna⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tennyson described 'In Memoriam' as ‘rather the cry of the whole human race than mine’, and the poem achieved widespread acclaim as soon as it was published in 1850, cited by Queen Victoria as her habitual reading after the death of Prince Albert. Its subject is the death in 1833 of Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam at the age of 22, and in its 131 sections it explores the possibilities of elegy more extensively than any English poem before it, not least in its innovative, incantatory rhyme scheme, intended to numb the pain of grief. From its repeated dramatisations of the experience of private loss, 'In Memoriam' opens out to reflect on the intellectual turmoil running through Victorian society amid monumental advances in scientific thought. In this episode, Seamus and Mark discuss the unique emotional power of Tennyson’s style, and why his great elegy came to represent what mourning, and poetry, should be in the public imagination of his time. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrld In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Read more in the LRB: Frank Kermode: ⁠https://lrb.me/ldtenn1⁠ Seamus Perry: ⁠https://lrb.me/ldtenn2⁠ LRB Audiobooks Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are strange books, a testament to their author’s defiant unconventionality. Through them, Lewis Carroll transformed popular culture, our everyday idioms and our ideas of childhood and the fantastic, and they remain enormously popular. Anna Della Subin joins Marina Warner to explore the many puzzles of the Alice books. They discuss the way Carroll illuminates other questions raised in this series: of dream states, the nature of consciousness, the transformative power of language and the arbitrariness of authority. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrff In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff Further reading in the LRB: Marina Warner: You Must Not Ask ⁠https://lrb.me/ffcarroll1⁠ Dinah Birch: Never Seen A Violet ⁠https://lrb.me/ffcarroll2⁠ Marina Warner: Doubly Damned ⁠https://lrb.me/ffcarroll3⁠ Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB. Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksff⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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’. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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: 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mill’s 'Autobiography' was considered too shocking to publish while he was alive. Behind his musings on many of the philosophical and political preoccupations of his time lie the confessions of a deeply repressed man who knows that he’s deeply repressed, coming to terms with the uncompromising educational experiment his father subjected him to as a child – described by Isaiah Berlin as ‘an appalling success’. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss Mill’s startlingly honest account of this experience and the breakdown that ensued in his 20s, and the boldness of his life and thought from his views on socialism and the rights of women to his unwavering devotion to his wife, Harriet Taylor, the co-author of 'On Liberty' and other works. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip Further reading in the LRB: Sissela Bok on Mill's 'Autobiography': https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n06/sissela-bok/his-father-s-children Alasdair MacIntyre: Mill's Forgotten Victory https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n20/alasdair-macintyre/john-stuart-mill-s-forgotten-victory Panbkaj Mishra: Bland Fanatics https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n23/pankaj-mishra/bland-fanatics Next Episode F.H. Bradley's 'My Station and Its Duties' can be found online here: https://archive.org/details/ethicalstudies0000brad/page/160/mode/2up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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? 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: 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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). 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Wuthering Heights was published in December 1847, many readers didn’t know what to make of it: one reviewer called it ‘a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors’. In this episode of ‘Novel Approaches’, Patricia Lockwood and David Trotter join Thomas Jones to explore Emily Brontë’s ‘completely amoral’ novel. As well as questions of Heathcliff’s mysterious origins and ‘obscene’ wealth, of Cathy’s ghost, bad weather, gnarled trees, even gnarlier characters and savage dogs, they discuss the book’s intricate structure, Brontë’s inventive use of language and the extraordinary hold that her story continues to exert over the imaginations of readers and non-readers alike. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Read more in the LRB: David Trotter: Heathcliff Redounding https://lrb.me/nabronte1 John Bayley: Kitchen Devil https://lrb.me/nabronte2 Alice Spawls: If It Weren’t for Charlotte https://lrb.me/nabronte3 Patricia Lockwood: What a Bear Wants https://lrb.me/nabronte4 Buy this book from the London Review Bookshop: ⁠https://lrb.me/crbooklist⁠ Audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksna⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. 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 Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In episode two of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina turn the pages of the Exeter Book, a remarkable 10th century manuscript containing numerous poems and riddles, some of which are written in the voices of women. They consider in particular the enigmatic and beautiful ‘Wife’s Lament’ and ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’, and their numerous interpretations, and compare them to an extraordinary collection of letters written by influential women to St Boniface in the 8th century. 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. Subscribe to Close Readings: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Find reading resources for this episode on the LRB website: https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/medieval-beginnings-letters-and-laments Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark Ford and Seamus Perry start their series, The Long and Short, with Tennyson’s ‘Maud’, a weird and disturbing poem about obsession that Tennyson himself was obsessed by. He would recite it in full at the drop of a hat, sometimes more than once, to friends and foes alike – even though it received notoriously bad reviews when it was published. This episode considers why the poem meant so much to him, and what it tells us about the Victorian age. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/tlasapple In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London. Read more on Tennyson in the LRB: Seamus Perry: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n02/seamus-perry/are-we-there-yet Danny Karlin: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v09/n20/danny-karlin/tennyson-s-text Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In their first episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom begin with a beginning, Homer's Iliad: its depictions of anger and grief, of capricious gods and warriors’ bodies, and the sheer narrative force of Homer’s epic of the Trojan War. Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from the rest 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 Read more in the LRB: James Davidson: Like a Meteorite https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n15/james-davidson/like-a-meteorite Edward Luttwak: Homer Inc. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-inc Colin Burrow: The Empty Bath https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n12/colin-burrow/the-empty-bath 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu start their Medieval Beginnings series with Beowulf, a tale of monsters and heroes that is also a complex collection of interwoven stories about war and the conduct of a warrior society. They consider the poem’s preoccupations with kingship and a pagan past seen through the eyes of a Christian culture, as well as many of the mysteries which still surround its, not least its authorship and many narrative curiosities. 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. Subscribe to Close Readings: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the centenary of the publication of Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ in book form, Mark and Seamus finish the second series of Modern-ish Poets by considering how revolutionary the poem was, the numerous meanings that have been drawn out of it, and its lasting influence. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Further reading on Eliot in the LRB: Frank Kermode: https://lrb.me/kermodeeliotpod Dan Jacobson: https://lrb.me/jacobsoneliotpod Barbara Everett: https://lrb.me/everetteliotpod Mark Ford: https://lrb.me/fordeliotpod Terry Eagleton: https://lrb.me/eagletoneliotpod Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in December 2022. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the lives and works of Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, close friends and leading lights of the New York School, who sought to create an anti-academic, hedonistic poetry, freeing themselves from the puritan American tradition. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. Further reading on O'Hara and Ashbery in the LRB: C.K. Stead: https://lrb.me/steadashberypod John Bayley: https://lrb.me/bayleyashberypod Stephanie Burt: https://lrb.me/burtashberypod John Kerrigan: https://lrb.me/kerriganashberypod This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in June 2022. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Situated on the cusp of the Romantic era, Thomas Gray’s work is a mixture of impersonal Augustan abstraction and intense subjectivity. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and continues to exert its influence on contemporary poetry. Mark and Seamus explore three of Gray’s elegiac poems and their peculiar emotional power. They discuss Gray’s ambiguous sexuality, his procrastination and class anxieties, and where his humour shines through – as in his elegy for Horace Walpole’s cat. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrld In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Further reading in the LRB: John Mullan: Unpranked Lyre ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldgray1⁠ Tony Harrison: ‘V.’ ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldgray2⁠ Read the texts online: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/sorw⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/elcc⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/odfc⁠⁠⁠ LRB Audiobooks Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at the life and work of Charlotte Mew, who brought the Victorian art of dramatic monologue into the 20th century, and whose difficult experiences are often refracted through her damaged and marginalised characters. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Further reading on Mew in the LRB: Matthew Bevis: https://lrb.me/bevismewpod Penelope Fitzgerald: https://lrb.me/fitzgeraldmewpod Susannah Clapp: https://lrb.me/clappmewpod Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford continue their series with a look at the life and work of W.B. Yeats, from his early quest for a mythological Irish culture, to his shift towards the Modernist experiment, and preoccupation with the ‘murderousness of the world’. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. Read more in the LRB: Seamus Deane: https://lrb.me/deaneyeatspod Michael Wood: https://lrb.me/woodyeatspod Colm Tóibín: https://lrb.me/toibinyeatspod This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in December 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seamus Perry, Mark Ford and Joanne O’Leary discuss the life and work of Emily Dickinson—her dashes, death instinct and obliquity. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in June 2021. Further reading on Dickinson in the LRB: Joanne O'Leary: https://lrb.me/olearydickinsonpod Mark Ford: https://lrb.me/forddickinsonpod Danny Karlin: https://lrb.me/karlindickinsonpod Tom Paulin: https://lrb.me/paulindickinsonpod Susan Eilenberg: https://lrb.me/eilenbergdickinsonpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of the Saint Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, the island poet and playwright surrounded by an oceanic consciousness, whose writing recognises at once the terrible gulfs between peoples and our common predicament. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2021. Further reading on and by Walcott in the LRB: 'Militia' by Derek Walcott: https://lrb.me/walcottmilitiapod Ian Sansom: https://lrb.me/sansomwalcottpod Nicholas Everett: https://lrb.me/everettwalcottpod Stephen Brook: https://lrb.me/brookwalcottpod Blake Morrison: https://lrb.me/morrisonwalcottpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of Louis MacNeice, the Irish poet of psychic divisions and authoritative fretfulness, in the fourth episode of series two of Modern-ish Poets. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in November 2020. Further reading on MacNiece in the LRB: Ian Hamilton: https://lrb.me/hamiltonmacneicepod John Kerrigan: https://lrb.me/kerriganmacneicepod Marilyn Butler: https://lrb.me/butlermacneicepod Nick Laird: https://lrb.me/lairdmacneicepod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the third episode of their second series of Modern-ish Poets, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford turn to the life and work of Adrienne Rich, in whose poems the personal becomes not only political, but epic. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in September 2020. Further reading on Rich in the LRB: Jacqueline Rose Stephanie Burt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at the life and work of Robert Frost, the great American poet of fences and dark woods. They discuss Frost’s difficult early life as an occasional poultry farmer and teacher, his arrival in England in 1912 amid the flowering of Georgian poetry, and his emergence as the first 20th-century professional poet, whose version of the American wilderness myth, full of mischief and foreboding, took him to packed concert halls and a presidential inauguration. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in August 2020. Further reading on Frost in the LRB: Leo Marx: https://lrb.me/marxfrostpod Helen Vendler: https://lrb.me/vendlerfrostpod Peter Howarth: https://lrb.me/howarthfrostpod Matthew Bevis: https://lrb.me/bevisfrostpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first episode of their second series of Modern-ish Poets, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford take on Gerard Manley Hopkins: Victorian literature’s only anti-modern proto-modernist queer-ecologist Jesuit priest. To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and to this series ad free, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell. Further reading on Hopkins in the LRB: Helen Vendler: https://lrb.me/vendlerhopkinspod Patricia Beer: https://lrb.me/beerhopkinspod John Bayley: https://lrb.me/bayleyhopkinspod This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2020. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fourth and final episode in their miniseries, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley look at the life and work of pilgrim, entrepreneur and visionary mystic Margery Kempe, who dictated what is thought to be the first autobiography in English. To listen to Mary and Irina's series, Medieval Beginnings, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Further reading in the LRB: Barbara Newman Susan Brigden Tom Shippey This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in November 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the third episode in their series, Irina and Mary discuss Chaucer’s sexually voracious professional widow, stealth preacher, vivid storyteller and teacher of love, the Wife of Bath. To listen to Mary and Irina's series, Medieval Beginnings, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Further reading in the LRB: Tom Shippey Sally Mapstone This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in October 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Italo Calvino’s novella Invisible Cities is a hypnagogic reimagining of Marco Polo’s time in the court of Kublai Khan. Polo describes 55 impossible places – cities made of plumbing, free-floating, overwhelmed by rubbish, buried underground – that reveal something true about every city. Marina and Anna Della read Invisible Cities alongside the Travels of Marco Polo, and explore how both blur the lines between reality and fantasy, storyteller and audience. They discuss the connections between Calvino’s love of fairytales and his anti-fascist politics, and why he saw the fantastic as a mode of truth-telling. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrff In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff Further reading in the LRB: Salman Rushdie: Calvino ⁠https://lrb.me/ffcalvino1⁠ James Butler: Infinite Artichoke⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://lrb.me/ffcalvino2⁠ Jonathan Coe: Calvinoism ⁠https://lrb.me/ffcalvino3⁠ Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB. Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the second episode in their series, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley look at the work of mystic and anchoress Julian of Norwich, who wrote the first book in English that we can be sure was authored by a woman. To listen to Mary and Irina's series, Medieval Beginnings, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings Further reading in the LRB: Mary Wellesley: This place is pryson This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in October 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final episode of series one of Modern-ish Poets, Mark and Seamus confront Robert Lowell: the Boston Brahmin for whom poetry trumped every other consideration, and whose Cold War ‘confessionalism’ came to exemplify a generation of Americans’ collective trauma; the poet who changed everything, but whose star has somehow fallen in recent years. 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. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in August 2017, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the ninth episode of their series, Seamus and Mark discuss the life and work of Seamus Heaney, whose first collection, Death of Naturalist, established him immediately as a leading poetic voice in world in which modernism seemed to have run its course. They look at how his work draws extensively on his childhood, its use of poetic sounds to bind him to his native ground, its intricate engagement with myth, and his questioning of what sort of poetry is appropriate for someone in his social and historical moment. 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. This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in May 2019, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices