The History of Literature

Latest Episodes:

486 The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather & Edith Lewis (with Melissa J. Homestead) Feb 13, 2023

Show notes

What was Willa Cather's life really like? Was she - as is often thought - a solitary artist, painstakingly crafting her novels about the Great Plains? Or did she actually have a robust creative partnership with another woman, Edith Lewis, which was downplayed at the time and for decades afterward? In this episode, Jacke talks to Melissa J. Homestead about her book, The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather & Edith Lewis, which sheds new light on the life and works of a great twentieth century novelist.

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Music Credits:

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

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 www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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485 Reading Pleasures - Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Dr Tara Bynum) Feb 09, 2023

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"In the early United States, a Black person committed an act of resistance simply by reading and writing. Yet we overlook that these activities also brought pleasure."

In this episode, Jacke talks to Dr. Tara A. Bynum about her new book, Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America, which finds the "joyous, if messy, humanity" in the lives and works of four canonical Black writers from the 18th and early 19th centuries.

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484 Reading John Milton (with Stephen Dobranski) Feb 06, 2023

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John Milton is often regarded as second only to Shakespeare in the history of English verse - and his epic poem, Paradise Lost, is viewed by many as second to none. His literary achievements are all the more remarkable when one considers the formidable political and personal obstacles Milton faced. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Stephen Dobranski about his new book, Reading John Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times.

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483 Margaret Fuller (with Megan Marshall) Feb 02, 2023

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In her lifetime, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was widely acknowledged as the best read person - male or female - in New England. Her landmark work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, is considered the first full-length treatment of women's rights in North America. After finding success as an author, scholar, educator, editor, translator, journalist, and host of a famous series of "conversations," she tragically died at the age of 40 in a sea accident off the coast of Fire Island, New York. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer-prize winning biographer Megan Marshall about her book, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.

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482 Moby Dick - 10 Essential Questions (Part Two) Jan 30, 2023

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Is Moby-Dick truly the Great American Novel? How did contemporary critics miss it? When (and how) was the book rediscovered? Jacke goes through all this and more, as he continues the countdown of Top 10 Essential Questions about Herman Melville's 1851 masterpiece.

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481 Moby Dick - 10 Essential Questions (Part One) Jan 26, 2023

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Here we go! Moby-Dick; or, the Whale (1851) by Herman Melville is one of the greatest - and strangest - novels you will ever read. Call it what you will - a literary leviathan, an intellectual chowder, an early entry in the Great American Novel sweepstakes - or don't call it anything, just call the narrator Ishmael and climb aboard! In this episode, Jacke counts down 10 Essential Questions regarding Melville's (white) whale of a book.

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480 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (with Ritchie Robertson) Jan 23, 2023

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In 1878, critic Matthew Arnold wrote, "Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times... because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man." In this episode, Jacke talks to Ritchie Robertson, author of Goethe: A Very Short Introduction, about the life and works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic, and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres.

Ritchie Robertson is Taylor Professor of German in the University of Oxford. He is the author of The 'Jewish Question' in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents (OUP, 1999), Mock-Epic Poetry from Pope to Heine (OUP, 2009), and Kafka; A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2004). He has translated several German authors into English for the Oxford World's Classics and Penguin Classics series, and has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2004.

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479 Auden and the Muse of History (with Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb) Jan 19, 2023

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W.H. Auden (1907-1973) was one of the twentieth-century's greatest poets - and also one of the most engaged. As he struggled to make sense of the rise of fascism, two world wars, and industrialized murder, his focus turned to the poet's responsibility in the face of unthinkable horrors. How does a poet begin to address these subjects? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb, author of the new book Auden and the Muse of History, about Auden's use of the past to help him come to grips with the present.

Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, Northwestern University. She is the author of Regions of Sorrow: Anxiety and Messianism in Hannah Arendt and W.H. Auden (Stanford, 2003) and editor of Hannah Arendt: Reflections on Literature and Culture (Stanford, 2007).

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478 The Diaries of Franz Kafka (with Ross Benjamin) Jan 16, 2023

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Kafka! The avatar of anxiety! He's long been one of our favorites here at the History of Literature Podcast. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Ross Benjamin about the new edition of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, published by Schocken Books, which includes some material available in English for the first time.

“Readers will welcome this new edition of the Diaries, complete, uncensored, in a fluent translation by Ross Benjamin, and supplemented with 78 pages of invaluable notes, the fruit of half a century of Kafka scholarship.” —J. M. Coetzee, author of Disgrace

“Ross Benjamin has given the literary world an incredible treasure in this thoughtful edition. Kafka has never been so fully present, both as a man and a writer." —New York Journal of Books

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477 Does Edith Wharton Hate You? (Part 2 - "The Vice of Reading") Jan 12, 2023

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Does Edith Wharton hate us? That's a provocative question - but perhaps one that Wharton herself provoked, with her essay on the readers who damaged literature and her fiction satirizing the same. In this two-part series, Jacke takes a look at the type of readers targeted by Wharton: not the readers of trash fiction, whom she believed were harmless enough, but the readers of serious fiction who nevertheless read fiction in the wrong way. Does it include History of Literature Podcast listeners or even - gulp - its host?

This episode is Part Two, which focuses on Wharton's 1903 essay "The Vice of Reading." Part One, which focuses on Wharton's 1916 short story "Xingu," will be available at the same time.

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