Professing Literature
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
EP23 - Knaves Or Jacks? | Dickens, Great Expectations
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations. It takes many years and great disappointment for Pip to understand what happened to him. The protagonist of Dicke...
EP22 - Until the World Is Mended | A Reflection On J.R.R. Tolkien
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is one of the most beloved writers in the English tradition, though that popularity is a source of fr...
EP21 - Twin Compasses | Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. John Donne came of age in a high culture whose notions of love were shaped by writers like Philip Sidn...
EP20 - Star and Star Lover | Sidney, Astrophil and Stella
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella. Over the course of the sixteenth century English poets experimented with the sonnet form invented by their ...
EP19 - Into the Storm | Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part Two)
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes,” (Part Two). Today we conclude our examination of Keats’ poem, looking at three pairs of stanzas that descr...
EP18 - The Numb Fingers | Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part One)
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part One). The first of a two-part episode that considers John Keats’ gorgeous poem. Set in a dreamy med...
EP17 – Bred in the Bone | Auden, September 1, 1939
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On the day the Nazis invade Poland, beginning the Second World War, a poet nurses a drink in a New York bar. The unwarlike Auden has just immigrated...
EP16 - Family Breakfast | O’Connor, The Lame Shall Enter First
21 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Flannery O’Connor, The Lame Shall Enter First. Sheppard is a high-minded liberal. Norton is his disappointing young son, who seems indifferent t...
EP15 – Take My Eyes | Shakespeare, King Lear (Part Two)
20 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act Four, Scene Five. Lear has lost his kingdom, his family, his security and his sanity. When he encounters his o...
EP14 - Not Altogether Fool | Shakespeare, King Lear (Part One)
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act One, Scene Four. Looking forward to an easy retirement, where he can maintain the honours of kingship with none ...
EP13 – Beyond the Sunset | Tennyson, Ulysses
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses. Homer tells of how the mighty king of Ithaca arrived home after twenty years of war and wandering. However, in Ten...
EP12 - The Winter Road | Bronte, Jane Eyre
03 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, Chapter 12. Late on a winter afternoon a young woman is walking from the country manor where she works toward the neigh...
EP11 - An Old Woman and a Little Girl | St. Luke’s Gospel
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
St. Luke’s Gospel 8:40-56. In this episode Professing Literature tackles the New Testament. We discuss two intertwined miracle stories in Luke’...
Retrospective 01 | From Macbeth to Midsummer (Episodes 1-10)
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
David and Eric look back over the first series (episodes 1-10) of Professing Literature and David answers some listener questions. We got a great resp...
EP10 - A Night In the Forest | Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
27 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act Four, Scene One. When four young aristocrats and a weaver spend a night in the forest outside of Athens they cross in...
EP09 - At the Violet Hour | Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Part Two)
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Part Two). The conclusion of our discussion of “Prufrock,” Eliot’s seminal exploration...
EP08 - Prufrock Among the Women | Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Part One)
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Part One). This is the first of two episodes devoted to one of the most famous poems of the ...
EP07 - The Archer with the Bow | Beowulf
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Beowulf. A shining young warrior has crossed the water and saved the Danish people from a dreadful monster and his scarcely less dreadful mother. ...
EP06 - Memories of Jane | Salinger, "The Catcher in the Rye"
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 11. Jane Gallagher had been the sort of girl who kept her kings in the back row. Is she still? A...
EP05 - Alone in the Darkness | Milton, “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent”
17 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Milton, “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent.” In the early 1650s John Milton lost his eyesight. Blindness forced him out of politics, ...
EP04 - Lunchbreak At the Victory Mansions | Orwell, "1984"
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
George Orwell, 1984, Chapter One. The opening paragraphs of George Orwell’s novel seem innocuous, as a man named Winston Smith returns to his apartm...
EP03 - When the Sweet Turns Sour | Heaney, “Blackberry Picking”
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Seamus Heaney, “Blackberry-Picking.” Today we consider a lyric poem from Death of a Naturalist, Seamus Heaney’s first collection (1966). In ...
EP02 - Losing Your Way at a Picnic | Austen, "Emma"
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Emma, Vol 3, Chapter 7. A bright summer day in Surrey offers a sharp contrast to emotional storms. In this episode we discuss one of Jane Austen’...
EP01 - In the Middle of a Murder | Shakespeare, "Macbeth"
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Macbeth, Act Two, Scene Two. In the inaugural episode of Professing Literature we examine a conversation held in the aftermath of one of literature’...