Critical Readings
Episodes
CR Episode 102: Thomas Wyatt in the Tudor Court
08 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads four poems by the Tudor poet and courtier Thomas Wyatt, whose misfortunes in the Henrician court (not least of all two imprisonments) ...
CR Episode 101: Sylvia Plath
01 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads three poems by Sylvia Plath, "Tulips", "Lady Lazarus", and "Daddy", tracing in them themes of self-annihilation, and analysing referen...
CR Episode 100: Shakespeare’s Sonnets
25 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads a selection of sonnets by William Shakespeare, and considers their Symposium-like comparisons and contrasts of the different kinds and...
CR Episode 99: Hero and Leander
18 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads Christopher Marlowe's most famous poem, Hero and Leander, discussing its rich and provocative imagery, classical allusions, and levels...
CR Episode 98: The Defence of Guenevere
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads a single, long poem--"The Defence of Guenevere"--by the Victorian artisan, translator, novelist, and poet William Morris, giving speci...
CR Episode 97: Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Love and Death
04 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads four poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, including three sonnets, and discusses the excellence of her formal expertise and poetic sty...
CR Episode 96: Robert Browning’s Dramatic Verse
27 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads three poems of the greatly esteemed Victorian poet, Robert Browning, including "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's", "Andrea d...
CR Episode 95: Frank O’Hara and Modernism
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads three poems by mid-twentieth century American poet, Frank O'Hara, and examines his connexions to other forms of artistic modernism and...
CR Episode 94: The Macabre Verse of Edward Gorey
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel follows the work of Poe and Lear to the macabre and surreal art of Edward Gorey, looking at four of his early, and most famous, works includ...
CR Episode 93: Edward Lear’s Complete Nonsense
30 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear! Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few think him pleasant enough.Co...
CR Episode 92: The Gothic Romanticism of Edgar Allan Poe
23 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads a selection of Poe's most significant verse, including "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee", and considers not only how Poe's use of Gothic a...
CR Episode 91: Complexity in Geoffrey Hill
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads a small selection of poems by Geoffrey Hill, with a focus on his use of paradoxical language, complex metaphors, and highly imagistic ...
CR Episode 90: Canterbury Tales XII – The Parson’s Tale and Chaucer’s Retraction
09 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel concludes its summer reading of The Canterbury Tales with a look at penitence, sin, and freedom in The Parson's Tale, and then considers whe...
CR Episode 89: Canterbury Tales XI – The Second Nun’s, Canon’s Yeoman’s, and Manciple’s Tales
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the penultimate episode covering the Canterbury Tales, the panel discusses the potential links between Fragments VIII and IX, the morals of the tal...
CR Episode 88: Canterbury Tales X – The Monk’s and the Nun’s Priest’s Tales
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses the final two tales in Fragment VII: the tragic vignettes of unfortunate individuals described in The Monk's Tale, and the jolly (...
CR Episode 87: Canterbury Tales IX – The Shipman’s, Prioress’, and Chaucer’s Tales
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel considers vice in the Shipman's tale and piety in the Prioress' tale, before moving on to examine Chaucer's humble self-depiction in his rol...
CR Episode 86: Canterbury Tales VIII – The Physician’s and Pardoner’s Tales
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel looks at the honor-before-death connexion between Fragment V and Fragment VI as exemplified by Virginia in the Physician's Tale, and then co...
CR Episode 85: Canterbury Tales VII – The Squire’s and Franklin’s Tales
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses Fragment V, with attention given both to scholarly theories about whether Chaucer deliberately left the Squire's tale interrupted ...
CR Episode 84: Canterbury Tales VI – The Clerk’s and Merchant’s Tales
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses Fragment IV, containing two tales that deal with men who deliberately engage in unequal marriages to both good and ill results, an...
CR Episode 83: Canterbury Tales V – The Wife of Bath’s, Friar’s, and Summoner’s Tales
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Clinton Collister joins the panel to discuss Fragment III and its potential connexions to The Man of Law's Tale (Fragment II), with a focus on the rol...
CR Episode 82: Canterbury Tales IV – The Man of Law’s Tale
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines The Man of Law's Tale and scholarly arguments about whether it is suited to its putative teller, and consider the tale's depictions...
CR Episode 81: Canterbury Tales III – The Miller’s, Reeve’s, and Cook’s Tales
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Leaving behind the Knight's noble depictions of courtly love, the panel descends through bawdy, sexual misadventures in the form of 'quites'--narrativ...
CR Episode 80: Canterbury Tales II – The Knight’s Tale
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the second part of the Canterbury Tales series, the panel reads selections from The Knight's Tale, with a focus on how the three shines--to Venus, ...
CR Episode 79: Canterbury Tales I – General Prologue
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the first week of the Canterbury Tales series, the panel reviews the biography of Geoffrey Chaucer, introduces the Canterbury Tales in general, and...
CR Episode 78: Kipling, “If”, and The Great War
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses selections from the poetry of Rudyard Kipling, including his most famous poem, "If", and three poems related to The Great War and,...
CR Episode 77: Ben Jonson’s Critical Eye
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses Ben Jonson's role as critic and author of the Elizabethan age, and reads four of his poems, including several of his Epigrams, bef...
CR Episode 76: Excerpts from Leaves of Grass
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads excerpts from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, including poems from the inscriptions, Song of Myself, Children of Adam, and Calamus, co...
CR Episode 75: Excerpts from Astrophil and Stella
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines a selection of sonnets and a song from Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, considering the formal and tonal connexions betwee...
CR Episode 74: Introduction to Abraham Cowley
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses a selection of poems covering the entire span of Abraham Cowley's oeuvre: beginning with his college years and the unfinished epic...
CR Episode 73: Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso
05 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses a selection of John Milton's shorter poems, the oft-paired 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso', and examines their use of Orpheus as a ...
CR Episode 72: Irony in the Poetry of Stephen Crane
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel analyses the use of irony in the poetic works of Stephen Crane, including selections from "War Is Kind" (1899), and discusses the developmen...
CR Episode 71: Accepting Complexity in Melville’s Poetry
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel analyses contradiction in Melville's earliest and latest published poems: three selections from Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War--his fi...
CR Episode 70: Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a return to the works of Alexander Pope, the panel reads his "Eloisa to Abelard" in full and discusses the complexity of Eloisa's tragic circumstan...
CR Episode 69: Keats and The Eve of St. Agnes
08 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses the late Romantic shift in focus from nominally Christian, deified Nature to transcendental beauty in three longer works by Keats,...
CR Episode 68: Shelley, Ozymandias, and the Death of Keats
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel engages in a wide-ranging discussion of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his relation to the early and late Romantic movements, his work to establis...
CR Episode 67: An Introduction to Lord Byron
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel begins a multi-week review of Romanticism with a review of the movement's (and the author's) effects upon poetry, including readings of thre...
CR Episode 66: Poetry and Verse of Robert W. Service
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses the difference between verse and poetry (including whether such a difference exists), and examines three 'frosty' poems by Service...
CR Episode 65: Three by Elizabeth Bishop
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel considers the role of time, colour, militarism, rhyme, repetition, meter, and other formal poetic aspects in three of the more popular and w...
CR Episode 64: An Introduction to Philip Larkin
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines the complicated irony of Philip Larkin's verse, and considers his use of poetic formalism, and themes including rebelliousness, nih...
CR Episode 63: Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The panel continues to welcome in a new year by looking back to an old year--in this case, A.D. 1666, and Dryden's poem "Annus Mirabilis", which rumin...
CR Episode 62: Winter with Longfellow
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the new year dawns, the panel revisits the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the quintessential Fireside Poet, to reexamine some favourites (Exce...
CR Episode 61: Poetry and Prose of John Donne
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If it must be Donne, let it be done well! The panel reads Donne's selected poetry and prose: a Christmas sermon, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, "A...
CR Episode 60: The Ambiguous Andrew Marvell
21 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel considers the scholarly consensus that Marvell is poetically and politically ambiguous by reading "To His Coy Mistress", "Clorinda and Damon...
CR Episode 59: Contradictory Verse of Robert Herrick
07 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel continues a survey of English Civil War poetry with a look at Robert Herrick's deliberately contradictory verses, including his Hesperides, ...
CR Episode 58: Religious Poetry of George Herbert
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines the poetical works of George Herbert, discussing the Christian theological implications found in the language of three of his lyric...
CR Episode 57: Cigars and Seaweed of James Russell Lowell
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines selected verse of American fire-side poet James Russell Lowell, with a brief survey including some light verse on cigars and season...
CR Episode 56: An Introduction to Robert Lowell
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reviews the biography of, and some selected works by, the twentieth-century poet Robert Lowell, including his "Falling Asleep over the Aenei...
CR Episode 55: Wallace Stevens’ Harmonium
05 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reviews five poems selected from Wallace Stevens' debut collection, Harmonium, and considers the role of Stevens within the larger context o...
CR Episode 54: Pope’s Translation of The Iliad
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads Book I of Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad, discusses Pope's approach contextually, compares that approach to the modern tran...
CR Episode 53: Masefield’s Midsummer Night
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines the biography of John Masefield before reading and examining excerpts from his Arthurian cycle, Midsummer Night, with special atten...
CR Episode 52: The Faerie Queene, Mutabilitie Cantos
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reviews the epilogue-like Mutabilitie Cantos of the Faerie Queene, reviewing scholarly opinion about their place in the whole poem, and cons...
CR Episode 51: The Faerie Queene, Book VI, Cantos 7-12
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reviews the second half of Spenser's book of courtesy, with attention given to the scholarly view of C. S. Lewis, Northrop Frye, and others,...
CR Episode 50: The Faerie Queene, Book VI, Cantos 1-6
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines the first half of Spenser's book of courtesy, reading its depictions in the light of the historical development of chevalrie/chival...
CR Episode 49: The Faerie Queene, Book V, Cantos 7-12
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines historical criticism of Book V, with particular attention to the mid-twentieth-century development of a moral-allegorical reading i...
CR Episode 48: The Faerie Queene, Book V, Cantos 1-6
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The full panel convenes to discuss Spenser's approach to justice in Book V, with attention given to the challenges Artegall's Solomon-like judgement f...
CR Episode 47: The Faerie Queene, Book IV, Cantos 7-12
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel concludes the book of friendship with an examination of the character of Sclaunder, and an account of Spenser's planned poetic cartography--...
CR Episode 46: The Faerie Queene, Book IV, Cantos 1-6
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel turns its attention to the Book of Friendship, sometimes described as the 'least interesting' of the sections, and discusses whether it has ...
CR Episode 45: The Faerie Queene, Book III, Cantos 7-12
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel addresses a reader question before turning to Book III's unwholesome delights and the means by which the virtuous refuse them and the sinful...
CR Episode 44: The Faerie Queene, Book III, Cantos 1-6
06 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel adds a new member, and begins a discussion of the first half of The Faerie Queene, Book III, by focusing on the character of Britomart, her ...
CR Episode 43: The Faerie Queene, Book II, Cantos 7-12
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reviews the second half of Book II of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, with particular attention shown to the allegorical representation of t...
CR Episode 42: The Faerie Queene, Book II, Cantos 1-6
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reviews selections from the first six cantos of Book II of Spenser's Faerie Queene, with particular attention to Guyon's interactions with B...
CR Episode 41: The Faerie Queene, Book I, Cantos 7-12
15 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines the second half of the first book of The Faerie Queene, with particular attention to the foundations of textual analysis, demonstra...
CR Episode 40: The Faerie Queene, Book I, Cantos 1-6
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel welcomes two additional experts to begin a several-month-long survey of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene in its entirety, in this episode exam...
CR Episode 39: Robert Frost and the Road Not Taken
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses two of Robert Frost's best-known nature poems, including "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", and thei...
CR Episode 38: Betjeman’s Railways
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel bridges McGonagall's Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay to a discussion of twentieth-century poet laureate John Betjeman, who had an abiding ...
CR Episode 37: William McGonagall and the Tay Bridge
06 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the first podcast of April, the panel examines the work of a truly exceptional poet--the unparalleled and indefatigable William Topaz McGonagall--a...
CR Episode 36: Eliot’s Four Quartets IV – Little Gidding
30 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After a brief delay, the panel concludes its review of Eliot's Four Quartets with a discussion of Little Gidding, focusing on its cyclicality, penteco...
CR Episode 35: Eliot’s Four Quartets III – The Dry Salvages
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines 'The Dry Salvages' (rhymes with 'assuages'), the third of Eliot's Four Quartets, and ponders over the speaker's shift away from tem...
CR Episode 34: Eliot’s Four Quartets II – East Coker
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines 'East Coker', the second of Eliot's Four Quartets, with particular attention to the poet's developing understanding about the searc...
CR Episode 33: Eliot’s Four Quartets I – Burnt Norton
17 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel begins a four-week reading of T. S. Eilot's 'Four Quartets', beginning with 'Burnt Norton', and with particular attention to the ways in whi...
CR Episode 32: Irish Poets II – Fallon, Kavanagh, Heaney
10 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel concludes its two-week survey of Irish poets, ending with Peter Fallon's 'The Old Masters', Patrick Kavanagh's 'Address to an Old Wooden Gat...
CR Episode 31: Irish Poets I – Allingham, Joyce, MacNeice
03 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel begins a two-week survey reading Irish poets, beginning with William Allingham's 'The Fairies', James Joyce's 'A Prayer', and Louis MacNeice...
CR Episode 30: Fun in the Snow with Thomas Hardy
27 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads three poems by Thomas Hardy (including some with an appropriately hibernal theme), discusses Hardy's role in contemporary literature, ...
CR Episode 29: Introduction to W. B. Yeats
13 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel considers multiple, potentially competing, readings of three poems from the early, middle, and late work of W. B. Yeats, covering three of h...
CR Episode 28: W. H. Auden’s Funeral Blues
06 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines three poems by W. H. Auden, including his much-anthologised and potentially ironic 'Funeral Blues', the literary biography 'A Thank...
CR Episode 27: Longfellow’s Excelsior
30 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel reads and surveys three poems by Longfellow: 'The Cross of Snow', 'The Day Is Done', and 'Excelsior', and makes a case for Longfellow's narr...
CR Episode 26: Emily Dickinson on Death
16 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel looks at three poems by Dickinson (nos. 280, 311, and 712) which all centre on a theme of mortality and endings, and discusses their importa...
CR Episode 25: Selections from Songs of Innocence and Experience
02 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines four poems by William Blake from Songs of Innocence (Night, The Chimney Sweeper) and Songs of Experience (The Chimney Sweeper, A Po...
CR Episode 24: Keats on a Grecian Urn and to a Nightingale
25 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and 'Ode to a Nightingale' by Keats, focusing on the role of transience, mortality, stasis, truth, beauty, a...
CR Episode 23: Dante Gabriel Rosetti on Sleep
18 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses two 'sleep poems' of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: "Sleepless Dreams" from The House of Life, and the early poem "My Sister's Sleep", wi...
CR Episode 22: Goblin Market
11 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel begins a fortnight-long feature on the Rossettis with an examination of Christina Georgina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market', including a reading o...
CR Episode 21: Christabel, Part II
04 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel concludes their reading of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Christabel" by considering the function of Leoline's overabundant grief, examining the...
CR Episode 20: Christabel, Part I
28 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel welcomes James Smoker, a Coleridge scholar at the University of St. Andrews, to discuss Coleridge, Christian Theology, the British Romantics...
CR Episode 19: Coleridge’s Dream Poems
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses theological readings of three of Coleridge's most famous poems, all of which share the occasion of sleep as central to their actio...
CR Episode 18: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part II
14 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses the second half of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with particular attention given to the theology of the Mariner's sin, contriti...
CR Episode 17: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part I
07 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses the first three parts of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, proposing the Ancient Mariner as a figure in transition from the...
CR Episode 16: Lyrical Ballads, Part II
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel begins to cross over from Wordsworth to Coleridge in the second of three episodes focused on Lyrical Ballads, addressing the role of nature,...
CR Episode 15: Lyrical Ballads, Part I
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses Romanticism and begins a three-week examination of selected poems from Lyrical Ballads, the experimental collection by Wordsworth ...
CR Episode 14: Gray’s Elegy
16 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As the panel continues the transition from the Augustans to the Romantics, they turn their attention to the notoriously self-critical Thomas Gray, who...
CR Episode 13: The Deserted Village
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel continues its focus on the poetry of the Augustan era of British letters, this time examining Goldsmith's poetic response to the increase of...
CR Episode 12: Astræa Redux
02 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Having concluded Paradise Lost, the panel moves from the poetry of Milton to the opposing views of one of his contemporaries, examining John Dryden, a...
CR Episode 11: Paradise Lost, Books XI and XII
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel concludes Paradise Lost with an examination of Adam's hope and despair, differences between Michael and Raphael, biblical kingship, the wort...
CR Episode 10: Paradise Lost, Book X
19 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel tackles the difficult problems of Adam's guilt, the nature of heavenly justice and its parallels with English Common Law, Milton's conceptio...
CR Episode 9: Paradise Lost, Book IX
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses the ninth book of Paradise Lost, with a special focus on Milton's depictions of gender roles, guilt and innocence, division of lab...
CR Episode 8: Paradise Lost, Book VIII
05 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel considers whether the Garden of Eden required a robust space exploration programme (yes), whether Angels are real (yes), whether human being...
CR Episode 7: Paradise Lost, Book VII
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines the moment of creation, the etymological development of atheism and chaos, divine warnings against transgressing the proper bounds ...
CR Episode 6: Paradise Lost, Book VI
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel welcomes Zac Watson as special guest to discuss questions about Paradise Lost, before examining the War in Heaven, Classical cosmogeny, Sata...
CR Episode 5: Paradise Lost, Book V
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Clinton and Dr. Cooper examine the fifth book of John Milton's Paradise Lost, with a particular focus on Milton's Arian Christology and whether Satan ...
CR Episode 4: Paradise Lost, Book IV
08 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel examines John Milton's prosody (particularly in the light of Dr. Johnson's comments) and reflects upon his troublesome Christology and poten...
CR Episode 3: Paradise Lost, Book III
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The panel discusses the third book of John Milton's Paradise Lost, with special attention on aspects including the ambiguously diabolical imagery of t...