The Norton Library Podcast

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Achilles's Job is Beach (The Iliad, Part 1) Jun 16, 2025

Show notes

In Part 1 of our discussion on Homer's Iliad, we welcome translator Emily Wilson to discuss Homer's life as an "author," the meaning of free will in the context of intervention from gods, and how the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus shapes the climax of the epic.

Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and early modern studies, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia.
To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of The Iliad, go to https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324102076.
Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.
Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.

Jo's Elastic Heart (Little Women, Part 2) Jun 02, 2025

Show notes

In Part 2 of our discussion on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, editor Sarah Blackwood returns to discuss the inspiration behind the cover of the Norton Library edition, the book's intended audience, and key elements of gender theory—as well as personal feelings—that Alcott incorporates into the characters and story.

Sarah Blackwood is Professor of English at Pace University, where she teaches courses on nineteenth-century US literature, visual culture, and representations of selfhood. She is the author of The Portrait’s Subject: Inventing Inner Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States (2019), as well as the introductions to the Penguin Classics editions of Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country (1913) and The Age of Innocence (1920). Her criticism has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and elsewhere. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of Little Women, go to https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393876734.
Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.
Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.

Life Planning 101 with Louisa May Alcott (Little Women, Part 1) May 19, 2025

Show notes

In Part 1 of our discussion on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, we welcome editor Sarah Blackwood to discuss the importance of Alcott's family background; her distinct authorial voice in books, journals, and letters; and how her time as a Civil War nurse led to her emergence into the publishing world.

Tell Your Students about Edith Wharton! (The Age of Innocence, Part 2) Apr 21, 2025

Show notes

In Part 2 of our discussion on Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, editor Sheila Liming returns to discuss challenges for first-time readers, the correlation between fluctuations in Wharton's reputation and historical literary (and political) trends, and whether or not The Age of Innocence is truly a love story.

Sheila Liming is Associate Professor at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. She is the author of What a Library Means to a Woman: Edith Wharton and the Will to Collect Books (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and creator of the web database EdithWhartonsLibrary.org. Her other books include Office (2020), published through Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series, and a scholarly edition of Wharton's novel Twilight Sleep (forthcoming through Oxford University Press). Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Lapham's Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review of Books, McSweeney’s, and The Chronicle Review.
To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of The Age of Innocence, go to https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393870770.
Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.
Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.

A Hieroglyphic World: Social Rules in Wharton's Novel of Manners (The Age of Innocence, Part 1) Apr 07, 2025

Show notes

In Part 1 of our discussion on Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, we welcome editor Sheila Liming to discuss the author's friendship with Henry James, a culture of elitism in New York, and the ironic meaning of "innocence" in the novel.

Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" and Hemingway's Flawed Characters (The Sun Also Rises, Part 2) Mar 24, 2025

Show notes

In Part 2 of our discussion on Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, editor Verna Kale returns to discuss the vintage bullfighting posters that inspired the cover of the Norton Library edition, a "hot take" on the traditional hero of the book, and the loss of sentence-level writing in adaptations of the story.
Verna Kale is an Associate Research Professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University and Associate Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project. She is the author of a biography of Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway, part of the Critical Lives series; editor of Teaching Hemingway and Gender; and co-editor, with Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel, of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 6 (1934–1936).
To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of The Sun Also Rises, go to https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324045717.
Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.
Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.

Don't Try This At Home: Hemingway's First Major Novel (The Sun Also Rises, Part 1) Mar 10, 2025

Show notes

In Part 1 of our discussion on Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, we welcome editor Verna Kale to discuss a young Hemingway's life experience leading up to writing the novel, his captivation with bullfighting and insider knowledge, the distinction between fairytale and reality, and the lack of a moral of the story.
Verna Kale is an Associate Research Professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University and Associate Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project. She is the author of a biography of Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway, part of the Critical Lives series; editor of Teaching Hemingway and Gender; and co-editor, with Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel, of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 6 (1934–1936).
To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of The Sun Also Rises, go to https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324045717.
Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.
Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.

The World Was All Before Them (Paradise Lost, Part 2) Feb 24, 2025

Show notes

In Part 2 of our discussion on John Milton's Paradise Lost, editor Stephen B. Dobranski returns to discuss his own first encounter with Milton in a high school classroom, the experience of editing the Norton Library edition from historical source texts, and how students should build up their Milton muscles by reading other poetry before turning to Paradise Lost.
Stephen B. Dobranski is Distinguished University Professor of English at Georgia State University and the editor of the journal Milton Studies. He has published nine books including Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England (2005); The Cambridge Introduction to Milton 2012); and Milton’s Visual Imagination: Imagery in “Paradise Lost” (2015).
To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of Paradise Lost, go to https://seagull.wwnorton.com/ParadiseLostNL.
Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.
Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.

Milton Retweets His Way to Revolution (Well, He Tries) (Paradise Lost, Part 1) Feb 10, 2025

Show notes

In Part 1 of our discussion on John Milton's Paradise Lost, we welcome editor Stephen B. Dobranski to discuss Milton's life in the midst of religious and political controversy, pamphlet wars and the representation of failed revolution through writing, and Milton's characterization of Eve.
Stephen B. Dobranski is Distinguished University Professor of English at Georgia State University and the editor of the journal Milton Studies. He has published nine books including Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England (2005); The Cambridge Introduction to Milton 2012); and Milton’s Visual Imagination: Imagery in “Paradise Lost” (2015).
To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of Paradise Lost, go to https://seagull.wwnorton.com/ParadiseLostNL.
Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.
Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.

A Man Half Bull and a Bull Half Man (Metamorphoses, Part 2) Jan 27, 2025

Show notes

In Part 2 of our discussion on Ovid's Metamorphoses, translator Charles Martin returns to discuss his first encounter with Ovid, the potential to learn Greek and Roman mythology through reading Metamorphoses, and other scholars' work with the text in the twenty-first century.
Charles Martin was born in New York City in 1942. He earned a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo. The recipient of numerous awards, Martin has received the Bess Hokin Prize, the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. Three of his poetry collections—Steal the Bacon (1987), What the Darkness Proposes (1996), and Starting from Sleep: New and Selected Poems (2002)—have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses won the 2004 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.
To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of Metamorphoses, go to https://seagull.wwnorton.com/MetamorphosesNL.
Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.
Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.

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