The History of Literature

Irina Mashinski is a bilingual Russophone American writer, poet, essayist, teacher, and translator, whose works include Giornata and eleven books of poetry and essays in Russian. She is also the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. In this episode, Irina talks with Jacke about her childhood in the Soviet Union, her journey to becoming a poet living in America, and her new book The Naked World, which mixes poems and prose accounts to tell the story of four generations of a family living through Stalin's Great Terror, the Thaw of the Sixties, and the post-Thaw Seventies. SPECIAL NOTE: Irina would like to express her gratitude to the editors and translators who helped with The Naked World, and to whom she is very grateful. Additional listening suggestions: 130 The Poet and the Painter - The Great Love Affair of Anna Akhmatova and Amedeo Modigliani Keeping Secrets! Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, and the CIA (with Lara Prescott) 458 Alexander Pushkin (with Robert Chandler) Music Credits: “⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Episode 500! Jacke shares some thoughts on Meg White's drumming, Boswell and Johnson, and living in Taiwan. Then author Margot Livesey (The Boy in the Field, The Flight of Gemma Hardy) joins Jacke for a discussion of some My Last Books with past guests.Additional listening suggestions: 439 The Poets' Guide to Economics (with John Ramsden) 417 What Happened on Roanoke Island? (with Kimberly Brock) 465 Greek Lit and Game Theory (with Josiah Ober) 463 Friedrich Nietzsche (with Ritchie Robertson) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to author Laura Lee about her new book Wilde Nights and Robber Barons: The Story of Maruice Schwabe, the Man Behind Oscar Wilde's Downfall, Who with a Band of False Aristocrats Swindled the World.LAURA LEE is the author of 21 books including biography, humorous reference, fiction, and children's literature. The San Francisco Chronicle has said of her work, "Lee's dry, humorous tone makes her a charming companion... She has a penchant for wordplay that is irresistible."Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to legendary independent filmmaker John Sayles (Lone Star, Passion Fish) about his new novel Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade's Journey, which tells a sweeping story of romance and revolution in eighteenth century Scotland and the New World."Film director and novelist Sayles (Yellow Earth) follows in this strong outing the parallel stories of a Scottish rebel and a young Scottish woman pressed into servitude and sent to the Caribbean... he has a knack for bringing his many characters to life, and he makes palpable the raw violence of war and the uncompromising inequality of the period. It’s a worthy epic." -- Publishers WeeklyJohn Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for Passion Fish (1992) and Lone Star (1996). He has written seven novels, the most recent being Yellow Earth (2020) and A Moment in the Sun (2011).Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By any measure, the ancient Chinese military treatise The Art of War has had an astonishing literary history, proving itself over two and a half millennia to be one of the world's most essential and enduring books. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and legacy of this classic work, reputedly by a Chinese general named Sun Tzu, to see how it is that something so old and out of date continues to instruct and inspire.Additional listening suggestions: 143 A Soldier's Heart (with Elizabeth Samet) Conflict Literature (with Matt Gallagher) 362 Kurt Vonnegut (with Tom Roston) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognizably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers from Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Few literary characters have led such colorful lives or matched her influence or capacity for reinvention in poetry, drama, fiction, and film. In this episode, Jacke talks to award-winning Chaucer biographer Marion Turner about her new book, The Wife of Bath: A Biography.Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do today's masters create their art? In this episode, Jacke talks to Joe Skinner, producer and host of the podcast American Masters: Creative Spark, about the narrative interviews he's conducted with iconic artists about the creation of a single work - and what he's learned about the mysteries of inspired creativity along the way.Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a final powerful book, acclaimed literary biographer Robert Richardson told the story of how Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer-prize winner Megan Marshall, who wrote the foreword for the book, about her friend Robert and his look at three great thinkers and the resilience, growth, and creativity that can stem from devastating loss.Additional listening: 491 Elizabeth Bishop (with Megan Marshall) 483 Margaret Fuller (with Megan Marshall) 461 The Peabody Sisters (with Megan Marshall) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He loved and he hated. Other than that, not much is known about the life of Catullus, who scandalized the late Roman Republic with his bawdy poems, his aching love for the upper-class married woman he called "Lesbia," and his invective against Julius Caesar and other Roman notables. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Catullus, whose poetry was lost for a thousand years, but which, once recovered, became highly influential among poets for its accomplished technique and urgent intimacy.Additional listening: 93 Robert Frost Finds a Friend Ezra Pound 4 Sappho Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the October Revolution in 1917, a teenaged Vladimir Nabokov and his family, part of the Russian nobility, sought exile in Western Europe, eventually settling in Berlin, where Vladimir lived for fifteen years. His life then included some politics, some writing and translating, some recreational pursuits - and a lot of trips to the cinema, a burgeoning art form and cultural experience that fascinated him. In this episode, Jacke talks to Luke Parker about this period of Nabokov's life, as explored in Luke's book Nabokov Noir: Cinematic Culture and the Art of Exile.Additional listening suggestions: 318 Lolita (with Jenny Minton Quigley) 112 The Novelist and the Witch-Doctor - Unpacking Nabokov's Case Against Freud (with Joshua Ferris) 96 Dracula, Lolita, and the Power of Volcanoes (with Jim Shepard) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices