Close Readings
Episodes
Medieval LOLs: Fabliaux
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fabliaux were short, witty tales originating in northern France between the 12th and 14th centuries, often featuring crafty characters in rustic setti...
Human Conditions: ‘The Human Condition’ by Hannah Arendt
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 d...
On Satire: The Earl of Rochester
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Political Poems: 'Easter 1916' by W.B. Yeats
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 i...
Among the Ancients II: Herodotus
24 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the most compelling stories of the Classical world come from Herodotus‘ Histories, an account of the Persian Wars and a thousand things bes...
Medieval LOLs: Old English Riddles
18 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 cent...
Human Conditions: ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ by Frantz Fanon
10 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Begun as a psychiatric dissertation, Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (1952) became a genre-shattering study of antiblack racism and its eff...
On Satire: Ben Jonson's 'Volpone'
04 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Political Poems: W.H. Auden's 'Spain 1937'
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Among the Ancients II: Aesop
24 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 mos...
Medieval LOLs: The Colloquies of Aelfric Bata
18 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 fro...
Human Conditions: ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir
10 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 S...
On Satire: John Donne's Satires
04 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Political Poems: Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland'
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Among the Ancients II: Hesiod
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Medieval LOLs: Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale'
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Were the Middle Ages funny? In this bonus Close Readings series running throughout this year, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley begin their quest fo...
Human Conditions: ‘Anti-Semite and Jew’ by Jean-Paul Sartre
14 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 pu...
On Satire: 'The Praise of Folly' by Desiderius Erasmus
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 st...
Introducing: Among the Ancients II
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the final introduction to next year’s full Close Readings programme, Emily Wilson, celebrated classicist and translator of Homer’s Iliad and O...
Introducing: On Satire
01 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of three introductions to our full 2024 Close Readings programme, starting in January, Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell present their seri...
Introducing: Human Conditions
01 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the second of three introductions to our full Close Readings programme for 2024, Adam Shatz presents his series, Human Conditions, in which he’...
The Long and Short: Elizabeth Bowen
24 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 Seamu...
Among the Ancients: Seneca
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 Roma...
Medieval Beginnings: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 seri...
The Long and Short: Alice Oswald's ‘Dart’ and ‘Memorial’
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Among the Ancients: Ovid
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Medieval Beginnings: The Digby Mary Magdalene Play
04 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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, wit...
The Long and Short: Nella Larsen's 'Passing' and Langston Hughes's 'Montage of a Dream Deferred'
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
Among the Ancients: Horace
15 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Emily and Tom follow Virgil with one of his contemporaries, Horace, whose poetry played an important political role in the early years of Augustan Rom...
Medieval Beginnings: Middle English Lyrics
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the first recorded instance of the word ‘fart’ in English, to nuanced vignettes of sexual power dynamics, the numerous Middle English lyrics ...
The Long and Short: Ted Hughes's 'Gaudete'
24 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ma...
Among the Ancients: Virgil
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 o...
Medieval Beginnings: Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde
04 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 e...
The Long and Short: James Joyce's Dubliners
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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, ...
Among the Ancients: Lucretius
14 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 rer...
Medieval Beginnings: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 u...
The Long and Short: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’
24 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Seamus and Mark step into the counterculture with two long poems, ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’, by Allen Ginsberg, a Beat poet-celebrity with a utopia...
Among the Ancients: Catullus
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Medieval Beginnings: Havelok the Dane
04 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In their seventh episode of Medieval Beginnings, Irina and Mary continue their run of Romances with the Middle English Havelok the Dane, a double Cind...
The Long and Short: D.H. Lawrence's short stories
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Controversial, compulsive, and overwhelmingly charismatic, D.H. Lawrence continues to exert an undeniable magnetism through his novels and poetry. But...
Among the Ancients: Aristophanes
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In their sixth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom discuss the comedies of Aristophanes, in particular Clouds and Lysistrata. How did an A...
Medieval Beginnings: Le Roman de Silence
05 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For the sixth episode in their Medieval Beginnings series, Mary and Irina go full Romance with one of the most elaborate and surprising narrative poem...
The Long and Short: Hart Crane's 'The Bridge'
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Among the Ancients: Euripides
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Medieval Beginnings: The Lais of Marie de France
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Long and Short: Katherine Mansfield's short stories
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In episode four of The Long and Short, Mark and Seamus turn to the squarely modernist Katherine Mansfield, whose writing famously attracted the envy o...
Among the Ancients: Sophocles
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 idea...
Medieval Beginnings: The Ancrene Wisse
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 1...
The Long and Short: Henry James's short stories
24 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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’, whic...
Among the Ancients: Sappho
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 wh...
Medieval Beginnings: Bede's Life of Cuthbert
03 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Long and Short: Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'
24 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ‘on...
Among the Ancients: The 'Odyssey'
14 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Medieval Beginnings: Letters and Laments
03 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In episode two of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina turn the pages of the Exeter Book, a remarkable 10th century manuscript containing numerous poem...
The Long and Short: Tennyson's 'Maud'
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Ford and Seamus Perry start their series, The Long and Short, with Tennyson’s ‘Maud’, a weird and disturbing poem about obsession that Ten...
Among the Ancients: The 'Iliad'
14 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 go...
Medieval Beginnings: Beowulf
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu start their Medieval Beginnings series with Beowulf, a tale of monsters and heroes that is also a complex collect...
Modern-ish Poets Live! T. S. Eliot
10 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 co...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery
09 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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, wh...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Charlotte Mew
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: W. B. Yeats
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 cultu...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Emily Dickinson
06 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ser...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Derek Walcott
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 a...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Louis MacNeice
04 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of Louis MacNeice, the Irish poet of psychic divisions and authoritative fretfulness, in the four...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Adrienne Rich
03 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Robert Frost
02 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 difficu...
Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Gerard Manley Hopkins
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 on...
Encounters with Medieval Women: Margery Kempe
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the fourth and final episode in their miniseries, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley look at the life and work of pilgrim, entrepreneur and vision...
Encounters with Medieval Women: The Wife of Bath
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the third episode in their series, Irina and Mary discuss Chaucer’s sexually voracious professional widow, stealth preacher, vivid storyteller an...
Encounters with Medieval Women: Julian of Norwich
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 f...
Encounters with Medieval Women: Mary of Egypt
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the first episode of their miniseries looking at the lives and voices of medieval women, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley encounter Saint Mary ...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Robert Lowell
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Seamus Heaney
09 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For the ninth episode of their series, Seamus and Mark discuss the life and work of Seamus Heaney, whose first collection, Death of Naturalist, estab...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Sylvia Plath
08 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mark and Seamus are joined by Joanna Biggs, an editor at the LRB, to look at Sylvia Plath's life and poetry, for the eighth episode of Modern-ish Poet...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Wallace Stevens
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In episode seven of their first series of Modern-ish Poets Mark and Seamus look to that great poet of winter and snow, Wallace Stevens, considering hi...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: A.E. Housman
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the sixth episode of Modern-ish Poets Series 1, Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Worcestershire lad A. E. Housman, whose imaginative po...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Stevie Smith
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the fifth episode of Modern-ish Poets Series 1 Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Stevie Smith, ‘an eccentric poet with a tenacious rep...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Thomas Hardy
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the fourth episode of Modern-ish Poets, Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Thomas Hardy, with its blend of bitterness of tenderness, its ...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Elizabeth Bishop
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For episode three of Modern-ish Poets Series 1, Mark and Seamus look at the life and work of Elizabeth Bishop, the east-coast American poet who enjoye...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: W.H. Auden
02 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the second episode of Modern-ish Poets Series 1, Mark and Seamus discuss life and work of W. H. Auden, from the influence of his parents and his po...
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Philip Larkin
01 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For their first episode of Modern-ish Poets Series 1, Mark Ford and Seamus Perry look at the life and work of Philip Larkin, a poet written about ext...