The History of Literature
Episodes
391 Mark Twain's Publishing Fiasco | Great Literary Terms and Devices Part 2 (with Mike Palindrome)
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Twain was an enormously successful writer and a horrendous businessperson, with a weakness for gadgets and inventions that cost him a fortune.. I...
390 Victor Hugo
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Victor Hugo (1802-1885), whose poetry, plays, and novels made him one of the leaders of the nineteenth-century ...
389 Thomas Pynchon (with Antoine Wilson)
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now." Such is the opening of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity...
388 Sense and Sensibility
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I am never too busy to think of S&S," Jane Austen wrote to her sister, referring to her 1811 novel by its initials, "I can no more forget it, than a ...
387 Loving Virginia Woolf | Fashion in Literature (with Lauren S. Cardon)
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What's it like to be in love with a genius? How does one express oneself? Jacke takes a look at a beautiful 1926 love letter that Vita Sackville-West ...
386 Gogol's Ukrainian Nights | HOL Presents "Mysteries of a Merlin Manuscript" (A Book Dreams Podcast)
28 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke takes a look at Nikolai Gogol's early stories about his native Ukraine, including two famous descriptions of Ukrainian nights. Then Jacke turns ...
385 The Gettysburg Address
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In November of 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln boarded a train for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His heart was heavy with the cost of two years of a ...
384 A Writer's Tools - Top 10 Literary Terms and Devices | PLUS F. Scott Fitzgerald's Writing Advice
21 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Palindrome, the President of the Literature Supporters' Club, joins Jacke to select the top 10 literary terms and devices of all time. PLUS Jacke...
383 The Radical Woman Who Wrote 'Goodnight Moon' - The Story of Margaret Wise Brown (with the New Yorker's Anna Holmes)
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Goodnight comb and goodnight brush...And goodnight to the old lady whispering hush...Goodnight moon.." Telling the "story" of a darkening room at bed...
382 Forbidden Victorian Love (with Mimi Matthews) | The Poet Who Hated Love | Does Margot Still Love Boswell and Johnson
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Love is all around! On podcasts as well as holidays... In this episode, Jacke talks to USA Today bestselling author Mimi Matthews about her love for t...
381 C Subramania Bharati (with Mira T Sundara Rajan)
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
C. Subramania Bharati (1882-1923) is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Known to his fellow Tamils as the "Mahakavi" ("Supreme Poet")...
380 Ian Fleming | PLUS The Black James Bond
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Fleming (1908-1964) always wanted to be a writer. Not an "author," as he put it, and not someone in the "Shakespeare stakes," but someone who wrot...
379 Gwendolyn Brooks | Bharati Preview 2 (with Mira Sundara Rajan)
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When the poet Gwendolyn Brooks "writes out of her heart, out of her rich and living background, out of her very real talent," said The New York Times,...
378 Liu Xinwu and the "Scar Literature" of China (with Jeremy Tiang) | Bharati Sneak Preview (with Mira Sundara Rajan)
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Jacke talks to Jeremy Tiang about his new translation of The Wedding Party, a Chinese classic contemporary novel written in the early...
377 The Brothers Grimm | Jeremy Tiang Sneak Preview
27 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood... Oh sure, we all know the stories, but...
376 Why John Milton? (with Joe Moshenska)
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yes, John Milton was important, and yes, Paradise Lost has been part of the canon since the 17th century - but why should we read anything by John Mil...
375 The Power of Literature | PLUS Reading Boswell's Life of Johnson (with Margot Livesey)
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke had big plans to make this episode all about the poetry of William Butler Yeats...and then listener feedback to the last episode overtook him. S...
374 Ancient Plays and Contemporary Theater - A New Version of Sophocles' Oedipus Trilogy (with Bryan Doerries)
17 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions, Bryan Doerries has joined his colleagues in using dramatic readings and community conversation...
373 Roald Dahl
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Born in Wales to parents of Norwegian descent, Roald Dahl (1916-1990) grew up to become one of England's most famous writers. Although Dahl was an acc...
372 Dragons! (with Scott G. Bruce)
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dragons! From ancient civilizations to modern-day movies, humans have spent millions of hours imagining these popular mythological creatures - and mil...
371 Robert Hayden and the Nature of Freedom | PLUS Literary Zombies (with Scott G. Bruce)
03 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Poet Robert Hayden (1913-1980) surprised Jacke with his description of freedom in his sonnet "Frederick Douglass"; in this episode, Jacke considers th...
370 Oscar Wilde - A Life (with Matthew Sturgis) | PLUS A Glimpse of Literary Hell (with Scott G. Bruce)
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Professor Scott G. Bruce shares one of his favorite passages about the underworld from The Penguin Book of Hell, which he edited. The...
369 Rilke and the Search for God
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Following Jacke's discussion with Stephen Mitchell about the first Christmas, Jacke takes a look at a special letter by Rainer Maria Rilke (which Step...
368 The Story of the Nativity (with Stephen Mitchell)
20 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Mitchell has translated or adapted some of the world's most beautiful and spiritually rich texts, including The Gospel According to Jesus, The...
367 The Beatles and the Power of Narrative | Tolstoy on Twitter
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke talks to Mike Palindrome about his work on the "Tolstoy Together" project sponsored by Yiyun Li and A Public Space, along with some other though...
366 Evelyn Waugh (with Phil Klay)
13 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The English novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was regarded by many as the most brilliant satirical novelist of his time. A self-proclaimed curmudgeon,...
365 Moby Dick, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Odyssey (A Bob Dylan Reading List) | PLUS Some thoughts on Charles M. Schulz
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Your humble podcaster-squirrel is back! Jacke considers the legacy of Charles M. Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown and Peanuts, and reflects on the dif...
364 Bob Dylan, the Blues, and Songs with Literary Power (with Mike Mattison and Ernest Suarez)
06 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What happened in the Sixties? How did singers of popular music transform from mere entertainers to the poetic bards of their generation? Were these so...
363 William Butler Yeats
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Born into a remarkable family full of talented artists, the Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats (1865-1938) nevertheless stood out. Deeply ...
362 Kurt Vonnegut (with Tom Roston)
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke talks to journalist Tom Roston about his new biography of Kurt Vonnegut, The Writer's Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhous...
361 Five Glimpses of Gratitude (Maya Angelou, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sharon Olds, Henry David Thoreau, WS Merwin)
25 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Feeling grateful, Jacke rummages through the literary storage trunk to find works on gratitude by five poets and essayists: Maya Angelou, Ralph Waldo ...
360 FMK Shakespeare! (with Laurie Frankel) | Tolstoy's Gospel (with Scott Carter)
22 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's a good day for cooking! First up: Scott Carter, author of the play Discord: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count ...
359 Forgotten Women of Literature 6 - Eliza Haywood and Fantomina | PLUS Keats's Letter on Shakespeare and "Negative Capability"
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During her stormy and mysterious life, Eliza Haywood (1693?-1756) was one of the most prolific writers in England. Her "amatory fictions" were unapolo...
358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) | Charles Dickens's Gospel (with Scott Carter)
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book Read Until You Understand, beloved professor Farah Jasmine Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art in exploring the culture of Black...
357 Little Women Remixed (with Bethany C. Morrow) | Thomas Jefferson's Gospel (with Scott Carter)
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's a literary feast! National bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow joins Jacke for a discussion of her novel So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remi...
356 Louisa May Alcott
08 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"I could not write a girls' story," Louisa May Alcott protested after a publisher made a specific request that she do so, "knowing little about any bu...
355 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Brilliant and contentious, the Swiss-born political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (`1712-1768) is one of the key figures of the Enlightenment, wit...
354 Treasure Island Remixed (with C.B. Lee)
01 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure Treasure Island gave the world a number of familiar pirate tropes, like parrots on shoulders and X marks th...
353 Oscar Wilde in Prison (with Scott Carter)
28 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Even the best biographical depictions of Oscar Wilde often skip over the years he spent in prison, perhaps because the episode is so sad and painful. ...
352 Charles Baudelaire (with Aaron Poochigian)
25 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The American poet Dana Gioia calls Charles Baudelaire "the first modern poet," adding "In both style and content, his provocative, alluring, and shock...
351 Mary Wollstonecraft (with Samantha Silva)
18 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The writer, philosopher, and trailblazing feminist Mary Wollstonecraft is perhaps best known as the mother of the author of Frankenstein, but this ama...
350 Mystery! (with Jonah Lehrer)
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mysteries! Beloved by adults and children alike, it's hard to imagine a genre with a more universal appeal. But what makes mysteries so compelling? Wh...
349 Kafka's Metamorphosis (with Blume)
04 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A special guest stops by to help Jacke talk about life, literature, and one of the world's great masterpieces: The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. Hope...
348 Philip Roth (with Mike Palindrome)
27 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As a child growing up in Newark, New Jersey in the 1930s and 40s, Philip Milton Roth (1933-2018) never thought about being a writer. By the time he di...
347 The Prisoner and His Prize - The Story of O Henry (with Jenny Minton Quigley)
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
William Sidney Porter (1862-1910) packed a lot of life into his 47 years, traveling from a childhood in North Carolina to work as a rancher and bank t...
346 For Whom the Beast Leaps (Henry James's "Beast in the Jungle" Part 3)
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Marcher has been waiting all his life for something rare and strange to happen to him - something that will leap out of the darkness and attack h...
345 Great Literary Centuries (with Mike Palindrome)
06 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How's literature doing these days? Does the twenty-first century look as good for literature as the nineteenth did? How about the seventeenth? And the...
344 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Beast (Henry James's "Beast in the Jungle" Part 2)
30 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A man has lived his life convinced that something rare and strange lies in wait for him - a monumental catastrophe that has never happened to anyone b...
343 The Feast in the Jungle (Henry James's "Beast in the Jungle" Part 1)
23 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Squirrel-voiced waiter-host Jacke Wilson invites his listeners to a literary feast! In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Henry James's long-short-st...
342 The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (with Laura Marsh)
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the aftermath of World War II, author Graham Greene was in personal and professional agony. His marriage was on the rocks, his soul was struggling ...
341 Constance and Henry - The Story of "Miss Grief"
09 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the immediate aftermath of her death at the age of 53, Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894) was considered one of the greatest writers of her day...
340 Forgotten Women of Literature 5 - Constance Fenimore Woolson
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When she died tragically at the age of 53, Constance Fenimore Woolson was ranked with the greatest female writers of all time, including Jane Austen, ...
339 Jack Kerouac
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was one of the most famous American writers of the mid-twentieth century. As a key member of a group of writers known as the ...
338 Finding Yourself in Hollywood (with Meg Tilly)
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke talks to actress and novelist Meg Tilly about her unusual childhood, her life as a ballet dancer and Hollywood star, and her current life writin...
337 Oscar Wilde, Ovid, and the Myth of Narcissus (with A. Natasha Joukovsky)
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Debut novelist A. Natasha Joukovsky (The Portrait of a Mirror) joins Jacke for a discussion of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ovid's myth o...
336 Painting the Paintings in Literature (with Charlie Stein)
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
German artist Charlie Stein joins Jacke for a discussion of art in literature, including her series 100 Paintings Imagined by Authors, in which she an...
335 Machado de Assis (with Cláudia Laitano)
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Finally! At long last, Jacke responds to years of requests from his Brazilian listeners to take a closer look at Machado de Assis, the novelist whom c...
334 Katherine Mansfield
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Born into a well-to-do family in New Zealand, Katherine Mansfield began writing fiction at the age of 10. But it was in England and continental Europe...
333 Tristram Shandy
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's the OG of experimental literature! (In English, anyway...) In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the wild and woolly Tristram Shandy by Laurence...
332 Hamlet (with Laurie Frankel)
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Novelist Laurie Frankel joins Jacke to talk about her writing, her theater background, and her new novel One Two Three. Then Jacke and Laurie geek out...
331 "The World Is Too Much With Us" by William Wordsworth
10 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the world struggles to emerge from a global pandemic, Jacke takes a look at our relationship with nature, turning to William Wordsworth's classic s...
330 Middlemarch (with Yang Huang)
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Yang Huang, author of the new novel My Good Son, joins Jacke for a discussion of her childhood in China, how censorship restricted her ability to imag...
329 Miguel de Cervantes
03 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) was a soldier, a civil servant, a playwright, and a poet. He was kidnapped by pirates and held prisoner for almost fiv...
328 Aristophanes (with Aaron Poochigian)
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Often called the Father of Comedy, the satirical playwright Aristophanes (c. 450 BCE - 388 BCE) used his critical eye and sharp tongue to skewer polit...
327 Natalia Ginzburg
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) lived a fascinating life full of politics, war, exile, tragedy, love, loss, and literature. In her novels,...
HoL Presents The REAL Little Women (from the Book Dreams Podcast)
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this special guest episode, scholar Anne Boyd Rioux joins Eve and Julie, the hosts of the Book Dreams podcast, to talk about why the Little Women w...
326 Rimbaud
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke takes a look at the astonishing life and writings of the ultimate enfant terrible of poetry, Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91), Symbolist po...
325 Philip Larkin
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During his life, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) was a beloved national figure, a bald and bespectacled librarian by day who spent his evenings writing smar...
HoL Presents The Graduate (from the Overdue Podcast)
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Graduate! Dustin Hoffman! Mike Nichols! Simon and Garfunkel! Mrs. Robinson! Plastics! Elaaaaaaaaine.... The movie version of The Graduate is one o...
324 Ralph Ellison | Blocked! (Top 10 Cases of Writer's Block)
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ralph Waldo Ellison (1913-1994) began life as an infant in Oklahoma City and ended it as one of the most successful and celebrated novelists in the wo...
323 Salman Rushdie
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Salman Rushdie (1947- ) became famous in the literary world in 1981, when his second novel Midnight's Children became a bestseller and won the Booker ...
322 Djuna Barnes
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) was a journalist, an author, an artist, a poetic novelist, a beacon of modernism, an icon and an iconoclast. She was also a p...
321 Thucydides
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke and Mike take a look at the life and works of Thucydides (c. 460 to c. 400 B.C.), an Athenian general whose History of the Peloponnesian War has...
320 Henry James
05 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke takes a look at the life and works of American novelist Henry James (1843-1916). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyof...
319 Frances (Fanny) Burney
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
She was admired by Dr. Johnson, revered by Jane Austen, and referred to as "the mother of English fiction" by Virginia Woolf. In this episode, Jacke t...
318 Lolita (with Jenny Minton Quigley)
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke hosts Jenny Minton Quigley, editor of the new collection LOLITA IN THE AFTERLIFE: On Beauty, Risk, and Reckoning with the Most Indelible and Sho...
317 My Antonia by Willa Cather
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke continues this week's look at Willa Cather by zeroing in on the style and substance of My Antonia (1918), Cather's celebrated novel about Bohemi...
316 Willa Cather (with Lauren Marino)
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Willa Cather (1873-1947) went from a childhood in Nebraska to a career in publishing in New York City, where she became one of the most successful wom...
315 Gabriel García Márquez and the Incredible and Sad (and Marvelous) World
11 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Following our last episode with Patricia Engel, Jacke takes a closer look at Gabriel García Márquez, including his literary influences, his search f...
314 Gabriel García Márquez (with Patricia Engel)
08 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Author Patricia Engel joins Jacke to talk about her childhood in New Jersey, her artistic family, her lifelong love of stories and writing, her new no...
313 "Spring Snow" (from The Sea of Fertility) by Yukio Mishima
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After taking a look at the eventful life and dramatic death of Yukio Mishima in our last episode, Jacke turns to a closer look at the works of Mishima...
312 Yukio Mishima
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In November of 1970, the most famous novelist in Japan dropped off the final pages of his masterpiece with his publisher, then went to a military offi...
311 Frederick Douglass Learns to Read
25 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke takes a look at adult literacy and continuing education, anti-literacy laws in nineteenth-century America, and two famous passages from the Narr...
309 The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (a Storybound project)
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The History of Literature presents a short story by Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, produced by Storybound. PLUS! In prep...
308 New Westerns (with Anna North)
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anna North, author and journalist, joins us for a full discussion of the Western genre, how twenty-first-century authors have revived the form with mo...
306 Keats's Great Odes (with Anahid Nersessian)
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1819, John Keats quit his job as an assistant surgeon, abandoned an epic poem he was writing, and focused his poetic energies on shorter works. Wha...
305 The Remains of the Day
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Following up on the recommendation of our guest Chigozie Obioma, Jacke takes a closer look at Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day, including...
304 Kazuo Ishiguro (with Chigozie Obioma)
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we talk to Chigozie Obioma, whom the New York Times has called "the heir to Chinua Achebe." We discuss his childhood in Nigeria, his ...
303 The Search for Darcy - Jane Austen, Tom Lefroy, and the World of Pride and Prejudice
28 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In our last episode, we examined the evidence of Jane Austen's 1795-96 dalliance with her "Irish friend," the gentlemanlike (but impoverished) young l...
302 Jane in Love - The Story of Jane Austen and Thomas Lefroy
25 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the Christmas holidays of 1795-96, a young Irishman named Thomas Lefroy left his legal studies in London to visit some relatives who lived in the c...
301 Reading Proust with Strangers
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke kicks off the next hundred episodes with a discussion of the Netflix series Lupin, the story of Proust begging his neighbors for quiet and secre...
300 Frederick Douglass
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was born into the anonymity of slavery and died as the most famous African American of the nineteenth century. After a ...
299 The Cherry Orchard
14 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1971, critic J.L. Styan wrote: "In The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov consummated his life’s work with a poetic comedy of exquisite balance." In this ep...
298 Amyra León!
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke talks to Amyra León, author of the new book Concrete Kids, about her background, her artistic projects, and how influences like James Baldwin, ...
297 The Scarlet Letter
07 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Following our last episode on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jacke takes a look at The Scarlet Letter (1850), which tells the story of a 17th-century New Englan...
296 Nathaniel Hawthorne
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Jacke discusses the life and works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), including his major themes, the distinction he drew between "r...
295 The Past, The Future, and Chekhov
30 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's still Chekhov month! In this episode, Jacke sets the table for the History of Literature's analysis of The Cherry Orchard (1904) with a look back...
292 Uncle Vanya (Chekhov)
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the second installment of our look at Chekhov's four major plays, Jacke takes a look at Uncle Vanya (1898), the story of an estate manager struggli...
291 The Book of Firsts (with Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal)
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ever wonder who wrote the first play in the North American colonies? Or who was the first published African American poet? Or what year it was when an...
290 The Seagull (Chekhov)
10 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1896, the 36-year-old Chekhov suffered one of the worst experiences of his life, when his play The Seagull was performed in front of an audience so...