The History of Literature
Episodes
67 Pascal’s Wager and an American Election
18 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke digs into his origins in rural Wisconsin and offers some thoughts on race, literature, and the recent election. Also featured: René Descartes...
66 James Baldwin, Wallace Stegner, GB Tran, Lois Duncan (with author Shawna Yang Ryan)
04 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What can we do to unlock the past? How do family secrets affect us? Author Shawna Yang Ryan has spent a lot of time thinking about these issues – an...
65 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (with Professor James Chandler)
28 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
By any measure, Mary Shelley (1797-1851) lived a radical life. As the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, two philosophers devoted to ...
64 Dorothy Parker
24 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
“She was a combination of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth,” said Alexander Woolcott. Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) wrote short stories, poems, reviews, ...
63 Chekhov, Bellow, Wright, and Fox (with Charles Baxter)
14 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, the revered American author Charles Baxter joins Jacke to discuss some of his favorite books, including works by Anton Chekho...
62 Bad Poetry
07 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone loves and admires a good poem…but what about the bad ones? After discussing his own experience writing terrible poetry, Jacke analyzes the ...
60 Great Literary Endings
23 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone always talks about the greatest openings in the history of literature – I’m looking at you, Call me Ishmael – but what about endings? A...
59 Flannery O’Connor
16 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) lived a life that, in retrospect, looks almost like one of her short stories: sudden, impactful, and lastingly powerfu...
58 Wyndham Lewis and the Vorticists (with Professor Paul Peppis)
09 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Embattled and arrogant, the novelist and painter Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) was deeply immersed in Modernism even as he sought to blast it apart. He wa...
57 Borges, Munro, Davis, Barthelme – All About Short Stories (And Long Ones Too)
02 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a short story a short story? What can a short story do that a novel can’t? Can a story ever be TOO short? The President of the Literatu...
56 Shelley, HD, Yeats, Frost, Stevens – The Poetry of Ruins (with Professor Bill Hogan)
26 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In 1818, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley published his classic poem “Ozymandias,” depicting the fallen statue of a once-powerful king whose...
55 James Joyce (with Vincent O’Neill)
19 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Vincent O’Neill hails from Sandycove, Dublin, where he grew up in the shadow of the tower made famous by the opening chapter of James Joyce’s Ulys...
54 The Greatest Books Ever (Part 2)
12 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What books are essential? Who has the authority to choose them, and what is their selection process? First, Jacke and Mike continue their look at the ...
53 Romeo and Juliet
05 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In 1964, the Oxford professor John Barrington Wain wrote: “…Romeo and Juliet is as perfectly achieved as anything in Shakespeare’s work. It is a...
52 Recommend This! The Best 101 Books for College-Bound Readers
29 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What works of literature are essential? When we start reading literature, where do we begin? The College Board, an organization that prepares standard...
51 Coleridge, Kubla Khan, and the Person from Porlock – A Literary Mystery
18 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In 1797, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge took two grains of opium and fell into a stupor. When he awoke, he had in his head the remnants of a marvelo...
50 Othello
11 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
One of Shakespeare’s four great tragedies, The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (ca. 1603) is perhaps the most difficult of them to watch. The...
49 MFA Programs – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
04 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the Master of Fine Arts degree has quietly dominated the American literary scene. There are now over 100 programs where professors and st...
48 Hamlet
27 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Hamlet (ca 1599-1602) has been called the greatest play ever written in English – and even that might not be giving it enough credit. Many would ran...
47 Hemingway vs Fitzgerald
20 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) were the pole stars of the Lost Generation, the collection of young American authors ...
46 Poetry of the T’ang Dynasty
13 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
China’s T’ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) valued poets and poetry like no other culture before or since. In this episode, Jacke Wilson takes a look a...
45 Augustine and The Confessions (pt 2)
06 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Continuing the journey with a deeper look at the incredible achievements of St. Augustine (354 – 430 A.D.), a luminary of the early Catholic church,...
44 Augustine and The Confessions (pt 1)
30 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The journey continues! Host Jacke Wilson takes a look at one of the deepest thinkers in the Western tradition, St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), and the l...
43 Seeing Evil (with Professor Rebecca Messbarger)
23 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What is evil? Is it a force that lives outside us? Or something that dwells within? And how do we recognize it? Professor Rebecca Messbarger joins Jac...
42 Was Prince a Poet?
16 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
He was a supremely talented musician and composer – but was he the voice of his generation? Jacke and Mike take a look at the life and lyrics of Pr...
41 The New Testament (with Professor Kyle Keefer)
09 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Dickens called the New Testament “the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world.” Thomas Paine complained that it wa...
40 Radha Vatsal, Author of “A Front Page Affair”
02 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Host Jacke Wilson is joined by special guest Radha Vatsal, author of the historical mystery A Front Page Affair. Radha starts by talking about her own...
39 Graham Greene
25 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jacke and Mike reconsider the life and works of the great twentieth-century British novelist Graham Greene. Works discussed include The End of the Af...
38 Literary Duos (Part Two)
18 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When are two artists or characters more than the sum of their parts? How is that magic created? And what does it mean for the rest of us? Part two of ...
37 Literary Duos (Part One)
11 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a great literary duo? Two authors inspiring one another? Two characters who fall in love? Best friends? Rivals? Host Jacke Wilson is joined...
36 Poetry and Empire (Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Petronius, Catullus)
28 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a republic morphs into empire? What did it mean for the writers of Ancient Rome – and what would it mean for us today? Jacke Wilso...
35 A Conversation with Ronica Dhar
21 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Jacke welcomes special guest Ronica Dhar, who presents Five Books (or actually Four Books and a Movie) To Lower Your Blood Pressure. ...
33 – The Bhagavad Gita
07 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Written over the span of 800 years from ca. 400 B.C. to ca. 400 A.D, the Mahabharata tells a riveting tale of disputed kingship and warring families. ...
32 The Best Debut Novels of All Time (A Conversation with the President of the Literature Supporters’ Club)
03 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a great first novel? Which do we prefer: the freshness of a new style (even if it contains mistakes), or the demonstration of competence (e...
28 The Ramayana
25 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been called “the greatest of all Indian epics – and one of the world’s supreme masterpieces of storytelling.” Nobody can deny the power...
27 The Upanishads (Part Two)
18 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How did the Universe begin? What is the nature of individual consciousness? How do these relate to one another? Host Jacke Wilson continues his look a...
11 The Upanishads (Part One)
11 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of years ago, a group of Indian mystics conducted investigations into the universe and the nature of human consciousness. Using deep meditat...
10 Indian Literature: A Cosmic Feast
07 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Recalling his own long-ago transition from China to India, our host previews our journey’s next stop, where we will immerse ourselves in the literat...
9 Confucius
04 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps the most influential teacher in the history of the world, Confucius (551-479 B.C.) left a literary legacy that continues to inspire and provok...
8 The Shi Jing (Chinese Classical Poetry)
21 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Our history of literature journey continues by traveling to the other side of the globe, where Chinese poets are busy recording ancient folk songs and...
7A Proust, Pound, and Chinese Poetry
17 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A young Jacke Wilson immerses himself in great books on his way from Taiwan to Tibet – and finds out what Ezra Pound, Marcel Proust, and Chinese poe...
7 Greek Comedy – Aristophanes
14 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Author Jacke Wilson examines the life and works of Aristophanes, whose comic plays included The Clouds, which pokes fun at philosophers such as Socrat...
6 Greek Tragedy – Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides
07 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Author Jacke Wilson examines the works of three great Greek tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides – and attempts to solve the mystery of w...
5 Greek Tragedy (Part One)
30 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
How was tragedy invented? Why was it so popular in Ancient Greece, and what power does it have for us today? Using the discussion of tragedy in Aristo...
4 Sappho
23 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ancient Greece viewed her as Homer’s poetic equal; Plato referred to her as the “tenth muse.” As a fearless and lyrical chronicler of female des...
3A Odysseus Leaves Calypso
16 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Responding to a listener email, author Jacke Wilson takes a deeper look at one of the Odyssey’s most famous passages. Why does Odysseus leave Calyps...
3 Homer
09 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
He was a blind poet whose stories of heroes and gods helped launch an incredible era of literary and cultural flourishing. History of Literature host ...
2A The Book of Job
29 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Why does an all-good, omnipotent God permit pain and suffering among the innocent? Jacke Wilson takes a look at the masterful Book of Job. *** This...
2 The Hebrew Bible
26 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Examining the literary qualities of the most successful religious text in the history of the world. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate net...
1A – The Discovery of Gilgamesh
15 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a Victorian-era archaeologist thinks he’s made the discovery of a lifetime? The answer may surprise you… *** This show is a p...
1 The Epic of Gilgamesh
12 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Starting our journey with the surprisingly modern story of an ancient warrior-king whose restlessness drives him to seek immortality. *** This show...
Episode 0 – Battling the Beast
10 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing the wildly unqualified host, Jacke Wilson. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, a...