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
Jun 27, 2022 • 1h 30min
CR Episode 132: Idylls of the King, Part V
The panel reads the last-composed of the Idylls, "Balin and Balan", with attention to the tale's depiction of the conflict between the Old Order and the New Order, the origin and proliferation of rumour and scandal, and the use of shadow as metaphor.Continue reading
Jun 20, 2022 • 1h 15min
CR Episode 131: Idylls of the King, Part IV
The panel reads "Enid and Geraint", the second part of the Enid tale and the fourth of the Idylls, with attention to the opposite perils of decadence and bestiality, the significance of personal redemption, and the firm strength of Tennyson's women.Continue reading
Jun 13, 2022 • 1h 14min
CR Episode 130: Idylls of the King, Part III
In this third part of the Idylls of the King, the panel reads "The Marriage of Geraint", originally the first half of "Enid", with attention to Tennyson's use of narrative quoting and foreshadowing, and his depiction of knightly masculinity.Continue reading
Jun 6, 2022 • 1h 48min
CR Episode 129: Idylls of the King, Part II
In the second Idylls of the King episode, the panel reads "Gareth and Lynette", with special attention to Gareth's demonstration of chivalry through action, the text's presentation of nobilty as essential to knightliness, and Bellicent's characterisation.Continue reading
May 30, 2022 • 1h 57min
CR Episode 128: Idylls of the King, Part I
The panel begins a twelve-week series covering the entirety of Tennyson's Arthurian cycle, Idylls of the King, beginning with the cycle's publishing history and formal characteristics, and readings of the dedication and "The Coming of Arthur".Continue reading
May 23, 2022 • 1h
CR Episode 127: The Waste Land, Part IV
The Waste Land series concludes with readings and analysis of the final two parts--"Death by Water" and "What the Thunder Said"--with special attention to the biblical and grail quest imagery, the Wheel of Fortune, and contrasting aquatic extremes.Continue reading
May 16, 2022 • 1h 19min
CR Episode 126: The Waste Land, Part III
In this third part of the four-part series on The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot, the panel reads "The Fire Sermon" and discusses cities both real and unreal, and how the abnegation of all human desire leads to the hollowing out of the psyche.Continue reading
May 2, 2022 • 58min
CR Episode 125: The Waste Land, Part II
The panel continues with the second of a four-part series on The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot, reading "A Game of Chess", with special attention given to the idea of death and rebirth, and to the presence and significance of baptismal imagery.Continue reading
Apr 25, 2022 • 56min
CR Episode 124: The Waste Land, Part I
The panel embarks upon a four-week study of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, beginning with a discussion of the allusive connexions and the imagistic and modernist effects of the poem's opening epigram and its first section, "The Burial of the Dead".Continue reading
Apr 11, 2022 • 1h 2min
CR Episode 123: Henry Vaughan
The panel reads a selection of the poety of the seventeenth-century, Welsh, metaphysical poet, Henry Vaughan, with a particular attention to Vaughan's own religious beliefs, philosophical positions, and connexions to Ben Jonson and George Herbert.Continue reading
