The History of Literature

Latest Episodes:

645 Richard Wright Oct 24, 2024

Show notes

"Wright was one of those people," said poet Amiri Baraka, "who made me conscious of the need to struggle."

In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Black American novelist and poet Richard Wright (1908-1960), author of Uncle Tom's Children, Native Son, Black Boy, and thousands of haiku. Born in Mississippi in desperate poverty to a schoolteacher mother and a sharecropper father (who were themselves the free children of formerly enslaved peoples), Wright had little formal education until he was 12, when he quickly demonstrated his intelligence and passion for reading. After high school, Wright traveled north to Chicago, where he set his most famous work, the fiery Dostoevskyan novel Native Son. Quickly achieving celebrity as one of America's most famous and successful Black writers, Wright moved to Paris, where he lived the rest of his life - and where he met a young James Baldwin, who accepted Wright's help before writing a pair of essays that strongly criticized Wright's fiction.

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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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644 Jack Kerouac (with Steven Belletto) Oct 21, 2024

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Critics didn't know quite what to make of twentieth-century American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), but readers had less difficulty. In spite of mixed reviews, On the Road (1957)quickly became a kind of bible for anyone hoping to squeeze more out of life. In this episode, Jacke talks to Steven Belletto, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac, about the continuing fascination with the Beat Generation and its most famous avatar.

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

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643 Aesop and His Fables (with Robin Waterfield) | My Last Book with Boel Westin Oct 17, 2024

Show notes

Aesop's fables - including such classics as "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Fox and the Grapes," and "The Ant and the Grasshopper" - are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. But who was Aesop? Why was he writing these stories - and what about the ones that weren't written for children? Renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, translator of Aesop's Fables: A New Translation, joins Jacke for a discussion of the legendary Aesop and his legendary tales. PLUS Tove Jansson biographer Boel Westin (Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

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

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642 Theater and Democracy (with James Shapiro) Oct 14, 2024

Show notes

It's hard to imagine now, but the United States government wasn't always hostile or indifferent to the arts. In fact, from 1935 to 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal Government responded to the Great Depression by staging over a thousand theatrical productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. How did Roosevelt's administration come to hire over twelve thousand struggling artists, including Orson Welles and Arthur Miller? How successful were the plays? And what ultimately shut them down? James Shapiro (The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War) joins Jacke for a discussion of the Federal Theatre Project and its legacy.

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

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641 Blood, Guts, and Books - Inside the Medieval Scriptorium (with Sara Charles) | My Last Book with Elizabeth Coggeshall Oct 10, 2024

Show notes

Medieval manuscripts are so wondrously beautiful they deserve comparison with the world's finest works of art. But what was behind the production of these books? We might think of rows of monks, patiently toiling away in a hushed chamber - but that would be to ignore the actual conditions of book production. In this episode, Sara Charles (The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages) takes Jacke into the dirty, smelly, boring, and back-breaking world of an actual medieval scriptorium. PLUS Dante scholar Elizabeth Coggeshall (On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante's Italy) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

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

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640 Chaucer the Merry Bard (with Mary Flannery) Oct 07, 2024

Show notes

Yes, he's the father of English poetry, and yes, he's perhaps best known today for bawdy tales like the Wife of Bath. But who was Geoffrey Chaucer? How did he navigate life during one of the most turbulent periods of English history? And how did he become known as "the merry bard"? In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer Mary Flannery about her new book, Geoffrey Chaucer: Unveiling the Merry Bard.

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

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639 Immersed in Print (with Geoffrey Turnovsky) | My Last Book with Liz Rosenberg Oct 03, 2024

Show notes

Bibliophiles everywhere know the sweet feeling of getting lost in a book. And like all good literary snobs, we tend to think that full immersion requires a distraction-free relationship between reader and text. But was it always so? After examining early modern French literature, Geoffrey Turnovsky (Reading Typographically: Immersed in Print in Early Modern France) thinks that the answer might not be so simple. In this episode, Jacke and Geoffrey discuss the stereotypes and myths centering around the act of reading a print-based book - and what insights they might deliver to readers in an age of digitization. PLUS Liz Rosenberg (A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

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

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638 Thomas Mann Sep 30, 2024

Show notes

For fifty years, Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann (1875-1955) lived his life as Germany's preeminent novelist and one of Europe's most respected intellectuals. In this episode, Jacke examines the truth behind the public image, as the author of Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, and Mario and the Magician dealt with artistic triumphs, bitter defeats, repressed sexual desires, family turmoil, relentless tragedies, political dangers, exile to America, and ultimately, an uneasy literary legacy.

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

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637 From the Archives - Heart of Darkness (with Mike Palindrome) | My Last Book with Fred Waitzkin Sep 26, 2024

Show notes

We asked, you answered! In response to a listener recommendation, we revisit a conversation from 2017 in which Mike and Jacke discuss Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and Eleanor Coppola's Hearts of Darkness. PLUS novelist Fred Waitzkin (Searching for Bobby Fisher, Anything Is Good) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

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636 Emily Dickinson's Letters (with Cristanne Miller) Sep 23, 2024

Show notes

Who was Emily Dickinson? We think we know her, or at least one side of her, from her poems. But what was she like when she wasn't writing poetry? What was she like with her friends and family? In this episode, we talk to editor Cristanne Miller about her book The Letters of Emily Dickinson, which presents all 1,304 of Dickinson's extant letters.

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