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
Mar 29, 2021 • 1h 4min
CR Episode 72: Irony in the Poetry of Stephen Crane
The panel analyses the use of irony in the poetic works of Stephen Crane, including selections from "War Is Kind" (1899), and discusses the development of realism and imagism in English literature, especially in poetry about the experience of war.Continue reading
Mar 22, 2021 • 1h 5min
CR Episode 71: Accepting Complexity in Melville’s Poetry
The panel analyses contradiction in Melville's earliest and latest published poems: three selections from Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War--his first collection--and "Art" from Timoleon and Other Ventures, published only four months before his death.Continue reading
Mar 15, 2021 • 1h 10min
CR Episode 70: Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard
In a return to the works of Alexander Pope, the panel reads his "Eloisa to Abelard" in full and discusses the complexity of Eloisa's tragic circumstances: her love for Abelard, her vocation as a nun, and the suffering to which they have been subjected.Continue reading
Mar 8, 2021 • 1h 12min
CR Episode 69: Keats and The Eve of St. Agnes
The panel discusses the late Romantic shift in focus from nominally Christian, deified Nature to transcendental beauty in three longer works by Keats, including "The Eve of St. Agnes" and excerpts from "Endymion" and the unfinished "Hyperion".Continue reading
Mar 1, 2021 • 1h 2min
CR Episode 68: Shelley, Ozymandias, and the Death of Keats
The panel engages in a wide-ranging discussion of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his relation to the early and late Romantic movements, his work to establish the reputation of Keats, his association with radical politics, and his own untimely death, aged 29.Continue reading
Feb 22, 2021 • 60min
CR Episode 67: An Introduction to Lord Byron
The panel begins a multi-week review of Romanticism with a review of the movement's (and the author's) effects upon poetry, including readings of three works: "Darkness", "The Destruction of Sennacherib", and excerpts from "The Bride of Abydos".Continue reading
Feb 15, 2021 • 59min
CR Episode 66: Poetry and Verse of Robert W. Service
The panel discusses the difference between verse and poetry (including whether such a difference exists), and examines three 'frosty' poems by Service, including "Pullman Porter", "The Prospector", and his famous ballad, "The Cremation of Sam McGee".Continue reading
Feb 8, 2021 • 42min
CR Episode 65: Three by Elizabeth Bishop
The panel considers the role of time, colour, militarism, rhyme, repetition, meter, and other formal poetic aspects in three of the more popular and widely-anthologised poems written by Elizabeth Bishop: "Roosters", "The Fish", and "One Art".Continue reading
Feb 1, 2021 • 50min
CR Episode 64: An Introduction to Philip Larkin
The panel examines the complicated irony of Philip Larkin's verse, and considers his use of poetic formalism, and themes including rebelliousness, nihilism, love, and impermanence, in "This Be the Verse", "Aubade", "An Arundel Tomb", and "Days".Continue reading
Jan 11, 2021 • 60min
CR Episode 63: Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis
The panel continues to welcome in a new year by looking back to an old year--in this case, A.D. 1666, and Dryden's poem "Annus Mirabilis", which ruminates on the wonders of war with Holland, the Great Fire of London, and the heroic conduct of Charles II.Continue reading
