The History of Literature

Latest Episodes:

695 Ten Indian Classics (with Sharmila Sen) | My Last Book with Adam Smyth Apr 14, 2025

Show notes

For the past ten years, the Murty Classical Library of India (published by Harvard University Press) has sought to do for classic Indian works what the famous Loeb Classical Library has done for Ancient Greek and Roman texts. In this episode, Jacke talks to editorial director Sharmila Sen about the joys and challenges of sifting through thousands of years of Indic works and bringing literary treasures to the general public, as well as a new book, Ten Indian Classics, which highlights ten of the fifty works published in the collection so far. PLUS bookmaker and book historian Adam Smyth (The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives) discusses his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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694 Apocalyptic Literature (with Dorian Lynskey) | My Last Book with Charles Baxter Apr 10, 2025

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For some reason, human beings don't seem to be content just thinking about their own death: they insist on imagining the end of the entire world. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Dorian Lynskey (Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World), who immersed himself in apocalyptic films and literature to discover exactly what doomsday prophets have been saying for the past few millennia - and what that can tell us about the people and cultures that listened. PLUS Charles Baxter (Blood Test: A Comedy, The Feast of Love) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠.

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693 Understanding the Wonders of Nature (with Alan Lightman) | My Last Book with Alan Lightman Apr 07, 2025

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In today's world of specialization, Alan Lightman is that rare individual who has accomplished remarkable things in two very different realms. As a physicist with a Ph.D. from Cal Tech, he's taught at Harvard and MIT and advised the United Nations. As a novelist, he's written award-winning bestsellers like Einstein's Dreams and The Diagnosis.

In this episode, Jacke talks to Alan about his passions for both science and literature, and the way the two come together in his new book, The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature, a gorgeous book that explores the science behind the universe's most stunning natural phenomena, including everything from atoms and parameciums to rainbows and the rings of Saturn. PLUS Jacke talks to Alan about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠.

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692 An Investigation in Chinatown (with Radha Vatsal) | The Five Books (with Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen) Apr 03, 2025

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It's a two-for-one special! First, Jacke talks to novelist Radha Vatsal about her new book, No. 10 Doyers Street, which tells the gripping story of an Indian woman journalist investigating a bloody shooting in New York's Chinatown circa 1907. Then podcaster Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen stops by to discuss her experience hosting The Five Books, which asks Jewish writers to list the five books that have influenced them. Enjoy!

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠.

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691 The Making of Sylvia Plath (with Carl Rollyson) | My Last Book with Cheryl Hopson Mar 31, 2025

Show notes

Since her death, poet and novelist Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) has been an endless source of fascination for fans of her and her work. But while much attention has been paid to her tumultuous relationship with fellow poet Ted Hughes, we often overlook the influences that formed her, long before she traveled to England and met Hughes. What movies did she watch? Which books did she read? How did media shape her worldview? In this episode, Jacke talks to serial biographer Carl Rollyson about his new book The Making of Sylvia Plath, which takes a fresh approach to understanding Plath - and helps to revise and reposition Plath's legacy. PLUS Cheryl Hopson (Zora Neale Hurston: A Critical Life) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

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690 Coleridge and the Person from Porlock [Ad-Free] Mar 27, 2025

Show notes

[This episode originally ran on July 18, 2016. It is presented here without commercial interruption.]

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 marvelous dream, a vivid train of images of the Chinese emperor Kubla Khan and his summer palace, Xanadu. The vision transformed itself into lines of poetry, but as he started writing, he was interrupted by a Person from Porlock, who arrived at Coleridge’s cottage on business and stayed for an hour. when Coleridge returned to his work, the vision had been lost, and the fragmentary nature of the poem Kubla Khan has haunted its admirers ever since. The resentment has centered around the bumbling Person from Porlock, whose visit remains shrouded in mystery. The scholar Jonathan Livingston Lowes put it bluntly: “If there is any man in the history of literature who should be hanged, drawn, and quartered,” he wrote, “it is the man on business from Porlock.”

Who was this Person from Porlock, and why was he knocking on the door of Coleridge’s cottage? How did Coleridge handle the interruption, and what did it mean for him and his art? And finally, what might we take from this vivid legend today?

Music Credits:

“Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the Free Music Archive / CC by SA).

“Piano Between” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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689 Thomas Kyd (with Brian Vickers) | My Last Book with Jonathan D.S. Schroeder Mar 24, 2025

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For centuries, the playwright Thomas Kyd has been best known as the author of The Spanish Tragedy, a terrific story of revenge believed to have strongly influenced Shakespeare's Hamlet. And yet, a contemporary referred to Kyd as "industrious Kyd." What happened to the rest of his plays? In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Brian Vickers about his new book Thomas Kyd: A Dramatist Restored, the first full study of Kyd's life and works, in which Vickers discusses Kyd's accepted canon as well as three additional plays Vickers has newly identified as having been written by Kyd—exciting discoveries that establish him as a major dramatist. PLUS Jonathan D.S. Schroeder (editor of The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography, by John Swanson Jacobs) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠.

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688 Georges Simenon Mar 20, 2025

Show notes

The Belgian-born French writer Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was astonishing for his literary ambition and output. The author of something like 400 novels, which he wrote in 7-10 day bursts (after checking with his physician beforehand to ensure that he could handle the strain), he's perhaps best known for his creation of Chief Inspector Jules Maigret, who appeared in 75 novels or so. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Simenon's childhood and relationship with parents, his marriages and affairs (he once claimed to have slept with ten thousand women), and the approach to narrative and prose that continues to delight readers and critics alike.

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠.

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687 Gatsby Turns 100 (with James West) Mar 17, 2025

Show notes

"I want to write something new," American author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his editor, "something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Months later, he presented the results: the novel that would eventually be titled The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925 to middling success, the book has since become a candidate for the Great American Novel, selling more than copies in a month than the book sold during Fitzgerald's entire lifetime. In this episode, Jacke talks to Fitzgerald scholar James West about his work editing the Cambridge Centennial Edition of The Great Gatsby, which celebrates 100 years of this enduring tale of illicit desire, grand illusions, and lost dreams, delivered in lyric prose by an author writing at the peak of his powers.

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠.

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686 Russian Poetry After the Cold War (with Stephanie Sandler) Mar 13, 2025

Show notes

For decades, the Soviet Union was unfriendly territory for poets and writers. But what happened when the wall fell? Emerging from the underground, the poets reacted with a creative outpouring that responded to a brave new world. In this episode, Jacke talks to Russian poetry scholar Stephanie Sandler about her new book The Freest Speech in Russia: Poetry Unbound, 1989-2022, which shows how contemporary Russian poetry both expressed and exemplified freedom - and how that initial burst of freedom has responded to subsequent geopolitical developments.

Additional listening:

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠.

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