

Critical Readings
CriticalReadings.com
Critical Readings examines key literary texts using close reading and critical analysis, and explains these approaches in discussion. Listeners will learn about the texts themselves and about how to approach a text for critical analysis.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 27, 2025 • 1h 30min
CR Episode 294: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Celebrating Halloween, the panel discusses one of Washington Irving's best-known works—The Legend of Sleepy Hollow—with special attention to the role of characterisation, historical detail, and descriptive imagery in a near contemporary to Jane Austen.Continue reading

Oct 20, 2025 • 1h 30min
CR Episode 293: Pride and Prejudice, Part IV
The panel discusses the concluding chapters and a series of insightful reader questions about the influence of Austen's religion, the role of romance in her novels, and her development of realistic, compelling characters with flaws and areas of growth.Continue reading

Oct 13, 2025 • 1h 14min
CR Episode 292: Pride and Prejudice, Part III
The panel discusses chapters 35–49, with special attention to the rational development of Elizabeth's appreciation of Mr. Darcy, and to Jane Austen's reformist, but not revolutionary, attitude to the social mores and expectations of Regency-era England.Continue reading

12 snips
Oct 6, 2025 • 1h 18min
CR Episode 291: Pride and Prejudice, Part II
The panel dives into chapters 18-34 of Austen's classic. They reveal Mr. Darcy's hidden gallantry and dissect Mr. Collins’s absurdities. Elizabeth's struggle with family reputation and her fierce independence shines through. The dynamics of courtship take center stage, highlighted by Darcy's awkward proposal and Elizabeth's passionate rejection. Discussions also touch on economic marriage strategies versus ideals of love, and the revealing introduction of Lady Catherine de Bourgh adds tension. The exploration of social satire and wit makes this analysis refreshingly engaging.

Sep 29, 2025 • 1h 33min
CR Episode 290: Pride and Prejudice, Part I
The panel reads chapters 1–17 of Pride and Prejudice, with special attention to the developing form of the novel in the Regency era, the biographical connexions between Austen's life and her novels, and the initially peripheral nature of the protagonists.Continue reading

Sep 22, 2025 • 1h 11min
CR Episode 289: E.A. Robinson’s Gothic Verse
The panel discusses five poems by E.A. Robinson, with discussion centring on their use of the gothic, their shared imagery of death and hell (and their response), and particularly their formal qualities seen across three villanelles and two sonnets.Continue reading

Sep 15, 2025 • 1h 21min
CR Episode 288: Edwin Muir’s Narrow Place
The panel discusses four poems from Edwin Muir's collection The Narrow Place (1943), with a focus on their formal features, their connexion to a version of Nietzsche's philosophy, and their opposed characterisation of the civilised and natural worlds.Continue reading

Sep 8, 2025 • 1h 16min
CR Episode 287: The Beginnings of English Poetry
The panel discusses two of the earliest examples of English poetry—Caedmon's Hymn and The Dream of the Rood (sometimes attributed to Cynewulf)—with a discussion of translation theory, Saxon influence, and the development of English poetry and language.Continue reading

Sep 1, 2025 • 1h 17min
CR Episode 286: The Rape of the Lock, Part II
The panel discusses the concluding three cantos, with attention to Pope's heroi-comic satire of epic in both content and form, and his use of references to his own involvement in the real-life events enacted by the poem's fictional protagonists.Continue reading

Aug 25, 2025 • 1h 21min
CR Episode 285: The Rape of the Lock, Part I
The panel discusses the first two cantos of Alexander Pope's heroi-comical peacemaker poem, with special attention to its use of foreshadowing, the style and tenor of its dialogue, and its allegedly Rosicrucian spiritology (and its textual origins).Continue reading


