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
May 15, 2023 • 1h 26min
CR Episode 175: Moby Dick, Part I
The panel reads the prologues and first four chapters of Moby Dick, provides an overview of the publication history of the text, and discusses the character and reliability of the jocular, circuitous narrator, who commands the reader to 'Call me Ishmael.'Continue reading
May 8, 2023 • 1h 14min
CR Episode 174: Shakespeare’s Lucrece, Part III
The panel concludes with an examination of Lucrece's central role as a Shakespearean protagonist, addressing her attitude towards the conflict between Roman shame and the natural law, and how her speech is situated across historical contexts.Continue reading
May 1, 2023 • 1h 19min
CR Episode 173: Shakespeare’s Lucrece, Part II
The panel reads the second third of Shakespeare's Lucrece, with particular attention to the paradoxical presentation of light and darkness, and to the dual nature of guilt and shame in the poem, as situated within a putatively historical Roman context.Continue reading
Apr 24, 2023 • 1h 27min
CR Episode 172: Shakespeare’s Lucrece, Part I
In the first of a three-part series on Shakespeare's Lucrece, the panel explores the Roman history and sources for the poem, before reading and examining its metaphors with a focus on Sextus Tarquinius' internal debate and final, abhorrent resolution.Continue reading
Apr 17, 2023 • 56min
CR Episode 171: The Poetry of Sir Walter Raleigh
The panel reads three poems by the courtier, soldier, privateer, and poet, Sir Walter Raleigh, examining their formal (and informal) qualities, and discussing their connexions to other poetic endeavours and movements, and to contemporary events.Continue reading
Apr 10, 2023 • 57min
CR Episode 170: Seamus Heaney’s Passion for the Past
The panel reads and discusses the connexions between three poems by Seamus Heaney: "Blackberry Picking", "Three-Piece", and "Mycenae Nightwatch", with attention to their formal aspects, and their use of highly emotive imagery and references to the past.Continue reading
Apr 3, 2023 • 57min
CR Episode 169: The Poetry of Edgar Guest
The panel reviews the work of "The People's Poet", Edgar A. Guest, national best-seller, sole Poet Laureate of Michigan, host of the A Guest in Your House radio programme, and author of innumerable verses filled with indefatigable, homespun optimism.Continue reading
Mar 27, 2023 • 46min
CR Episode 168: The Poetry of Rupert Brooke
The panel reads three poems by Rupert Brooke, a poet of the Georgian movement of the early twentieth century, whose poetry of the early Great War period suggests sentiments and ideals which were about to be transformed by modernised warfare.Continue reading
Mar 20, 2023 • 60min
CR Episode 167: The Poetry of Wilfred Owen
The panel reads three poems by Wilfred Owen, perhaps the greatest poet of the Great War, including his "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", and "Spring Offensive", with attention to their arresting imagery and formal characteristics.Continue reading
Mar 13, 2023 • 60min
CR Episode 166: H. P. Lovecraft’s Polaris
The panel, joined by special guest Lane Haygood, reads H. P. Lovecraft's Polaris, and discusses its rich symbolism, use of metaphor, deliberately archaic language, ambiguous resolution, and how its formal structure mirrors its narrative content.Continue reading
