Close Readings

London Review of Books

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Dec 2, 2022 • 58min

Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Robert Frost

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at the life and work of Robert Frost, the great American poet of fences and dark woods. They discuss Frost’s difficult early life as an occasional poultry farmer and teacher, his arrival in England in 1912 amid the flowering of Georgian poetry, and his emergence as the first 20th-century professional poet, whose version of the American wilderness myth, full of mischief and foreboding, took him to packed concert halls and a presidential inauguration.To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in August 2020.Further reading on Frost in the LRB:Leo Marx: https://lrb.me/marxfrostpodHelen Vendler: https://lrb.me/vendlerfrostpodPeter Howarth: https://lrb.me/howarthfrostpodMatthew Bevis: https://lrb.me/bevisfrostpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Dec 1, 2022 • 1h 3min

Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Gerard Manley Hopkins

In the first episode of their second series of Modern-ish Poets, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford take on Gerard Manley Hopkins: Victorian literature’s only anti-modern proto-modernist queer-ecologist Jesuit priest.To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and to this series ad free, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.Further reading on Hopkins in the LRB:Helen Vendler: https://lrb.me/vendlerhopkinspodPatricia Beer: https://lrb.me/beerhopkinspodJohn Bayley: https://lrb.me/bayleyhopkinspodThis episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2020. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 4, 2022 • 58min

Encounters with Medieval Women: Margery Kempe

In the fourth and final episode in their miniseries, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley look at the life and work of pilgrim, entrepreneur and visionary mystic Margery Kempe, who dictated what is thought to be the first autobiography in English.To listen to Mary and Irina's series, Medieval Beginnings, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Barbara NewmanSusan BrigdenTom ShippeyThis episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in November 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 3, 2022 • 56min

Encounters with Medieval Women: The Wife of Bath

In the third episode in their series, Irina and Mary discuss Chaucer’s sexually voracious professional widow, stealth preacher, vivid storyteller and teacher of love, the Wife of Bath.To listen to Mary and Irina's series, Medieval Beginnings, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Tom ShippeySally MapstoneThis episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in October 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 2, 2022 • 47min

Encounters with Medieval Women: Julian of Norwich

In the second episode in their series, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley look at the work of mystic and anchoress Julian of Norwich, who wrote the first book in English that we can be sure was authored by a woman.To listen to Mary and Irina's series, Medieval Beginnings, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Mary Wellesley: This place is prysonThis episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in October 2021. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 1, 2022 • 59min

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.
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Oct 10, 2022 • 13min

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.
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Oct 9, 2022 • 13min

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.
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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.
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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.

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