Readings and interpretations of four poems by the Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats: the rustic simplicity of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”; the tender regret of “When You Are Old”; the evocative weariness of “Adam’s Curse”; and the apocalyptic thrill of “The Second Coming.” Here is my YouTube video about Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan." Sprezzatura is the Italian term I mention, for seemingly careless artificiality or "studied carelessness" (OED); it first appeared in The Book of the Courtier (1528) by Baldassare Castiglione. CORRECTION: At the end, I mistakenly say that the next episode is on Samuel Beckett -- but it is actually on Virginia Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse (1927).

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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