The History of Literature

Latest Episodes:

417 What Happened on Roanoke Island? (with Kimberly Brock) Jun 16, 2022

Show notes

It's one of the great mysteries in American history. The "lost colony" of Roanoke Island, where 120 or so men, women, and children living in the first permanent English settlement in North America simply disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a mysterious word carved into a tree trunk. While historians remain baffled, speculation has run rampant, with everything from massacre to relocation to space alien abduction taking their turns as potential theories. What happened to those people? And is there any way to tell their story? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Kimberly Brock about her novel The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare, which extends the mystery of Roanoke and its legacy from the late seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth.

Additional listening suggestions:

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

416 William Blake vs the World (with John Higgs) Jun 13, 2022

Show notes

In his lifetime, the Romantic poet and engraver William Blake (1757-1827) was barely known and frequently misunderstood. Today, his genius is widely celebrated and his poems are some of the most famous in the English language - and yet we still struggle to comprehend his unique way of seeing the world. In this episode, Blakean biographer John Higgs, author of the new book William Blake vs. the World, joins Jacke to discuss Blake's life, art, and visions.

Additional listening suggestions:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

415 "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti Jun 09, 2022

Show notes

As a devout and passionate religious observer, Victorian poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) lived a life that might seem, at first glance, as proper and tame. Even some of her greatest works, devotional poems and verses for children, strike us as just the kind of art a fine upstanding moralist might generate. But there was more to Christina Rossetti than that - and in fact, she produced some of the most passionate and idiosyncratic poems of her era. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at her long narrative poem Goblin Market (1859-1862), about two sisters seduced by the fruits being sold by a pack of river goblins, which is one of the most sensationally bizarre poems Jacke has ever read.

Additional listening suggestions:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

414 Henry James's Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith) | William Blake Preview (with John Higgs) Jun 06, 2022

Show notes

Money. Sex. Power. Family. Those are the conceits at the heart of Henry James's late-period masterpiece, The Golden Bowl. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Dinitia Smith, whose new novel The Prince reinvigorates this classic story of a wealthy American widower, his doting daughter, her charismatic foreign husband, and the childhood friend whose secret love affairs threaten to jeopardize multiple marriages.

Additional listening suggestions:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

413 Walt Whitman - "Song of Myself" Jun 02, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, we resume our look at Walt Whitman's life and body of work, focusing in particular on the years 1840-1855. Did Whitman's teaching career end with him being tarred and feathered by an angry mob, as has long been rumored? What happened during his three months in New Orleans? And how did this printer and hack writer wind up writing the twelve poems in Leaves of Grass (1855), thereby becoming the "true poet" that Ralph Waldo Emerson had been searching for?

Additional listening ideas:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

412 HOL Goes to War (with Elizabeth Samet, Matt Gallagher, and Tom Roston) May 30, 2022

Show notes

In this best-of History of Literature episode, Jacke revisits the topic of war and literature with three guests: Professor Elizabeth Samet (Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point), who teaches literature to military officers in training; Matt Gallagher (Empire City and Youngblood), a veteran who served in Iraq; and Tom Roston (The Writer's Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse-Five), who places Kurt Vonnegut's writing in the context of his POW experiences in WWII and his position as an antiwar prophet to the Vietnam generation.

Full episodes are available at:

Music Credits:

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

411 Walt Whitman - A New Hope May 26, 2022

Show notes

In 1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson called for a new poet who would reflect the spirit and potential of America. In 1855, a then-unknown poet named Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass, his attempt to fulfill Emerson's wish. In this episode, Jacke looks at Whitman's early life and career, contrasting Leaves of Grass with the works of a pair of poets that Emerson may have had in mind when he railed against "men of poetical talents...of industry and skill in meter" who nevertheless failed to be what Emerson called "true poets."

Additional listening suggestions:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

410 What Is American Literature? (with Ilan Stavans) May 23, 2022

Show notes

America, America, America... a continent, a nation, a people, and a whole lotta books. But how does America define itself? Who defines it? Where did the idea of American exceptionalism come from? And how does literature fit into any of this? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Ilan Stavans about his new book, What Is American Literature?

ILAN STAVANS is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, the publisher of Restless Books, and the host of the NPR podcast "In Contrast". The recipient of numerous international awards, his work, adapted into film, theatre, TV, and radio, has been translated into twenty languages.

Additional listening suggestions:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

409 "Fear and Trembling" (The Story of Abraham and Isaac) by Soren Kierkegaard May 19, 2022

Show notes

In our last look at Søren Kierkegaard, we left our hero after he had just left the love of his life, Regine Olsen, in favor of a life devoted to God and philosophy. In this episode, Jacke looks at one of the great products of that seismic schism: Fear and Trembling, or Kierkegaard's analysis of God's command that Abraham should sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. How does Abraham's decision fit into moral and ethical principles? And if it doesn't fit, what does that mean for our society - or for Christianity itself?

Additional listening suggestions

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

408 Dylan Thomas (with Scott Carter) May 16, 2022

Show notes

Do not go gentle into this good episode! Rage, rage against the dying of the... well, things fall apart there, don't they? (Because we're not gifted poets like Dylan Thomas!) In this episode, Jacke talks to producer, playwright, and performer Scott Carter about his lifelong passion for the Welsh bard who took the U.K. by storm in the mid-twentieth-century and America by even stormier storm soon thereafter. Which poems are best? What's good about them? How did they feed into the mythic reputation of Dylan Thomas? And what does it all mean for us today?

Additional listening ideas:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected