The History of Literature

"In the early United States, a Black person committed an act of resistance simply by reading and writing. Yet we overlook that these activities also brought pleasure." In this episode, Jacke talks to Dr. Tara A. Bynum about her new book, Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America, which finds the "joyous, if messy, humanity" in the lives and works of four canonical Black writers from the 18th and early 19th centuries.Additional listening suggestions: The Trials of Phillis Wheatley 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) 291 The Book of Firsts (with Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal) 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

John Milton is often regarded as second only to Shakespeare in the history of English verse - and his epic poem, Paradise Lost, is viewed by many as second to none. His literary achievements are all the more remarkable when one considers the formidable political and personal obstacles Milton faced. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Stephen Dobranski about his new book, Reading John Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times.Additional listening: 154 John Milton 376 Why John Milton? (with Joe Moshenska) 91 In Which John Donne Decides to Write a Poem About a Flea 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 her lifetime, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was widely acknowledged as the best read person - male or female - in New England. Her landmark work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, is considered the first full-length treatment of women's rights in North America. After finding success as an author, scholar, educator, editor, translator, journalist, and host of a famous series of "conversations," she tragically died at the age of 40 in a sea accident off the coast of Fire Island, New York. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer-prize winning biographer Megan Marshall about her book, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.Additional listening: 461 The Peabody Sisters (with Megan Marshall) 351 Mary Wollstonecraft (with Samantha Silva) 356 Louisa May Alcott 111 Ralph Waldo Emerson 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

Is Moby-Dick truly the Great American Novel? How did contemporary critics miss it? When (and how) was the book rediscovered? Jacke goes through all this and more, as he continues the countdown of Top 10 Essential Questions about Herman Melville's 1851 masterpiece. Additional listening: 481 Moby Dick - 10 Essential Questions (Part One) 474 Herman Melville 159 Herman Melville (with Mike Palindrome and Cristina Negrón) 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

Here we go! Moby-Dick; or, the Whale (1851) by Herman Melville is one of the greatest - and strangest - novels you will ever read. Call it what you will - a literary leviathan, an intellectual chowder, an early entry in the Great American Novel sweepstakes - or don't call it anything, just call the narrator Ishmael and climb aboard! In this episode, Jacke counts down 10 Essential Questions regarding Melville's (white) whale of a book.Additional listening: 474 Herman Melville 159 Herman Melville (with Mike Palindrome and Cristina Negrón) 110 Heart of Darkness - Then and Now 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 1878, critic Matthew Arnold wrote, "Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times... because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man." In this episode, Jacke talks to Ritchie Robertson, author of Goethe: A Very Short Introduction, about the life and works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic, and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres.Ritchie Robertson is Taylor Professor of German in the University of Oxford. He is the author of The 'Jewish Question' in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents (OUP, 1999), Mock-Epic Poetry from Pope to Heine (OUP, 2009), and Kafka; A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2004). He has translated several German authors into English for the Oxford World's Classics and Penguin Classics series, and has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2004.Additional listening: 463 Friedrich Nietzsche (with Ritchie Robertson) George Eliot 111 The Americanest American - Ralph Waldo Emerson 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

W.H. Auden (1907-1973) was one of the twentieth-century's greatest poets - and also one of the most engaged. As he struggled to make sense of the rise of fascism, two world wars, and industrialized murder, his focus turned to the poet's responsibility in the face of unthinkable horrors. How does a poet begin to address these subjects? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb, author of the new book Auden and the Muse of History, about Auden's use of the past to help him come to grips with the present.Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, Northwestern University. She is the author of Regions of Sorrow: Anxiety and Messianism in Hannah Arendt and W.H. Auden (Stanford, 2003) and editor of Hannah Arendt: Reflections on Literature and Culture (Stanford, 2007).Additional listening suggestions: 467 T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land (with Jed Rasula) 363 William Butler Yeats 464 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Mature Years 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

Kafka! The avatar of anxiety! He's long been one of our favorites here at the History of Literature Podcast. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Ross Benjamin about the new edition of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, published by Schocken Books, which includes some material available in English for the first time.“Readers will welcome this new edition of the Diaries, complete, uncensored, in a fluent translation by Ross Benjamin, and supplemented with 78 pages of invaluable notes, the fruit of half a century of Kafka scholarship.” —J. M. Coetzee, author of Disgrace“Ross Benjamin has given the literary world an incredible treasure in this thoughtful edition. Kafka has never been so fully present, both as a man and a writer." —New York Journal of BooksAdditional listening: 134 The Greatest Night of Kafka's Life 139 A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka 349 Kafka's Metamorphosis (with Blume) 404 Kafka and Literary Oblivion (with Robin Hemley) 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

Does Edith Wharton hate us? That's a provocative question - but perhaps one that Wharton herself provoked, with her essay on the readers who damaged literature and her fiction satirizing the same. In this two-part series, Jacke takes a look at the type of readers targeted by Wharton: not the readers of trash fiction, whom she believed were harmless enough, but the readers of serious fiction who nevertheless read fiction in the wrong way. Does it include History of Literature Podcast listeners or even - gulp - its host?This episode is Part Two, which focuses on Wharton's 1903 essay "The Vice of Reading." Part One, which focuses on Wharton's 1916 short story "Xingu," will be available at the same time.Additional listening: Edith Wharton (with Mike Palindrome) 61 In the Mood for a Good Book - Wharton, Murakami, Chandler, and Fowles (with Vu Tran) 414 Henry James's Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith) 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

Does Edith Wharton hate us? That's a provocative question - but perhaps one that Wharton herself provoked, with her essay on the readers who damaged literature and her fiction satirizing the same. In this two-part series, Jacke takes a look at the type of readers targeted by Wharton: not the readers of trash fiction, whom she believed were harmless enough, but the readers of serious fiction who nevertheless read fiction in the wrong way. Does it include History of Literature Podcast listeners or even - gulp - its host?This episode is Part One, focusing on Wharton's 1916 short story "Xingu." Part Two, which focuses on Wharton's 1903 essay "The Vice of Reading," will be available at the same time.Additional listening: Edith Wharton (with Mike Palindrome) 61 In the Mood for a Good Book - Wharton, Murakami, Chandler, and Fowles (with Vu Tran) 414 Henry James's Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith) 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