Close Readings

London Review of Books

Episodes

Mentioned books

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Feb 24, 2025 • 37min

Novel Approaches: 'Crotchet Castle' by Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock didn’t want to write novels, at least not in the form they had taken in the first half of the 19th century. In Crotchet Castle he rejects the expectation that novelists should reveal the interiority of their characters, instead favouring the testing of opinions and ideas. His ‘novel of talk’, published in 1831, appears largely like a playscript in which disparate characters assemble for a house party next to the Thames before heading up the river to Wales. Their debates cover, among other things, the Captain Swing riots of 1830, the mass dissemination of knowledge, the emerging philosophy of utilitarianism and the relative merits of medieval and contemporary values. In this episode Clare is joined by Freya Johnston and Thomas Keymer to discuss where the book came from and its use of ‘sociable argument’ to offer up-to-date commentary on the economic and political turmoil of its time. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Read more in the LRB: Thomas Keymer on Peacock https://lrb.me/napeacock1 Paul Foot: The not-so-great Reform Act https://lrb.me/napeacock2 Audiobooks from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiobooksna
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Feb 17, 2025 • 14min

Love and Death: Elegies for children by Ben Jonson, Anne Bradstreet, Geoffrey Hill and Elizabeth Bishop

This episode looks at four poems whose subject would seem to lie beyond words: the death of a child. A defining feature of elegy is the struggle between poetic eloquence and inarticulate grief, and in these works by Ben Jonson, Anne Bradstreet, Geoffrey Hill and Elizabeth Bishop we find that tension at its most acute. Mark and Seamus consider the way each poem deals with the traditional demand of the elegy for consolation, and what happens when the form and language of love poetry subverts elegiac conventions. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrld In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Read the poems here: Ben Jonson: On My First Son https://lrb.me/jonsoncrld Anne Bradstreet:In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet https://lrb.me/bradstreetcrld Geoffrey Hill: September Song https://lrb.me/hillcrld Elizabeth Bishop: First Death in Nova Scotia https://lrb.me/bishopcrld Read more in the LRB: Blair Worden on Ben Jonson ⁠https://lrb.me/ldch1⁠ Blair Worden on puritanism ⁠https://lrb.me/ldch2⁠ Colin Burrow in Geoffrey Hill: ⁠https://lrb.me/ldch3⁠ Helen Vendler on Elizabeth Bishop ⁠https://lrb.me/ldch4 LRB Audiobooks Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld
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Feb 10, 2025 • 16min

Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ by Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift’s 1726 tale of Houyhnhnms, Yahoos, Lilliputians and Struldbruggs is normally seen as a satire. But what if it’s read as fantasy, and all its contradictions, inversions and reversals as an echo of the traditional starting point of Arabic fairytale: ‘It was and it was not’? In this episode Marina and Anna Della discuss Gulliver’s Travels as a text in which empiricism and imagination are tightly woven, where fantastical realms are created to give different perspectives on reality and both writer and reader are liberated from having to decide what to think. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrff In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff Further reading in the LRB: Terry Eagleton: A Spot of Firm Government ⁠https://lrb.me/ffswift1⁠ Clare Bucknell: Oven-Ready Children ⁠https://lrb.me/ffswift2⁠ Thomas Keymer: Carry Up your Coffee Boldly ⁠https://lrb.me/ffswift3 Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB. Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksff
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Feb 3, 2025 • 11min

Conversations in Philosophy: 'The Essence of Christianity' by Ludwig Feuerbach

In The Essence of Christianity (1841) Feuerbach works through the theological crisis of his age to articulate the central, radical idea of 19th-century atheism: that the religion of God is really the religion of humanity. In this episode, Jonathan and James discuss the ways in which the book applies this thought to various aspects of Christian doctrine, from sexual relations to the Trinity, and consider why Feuerbach would never have described himself as an atheist. They also look at George Eliot’s remarkable translation of the work, published only thirteen years after the original, which not only ensured Feuerbach’s influence in the Anglophone world but invented a new philosophical vocabulary in English for German thought. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip Further reading in the LRB: James Wood: What next? https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n08/james-wood/what-s-next Terry Eagleton: George Eliot https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n18/terry-eagleton/biogspeak LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠
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Jan 28, 2025 • 33min

Novel Approaches: ‘Mansfield Park’ by Jane Austen

On one level, Mansfield Park is a fairytale transposed to the 19th century: Fanny Price is the archetypal poor relation who, through her virtuousness, wins a wealthy husband. But Jane Austen’s 1814 novel is also a shrewd study of speculation, ‘improvement’ and the transformative power of money. In the first episode of Novel Approaches, Colin Burrow joins Clare Bucknell and Thomas Jones to discuss Austen’s acute reading of property and precarity, and why Fanny’s moral cautiousness is a strategic approach to the riskiest speculation of all: marriage. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Further reading in the LRB: John Mullan: Noticing and Not Noticing ⁠https://lrb.me/naausten1⁠ Colm Toíbìn: The Importance of Aunts ⁠https://lrb.me/naausten2⁠ W.J.T. Mitchell: In the Wilderness ⁠https://lrb.me/naausten3⁠ Clare Bucknell is a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and hosted the Close Readings series On Satire with Colin Burrow. The Treasuries, her social history of poetry anthologies, was published in 2023. Thomas Jones is a senior editor at the LRB and host of the LRB Podcast. With Emily Wilson, he hosted the Close Readings series Among the Ancients.
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Jan 20, 2025 • 13min

Love and Death: Milton's 'Lycidas'

Milton wrote ‘Lycidas’ in 1637, at the age of 29, to commemorate the drowning of the poet Edward King. As well as a great pastoral elegy, it is a denunciation of the ecclesiastical condition of England and a rehearsal for Milton’s later role as a writer of national epic. In the first episode of their new series, Seamus and Mark discuss the political backdrop to the poem, Milton’s virtuosic mix of poetic tradition and innovation, and why such a fervent puritan would choose an unfashionable, pre-Christian form to honour his friend. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrld In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Read more in the LRB: Colin Burrow (on the 'two-handed engine'): ⁠https://lrb.me/ldmilton1⁠ Freya Johnston (on Samuel Johnson's criticism): ⁠https://lrb.me/ldmilton2⁠ Maggie Kilgour (on the young Milton): h⁠ttps://lrb.me/ldmilton3⁠ LRB Audiobooks Discover audiobooks from the LRB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobooksld
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Jan 13, 2025 • 15min

Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘The Thousand and One Nights’

The Thousand and One Nights is an ‘infinite text’: it has no fixed shape or length, no known author and is transformed with each new translation. In this first episode of Fiction and the Fantastic, Marina Warner and Anna Della Subin explore two particularly mysterious stories in the context of the wider mysteries and pleasures of the Nights. ‘The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad’ highlights the pleasures of dreaming, the power of language and the imagination’s essential role in eroticism, while ‘Abdullah of the Sea and Abdullah of the Land’ demonstrates how the fantastic can help us imagine new ways of living. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrff In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff Further reading in the LRB: Marina Warner: Travelling Text ⁠https://lrb.me/ffnights1⁠ Steven Connor: One’s Thousand One Nightiness ⁠https://lrb.me/ffnights2⁠ William Gass: A Book at Bedtime ⁠https://lrb.me/ffnights3 Get the book: https://lrb.me/sealenightsff Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB. Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014.
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Jan 6, 2025 • 13min

Conversations in Philosophy: 'Fear and Trembling' by Søren Kierkegaard

In this engaging discussion, philosopher Jonathan Rée shares insights on Søren Kierkegaard's 'Fear and Trembling', revealing its exploration of faith through the gripping tale of Abraham and Isaac. Rée delves into the stark power of this biblical narrative, cautioning against over-interpretation. He also highlights Kierkegaard's unique pseudonymous style and the text's paradoxes surrounding faith. The conversation further connects Kierkegaard’s themes with the works of Dostoevsky and Kafka, inviting listeners to reflect on the complexities of belief.
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Jan 5, 2025 • 9min

Introducing ‘Novel Approaches’

Clare Bucknell and Thomas Jones introduce their new Close Readings series, Novel Approaches. Joined by a variety of contemporary novelists and critics, they'll be exploring a dozen 19th-century British novels from Mansfield Park to New Grub Street, paying particular (though not exclusive) attention to the themes of money and property.The first episode will come out on Monday 27 January, on Austen’s Mansfield Park.Clare Bucknell is a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and hosted the Close Readings series On Satire with Colin Burrow. The Treasuries, her social history of poetry anthologies, was published in 2023.Thomas Jones is a senior editor at the LRB and host of the LRB Podcast. With Emily Wilson, he hosted the Close Readings series Among the Ancients.The full list of texts for the series:Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane AustenCrotchet Castle (1831) by Thomas Love PeacockWuthering Heights (1847) by Emily BrontëVanity Fair (1847) by William Makepeace ThackerayNorth and South (1854) by Elizabeth GaskellAurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett BrowningAnthony Trollope (TBD)Mill on the Floss (1860) by George EliotOur Mutual Friend (1864) by Charles DickensWashington Square (1880)/Portrait of a Lady (1881) by Henry JamesKidnapped (1886) by Robert Louis StevensonThe Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) by Thomas HardyNew Grub Street (1891) by George Gissing  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jan 4, 2025 • 6min

Introducing ‘Love and Death’

Mark Ford and Seamus Perry introduce Love and Death, a new Close Readings series on elegy from the Renaissance to the present day. They discuss why the elegy can be a particularly energising form for poets engaging with their craft and the poetic tradition, and how elegy serves an important role in public grieving, remembering and healing.The first episode will come out on Monday 20 January, on Milton's ‘Lycidas’.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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