Close Readings
London Review of Books
Close Readings is a new multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to some episodes for free here, and extracts from our ongoing subscriber-only series.How To SubscribeIn Apple Podcasts, click 'subscribe' at the top of this podcast feed to unlock the full episodes.Or for other podcast apps, sign up here: https://lrb.me/closereadingsRUNNING IN 2025:'Conversations in Philosophy' with Jonathan Rée and James Wood'Fiction and the Fantastic' with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis'Love and Death' with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford'Novel Approaches' with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guestsALSO INCLUDED IN THE CLOSE READINGS SUBSCRIPTION:'Among the Ancients' with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones'Medieval Beginnings' with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley'The Long and Short' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry'Modern-ish Poets: Series 1' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry'Among the Ancients II' with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones'On Satire' with Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell'Human Conditions' with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards'Political Poems' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry'Medieval LOLs' with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.ukHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 1, 2022 • 58min
Encounters with Medieval Women: Mary of Egypt
In the first episode of their miniseries looking at the lives and voices of medieval women, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley encounter Saint Mary of Egypt, who (if she existed) lived sometime between the 3rd and 6th centuries. In the stories of Mary’s life she leads a wild and licentious youth before exiling herself to serve penitence in the desert. There she meets Zosimas, an ascetic monk, and teaches him the value of an imperfect life. Several accounts of her life were written in the Middle Ages, including one in Old English that appears in a manuscript with Ælfric’s Lives of the Saints.Sign up to our Close Readings subscription:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: https://lrb.me/closereadingsThis episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in September 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 10, 2022 • 12min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Robert Lowell
In the final episode of series one of Modern-ish Poets, Mark and Seamus confront Robert Lowell: the Boston Brahmin for whom poetry trumped every other consideration, and whose Cold War ‘confessionalism’ came to exemplify a generation of Americans’ collective trauma; the poet who changed everything, but whose star has somehow fallen in recent years.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in August 2017, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 9, 2022 • 12min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Seamus Heaney
For the ninth episode of their series, Seamus and Mark discuss the life and work of Seamus Heaney, whose first collection, Death of Naturalist, established him immediately as a leading poetic voice in world in which modernism seemed to have run its course. They look at how his work draws extensively on his childhood, its use of poetic sounds to bind him to his native ground, its intricate engagement with myth, and his questioning of what sort of poetry is appropriate for someone in his social and historical moment.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in May 2019, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 8, 2022 • 11min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Sylvia Plath
Mark and Seamus are joined by Joanna Biggs, an editor at the LRB, to look at Sylvia Plath's life and poetry, for the eighth episode of Modern-ish Poets Series 1. They consider the balance of biography and mythology in Plath’s work, situating her as a transatlantic, expressionist poet of the Cold War, and drawing on the LRB archive to talk about her funniness, ruthlessness, and uninhibited willingness to go anywhere to win the argument.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2019, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 7, 2022 • 12min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Wallace Stevens
In episode seven of their first series of Modern-ish Poets Mark and Seamus look to that great poet of winter and snow, Wallace Stevens, considering his anecdote-proof life, the capitalist economy of his imagination, and his all-American poetry of precise abstraction.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in December 2018, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 6, 2022 • 12min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: A.E. Housman
In the sixth episode of Modern-ish Poets Series 1, Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Worcestershire lad A. E. Housman, whose imaginative poetic landscape of a vanishing England in A Shropshire Lad, with its expression of the agony of thwarted love which can find no resolution, became a runaway bestseller during and after the First World War.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in October 2018, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 5, 2022 • 12min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Stevie Smith
In the fifth episode of Modern-ish Poets Series 1 Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Stevie Smith, ‘an eccentric poet with a tenacious reputation,’ and a famous performer of her poetry, considering the despair that underlines her best work, its tonal slipperiness, her exceptional facility with rhyme and off-rhyme, and her use of faux-naif personas and perspectives.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in August 2018, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 4, 2022 • 12min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Thomas Hardy
In the fourth episode of Modern-ish Poets, Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Thomas Hardy, with its blend of bitterness of tenderness, its intense dramatisations of loss and grief, and its inversion of traditional tropes of love poetry to anticipate the attitudes of later 20th century writers.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in June 2018, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 3, 2022 • 12min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Elizabeth Bishop
Explore the life and work of American poet Elizabeth Bishop with insights from Mark and Seamus. They discuss her unique approach to form, domesticating heroic themes, and the emotional disruption in her poetry. Delve into her childhood, battle with alcoholism, and dedication to perfection in crafting poetic forms.
Oct 2, 2022 • 11min
Modern-ish Poets Series 1: W.H. Auden
In the second episode of Modern-ish Poets Series 1, Mark and Seamus discuss life and work of W. H. Auden, from the influence of his parents and his political development, to how his poetry emerged from a meeting of English tradition with high modernism, and its formal response to the fractured nature of his times.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in August 2017, and is now available in full exclusively for Close Readings subscribers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
