The broad theme of this series, truth and lies, was a favourite subject of Lucian of Samosata, the last of our Greek-language authors. A cosmopolitan and highly cultured Syrian subject of the Roman Empire in the second century CE, Lucian wrote in the classical Greek of fifth-century Athens. His razor-sharp satire was a model for Erasmus, Voltaire and Swift. Emily and Tom share some of their favourite excerpts from ‘A True History’ and other works – with trips to the moon, boundary-pushing religious scepticism and wildly improbable but not technically untrue readings of Homer – and discuss why they still read as fresh and funny today.Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Tim Whitmarsh: Target Practicehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n04/tim-whitmarsh/target-practiceJames Davidson: Stomach-Churninghttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n02/james-davidson/stomach-churningEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In their quest for the medieval sense of humour Mary and Irina come to The Second Shepherds’ Pageant, a 15th-century reimagining of the nativity as domestic comedy that’s less about the birth of Jesus and more about sheep rustling, taxes, the weather and the frustrations of daily life. The pageant was part of a mystery cycle, a collection of plays that revealed religious mysteries through performances of the Christian story and were a central part of community life. Mary and Irina discuss the porous relationship between player and audience in medieval theatre, and the expert stage management of this knockabout semi-biblical farce.Sign up to listen to this series ad free and all our subscriber series in full, including Mary and Irina's twelve-part series Medieval Beginnings:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignupGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ashis Nandy’s The Intimate Enemy is a study of the psychological toll of colonialism on both the coloniser and colonised, showing how Western conceptions of masculinity and adulthood served as tools of conquest. Using figures as disparate as Gandhi, Oscar Wilde and Aurobindo Ghosh, Nandy suggests ways in which alternative models of age and gender can provide compelling challenges to colonial authority. Pankaj Mishra joins Adam to unpack Nandy’s subtle and unexpected lines of thought and to explain why The Intimate Enemy remains as innovative today as it did in 1983.Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsPankaj Mishra is a writer, critic and reporter who regularly contributes to the LRB. His books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and two novels, most recently Run and Hide.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nobody hated better than Alexander Pope. Despite his reputation as the quintessentially refined versifier of the early 18th century, he was also a class A, ultra-pure, surreal, visionary mega-hater, and The Dunciad is his monument to the hate he felt for almost all the other writers of his time. Written over fifteen years of burning fury, Pope’s mock-epic tells the story of the Empire of Dullness and its lineage of terrible writers, the Dunces. Unlike other satires featured in this series so far, it makes no effort to hide the identities of its targets. Clare and Colin provide an ABC for understanding this vast and knotty fulmination, and explore the feverish, backstabbing and politically turbulent world in which it was created.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsColin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shelley’s angry, violent poem was written in direct response to the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819, in which a demonstration in favour of parliamentary reform was attacked by local yeomanry, leaving 18 people dead and hundreds injured. The ‘masque’ it describes begins with a procession of abstract figures – Murder, Fraud, Hypocrisy – embodied in members of the government, before eventually unfolding into a vision of England freed from the tyranny and anarchy of its institutions. As Mark and Seamus discuss in this episode, ‘The Masque of Anarchy’, with its incoherence and inconsistencies, amounts to perhaps the purest expression in verse both of Shelley’s political indignation and his belief that, with the right way of thinking, such chains of oppression can be shaken off ‘like dew’.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.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/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupRead more in the LRB:Seamus Perry: Wielded by a Wizard https://lrb.me/perryppThomas Jones: Hard Eggs and Radishes https://lrb.me/jonespp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies, and the hosts discuss Plato's Symposium, exploring themes of love and Eros. They delve into Plato's life, influence, and the historical context of Athens. The disastrous Sicilian expedition and themes of moderation and desires are also analyzed.

As Mary and Irina discussed in the previous episode of Medieval LOLs, fabliaux had an enormous influence on Chaucer, but outside of his work, only one survives in Middle English. Dame Syrith, a story of lust, deception and a mustard-eating dog, is medieval humour at its silliest and most troubling. Mary and Irina explore the surprising representations of old women, magic and consent in fabliaux, the poem’s possible role as a pedagogical tool, and medieval audiences’ love for the procuress trope.Read Dame Syrith here: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/salisbury-trials-and-joys-dame-sirthSign up to listen to this series ad free and all our subscriber series in full, including Mary and Irina's twelve-part series Medieval Beginnings:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignupFurther reading in the LRB:Irina Dumitrescu: Making My Moanhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n09/irina-dumitrescu/making-my-moanTom Shippey: Women Beware Midwiveshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n09/tom-shippey/women-beware-midwivesGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In A House for Mr Biswas, his 1961 comic masterpiece, V.S. Naipaul pays tribute to his father and the vanishing world of his Trinidadian youth. Pankaj Mishra joins Adam Shatz in their first of four episodes to discuss the novel, a pathbreaking work of postcolonial literature and a particularly powerful influence on Pankaj himself. They explore Naipaul’s fraught relationship to modernity, and the tensions between his attachment to individual freedom and his insistence on the constraints imposed by history. Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsRead more in the LRB:D.A.N. Jones: The Enchantment of Vidia Naipaulhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n08/d.a.n.-jones/the-enchantment-of-vidia-naipaulFrank Kermode: What Naipaul Knowshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n17/frank-kermode/what-naipaul-knowsPaul Theroux: Out of Sir Vidia’s Shadowhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n04/paul-theroux/diarySanjay Subramahnyam: Where does he come from? https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n21/sanjay-subrahmanyam/where-does-he-come-fromPankaj Mishra is a writer, critic and reporter who regularly contributes to the LRB. His books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and two novels, most recently Run and Hide.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In The Beggar’s Opera we enter a society turned upside down, where private vices are seen as public virtues, and the best way to survive is to assume the worst of everyone. The only force that can subvert this state of affairs is romantic love – an affection, we discover, that satire finds hard to cope with. John Gay’s 1727 smash hit ‘opera’, which ran for 62 performances in its first run, put the highwaymen, criminal gangs and politicians of the day up on stage, and offered audiences a tuneful but unnerving reflection of their own corruption and mortality. Clare and Colin discuss how this satire on the age of Walpole came about, what it did for its struggling author, and why it’s an infinitely elusive, strangely modernist work.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsColin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s deeply disturbing 1847 poem about a woman escaping slavery and killing her child was written to shock its intended white female readership to the abolitionist cause. Browning was the direct descendant of slave owners in Jamaica and a fervent anti-slavery campaigner, and her dramatic monologue presents a searing attack on the hypocrisy of ‘liberty’ as enshrined in the United States constitution. Mark and Seamus look at the origins of the poem and its story, and its place among other abolitionist narratives of the time.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.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/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupRead more in the LRBMatthew Bevis: Foiled by Pleasure: https://lrb.me/bevisppAlethea Hayter: Reader, I married you: https://lrb.me/hayterppJohn Bayley: A Question of Breathing: https://lrb.me/bayleyppColin Grant: Leave them weeping: https://lrb.me/grantppFara Dabhoiwala: My Runaway Slave, Reward Two Guineas: https://lrb.me/dabhoiwalapp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.