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
Jan 4, 2021 • 1h 1min
CR Episode 62: Winter with Longfellow
As the new year dawns, the panel revisits the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the quintessential Fireside Poet, to reexamine some favourites (Excelsior, The Day Is Done) and some poems which are new to the podcast (Psalm of Life, Paul Revere's Ride).Continue reading
Dec 28, 2020 • 52min
CR Episode 61: Poetry and Prose of John Donne
If it must be Donne, let it be done well! The panel reads Donne's selected poetry and prose: a Christmas sermon, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", "The Flea", and selections from both "La Corona" and "Holy Sonnets".Continue reading
Dec 21, 2020 • 59min
CR Episode 60: The Ambiguous Andrew Marvell
The panel considers the scholarly consensus that Marvell is poetically and politically ambiguous by reading "To His Coy Mistress", "Clorinda and Damon", "A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body", and "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland".Continue reading
Dec 7, 2020 • 57min
CR Episode 59: Contradictory Verse of Robert Herrick
The panel continues a survey of English Civil War poetry with a look at Robert Herrick's deliberately contradictory verses, including his Hesperides, and the famous Carpe Diem poems "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" and "Corinna's Going a Maying".Continue reading
Nov 16, 2020 • 40min
CR Episode 58: Religious Poetry of George Herbert
The panel examines the poetical works of George Herbert, discussing the Christian theological implications found in the language of three of his lyric poems, each of which is composed on a religious topic: "Prayer (2)", "Divinity", and "Love (3)".Continue reading
Oct 26, 2020 • 59min
CR Episode 57: Cigars and Seaweed of James Russell Lowell
The panel examines selected verse of American fire-side poet James Russell Lowell, with a brief survey including some light verse on cigars and seasons, and some more serious writing on nautical themes featuring sirens, seaweed, and ocean-side lyres.Continue reading
Oct 19, 2020 • 55min
CR Episode 56: An Introduction to Robert Lowell
The panel reviews the biography of, and some selected works by, the twentieth-century poet Robert Lowell, including his "Falling Asleep over the Aeneid", "Memories of West Street and Lepke", and "Four Spanish Sonnets", with special attention to form.Continue reading
Oct 5, 2020 • 55min
CR Episode 55: Wallace Stevens’ Harmonium
The panel reviews five poems selected from Wallace Stevens' debut collection, Harmonium, and considers the role of Stevens within the larger context of the poetic development of the Romantic movement into its fulfilment with the advent of Modernism.Continue reading
Sep 28, 2020 • 53min
CR Episode 54: Pope’s Translation of The Iliad
The panel reads Book I of Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad, discusses Pope's approach contextually, compares that approach to the modern translations of Fitzgerald and Fagles (amongst others), and considers theoretical commentary on translations.Continue reading
Sep 21, 2020 • 1h 9min
CR Episode 53: Masefield’s Midsummer Night
The panel examines the biography of John Masefield before reading and examining excerpts from his Arthurian cycle, Midsummer Night, with special attention on the unique aspects of Masefield's recasting of traditional Arthurian mythological elements.Continue reading
