Literary Hangover

Latest Episodes:

41 - Areopagitica by John Milton (1644) Jan 09, 2022

Show notes

Grace (@GraceJackson) and Alex (@Alecks_Guns) join Matt once again to discuss John Milton as a polemicist over John Milton as a poet.

Milton's family background. Charles Deodati. Anti-Popery; the Gunpowder Plot, The Fatal Vespers. Virginity. The Trip to Italy. The English civil war and censorship/openness. Epic Poet tradition. Divorce Tracts. Areopagitica. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (ie Yes, We Should Actually Execute the King). Eikonoklastes (ie No, God Is Not Mad We Killed the King). The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a New Commonwealth (ie I Can't Believe We Are Going To Do Monarchy Again).

References:

Full Text of Areopagitica.

OpenYale Milton Lectures Areopagitica episode.

Bernstein, Eduard. 2000. Cromwell and Communism: Socialism and Democracy in the Great English revolution. Nottingham: Spokesman.

Hill, Christopher. 1978. Milton and the English Revolution. New York: Viking Press.

Milton, John, and David Loewenstein. 2013. John Milton Prose: Major Writings on Liberty, Politics, Religion, and Education. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

McDowell, Nicholas. 2020. Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton. Princeton University Press.

40 - The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon by John Filson (1784) Nov 08, 2021

Show notes

Alex, Grace, and Matt discuss The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon by John Filson, the seminal text in the creation of the Daniel Boone myth of the American hunter. Who underwrote Boone's expeditions? This bas relief of Boone and why the US state would memorialize him as an "indian killer." Also this is Lord Dunmore.

Intro song: Daniel Boone by Pixies

Morgan, Robert. 2008. Boone: a biography

Faragher, John Mack. 1992. Daniel Boone: the life and legend of an American pioneer.

Slotkin, Richard. 2006. Regeneration through violence: the mythology of the American frontier, 1600-1860. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

39 - The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover (1712) Oct 23, 2021

Show notes

Matt goes solo to finish off the first Byrd diary with the year 1712. Also, Michael Shermer's disgusting views on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings.

Buzzfeed article on Michael Shermer (see Jefferson comments here)

Brown, Kathleen M. 2012. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press

Hill, Christopher. 2021. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin Books.

Pettigrew, William A. 2016. Freedom's debt: the Royal African Company and the politics of the Atlantic slave trade, 1672-1752.

38 - The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover (1711) - Tuscarora War/Rebellion, Colonel Parke's Estate Aug 07, 2021

Show notes

Get episodes a couple weeks early @ patreon.com/literaryhangover

Hey everyone! Before we get to Boone, Matt is going to finish William Byrd II's first diary, this time the year 1711. The Tuscarora War, to be viewed as both an indian war *and* a slave rebellion, looms large as does the assassination of Byrd's father-in-law/Governor in Antigua, Colonel Daniel Parke.

Sources

NC BOOKWATCH: David LaVere: The Tuscarora War

https://www.pbs.org/video/david-lavere-the-tuscarora-war-oifrkt/

The Michael Eure Show - Tri-Racial Identity of Tuscarora & Other Native Americans (12/17/20)

https://youtu.be/fTge5-us_BU

The Michael Eure Show - Tri-Racial Identity of Tuscarora & Other Native Americans - Part 2 (1/14/21)

https://youtu.be/_0KOxlu-6Xk

Linebaugh, Peter. 2003. The London hanged: crime and civil society in the eighteenth century. London: Verso.

Apologies for the crispy audio, tried my best to cancel out vacuum noise from the neighbors.

37 - The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover (1710) Mar 27, 2021

Show notes

Alex, Grace, and Matt return with year 1710 in the diary of tobacco plantation master William Byrd II, a year marked by spooky mystical dreams, increasing attempts at escape from slaves, and Whig vs Tory political battle.

Sources

The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712, ed. Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling (Richmond: The Dietz Press, 1941)

Linebaugh, Peter. 2006. The London hanged: crime and civil society in the eighteenth century. London: Verso.

36 - The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover (1709) Jan 25, 2021

Show notes

Hello all! In this episode, we begin with Matt telling Grace and Alex about two books, Colonel Parke of Virginia: "The Greatest Hector in the Town" by Helen Hill Miller on Byrd's incredible father-in-law, Daniel Parke, and Perry of London: A Family and a Firm on the Seaborne Frontier, 1615–1753 on the Perry tobacco merchant family. Then, a discussion on the January 6 Capitol riots in the context of Bacon's Rebellion. Then we discuss the first year of William Byrd's Secret Diary, from 1709, with special attention to his behavior toward his slaves, servants, and other subordinates.

Sources

The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712, ed. Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling (Richmond: The Dietz Press, 1941

Price, Jacob M. Perry of London: a Family and a Firm on the Seaborne Frontier, 1615-1753. Harvard University Press, 1992.

Miller, Helen Hill. 1989. Colonel Parke of Virginia: the greatest hector in the town : a biography. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Rice, James D. 2012. Tales from a revolution: Bacon's Rebellion and the transformation of early America. New York City: Oxford University Press.

Washburn, Wilcomb E. 1957. The Governor and the rebel: a history of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg by the University of North Carolina Press.

Welcome to Season 2! William Byrd II Introduction, Historical Fiction, and Future Subjects Dec 31, 2020

Show notes

Hey everyone,

Alex, Grace, and Matt have a catch up chat to kick off the new season. We discuss William Byrd II's secret diaries and example as a Virginia colonial gentleman, historical fiction, and preview what titles we'll be covering this year.

*UNLOCKED* Orwell|er - 5 - 'England Your England' - The Lion & The Unicorn Part 1 (1941) Jul 04, 2020

Show notes

Originally released for patrons March 14. Part two will be unlocked soon and part three is available now for members at patreon.com/literaryhangover

Hey patrons! Social distancing has upended our scheduled plans for Aphra Behn's "Widow Ranter" with Grace, so Alex and I decided to return to Orwell|er with the first installment of Orwell's "The Lion and The Unicorn," titled "England Your England."

This is an essay written at the height of the WWII blitz bombing of Britain by Orwell from London. The first line, "As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me," begins an immediately controversial argument in response to nationalism prevailing across the world and attempts to reframe patriotism as compatible, and in fact a component of, a socialist revolution. This episode is particulalry relevent in our capitalism-discrediting pandemic. Is there really such a thing as "national character." Is bourgouis democracy the same as totalitarianism? The difficulty of working class international consciousness. The increasingly evident and decadent stupidity of the ruling class. Are they dumb or traitors? American billionaires as ruthless. The place of the intelligentsia in the empire. Orwell predicts the rise, but not fall, of suburbia.

Sources:

Main source: Alex Hyde-White's narration of "Essays" by Orwell, 2019 via Audible.

Bounds, Philip. 2009. Orwell and Marxism: the political and cultural thinking of George Orwell. London: I.B. Tauris.

Claeys, Gregory. 1985; "The Lion and the Unicorn", Patriotism, and Orwell's Politics. The Review of Politics, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Apr., 1985), pp. 186-211

35 - 'A Journal of the Plague Year' by Daniel Defoe (1722) Apr 26, 2020

Show notes

This is the free Literary Hangover feed. To support the show and access the premium episodes on George Orwell (Orwell|er), become a Patron at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover

Also subscribe to twitch.tv/literaryhangover for the study hall sessions!

Hi everybody, Alex, Grace and I are back with an episode that will not really help you get your mind off of coronavirus! Today, Daniel Defoe's 'A Journal of the Plague Year,' a fictionalized journal set in the 1665 plague in London.

Foucault's Political (order) and Literary (anarchy) "dreams" of the Plague. The surveillance state and public health. Fuedalism wasn't any better for workers than capitalism. The Defoe theme of the bourgeois barricading and provisioning himself in a dangerous environment. Daniel Defoe, Data Journalist. Killing watchmen. The economic pause of the plague. Rural/urban divides and cooperation.

Sources:

Wagner, Martin. "Defoe, Foucault, and the Politics of the Plague." SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 57, no. 3 (2017): 501-519.

Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984. Discipline And Punish : the Birth of the Prison.

Librivox narration.

34 - 'The Widow Ranter, or, the History of Bacon in Virginia' by Aphra Behn (1689) Apr 04, 2020

Show notes

Best wishes to everyone dealing with pandemic bs.

Full play text here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27273/27273-h/widow.html

Grace, Alex, and Matt are back with another Aphra Behn work, this time her posthumously performed 1689 play "The Widow Ranter, or, the History of Bacon in Virginia." We discuss her role as a tory propagandist and as a spy rewriting recent history to glorify the heroic individual. The righteous Levellers and "delegating" the power of the people. Behn makes Bacon an Indian lover and not hater. Semernia and Cockacoeske. Bacon not a populist. The drunk colonial judiciary. Defending inheritances you recognize as unjust. The Widow Ranter as a feminist libertine ideal. Behn's lasting fidelity to hierarchy.

Sources:

Linebaugh, Peter, and Marcus Rediker. 2000. The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press.

Brown, Kathleen M. 1996. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia.

MOWRY, MELISSA. ""PAST REMEMBRANCE OR HISTORY": APHRA BEHN'S "THE WIDDOW RANTER", OR, HOW THE COLLECTIVE LOST ITS HONOR." ELH 79, no. 3 (2012): 597-621. Accessed April 4, 2020. jstor.org/stable/23256768.

Pulsipher, Jenny Hale. "The Widow Ranter and Royalist Culture in Colonial Virginia." Early American Literature 39, no. 1 (2004): 41-66. doi:10.1353/eal.2004.0016.

Rice, James D. 2013. Tales from a revolution: Bacon's Rebellion and the transformation of Early America.

Washburn, Wilcomb E. 1957. The Governor and the rebel, a history of Bacon's rebellion in Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

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