New Books in Literary Studies Jenny C. Mann, "The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Nov 8, 2025
Jenny Mann, a Professor of English at NYU, discusses her book on the Orpheus myth and its connections to poetry and science. She unpacks her nonlinear writing process, revealing how it shapes her arguments. The conversation touches on how the Orpheus narrative informs poetic creation, with themes of possession and vulnerability. Mann also explores the relevance of Orphic ideas in contemporary art and shares insights from her teaching, alongside a sneak peek into her future project on Renaissance concepts of infinity.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Orpheus As Model Of Eloquence
- Orpheus functions as a conceptual model for the force of eloquence across rhetoric, poetics, and science in the early modern period.
- That myth turns the invisible power of language into an object thinkers could analyze and debate.
Orphic Contact Undermines Authority
- Early modern poetry sometimes depicts Orphic contact as dissolving authority and autonomy rather than producing stable knowledge.
- Mann holds these opposing views together to reflect how the culture itself treated Orpheus.
Trust Your Nonlinear Writing Process
- Accept and work with your natural, possibly nonlinear drafting process rather than forcing another writer's method.
- Use extensive revision and clustering of material to discover and shape your argument.
