Close Readings London Review of Books
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- Arts
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Close Readings is a new multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to some episodes for free here, and extracts from our ongoing subscriber-only series.
How To Subscribe
Apple Podcast users can sign up directly here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
For other podcast apps, sign up here: lrb.me/closereadings
Close Readings Plus
If you'd like to receive all the books under discussion in our 2024 series, and get access to online seminars throughout the year with special guests and other supporting material, sign up to Close Readings Plus here: https://lrb.me/plus
Running in 2024:
On Satire with Clare Bucknell and Colin Burrow
Human Conditions with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards
Among the Ancients II with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones
There'll be a new episode from each series every month.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Political Poems: 'The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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.
Sign up to the Close Readings subscription to listen ad free and to all our series in full:
Directly in Apple Podcasts
In other podcast apps
Read more in the LRB
Matthew Bevis: Foiled by Pleasure
Alethea Hayter: Reader, I married you
John Bayley: A Question of Breathing
Colin Grant: Leave them weeping
Fara Dabhoiwala: My Runaway Slave, Reward Two Guineas
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Among the Ancients II: Pindar and Bacchylides
In the fifth episode of Among the Ancients II we turn to Greek lyric, focusing on Pindar’s victory odes, considered a benchmark for the sublime since antiquity, and the vivid, narrative-driven dithyrambs of Bacchylides. Through close reading, Emily and Tom tease out allusions, lexical flourishes and formal experimentation, and explain the highly contextual nature of these tightly choreographed, public-facing poems. They illustrate how precarious work could be for a praise poet in a world driven by competition – striking the right note to please your patron, guarantee the next gig, and stay on good terms with the gods.
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Emily 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
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Medieval LOLs: Fabliaux
Fabliaux were short, witty tales originating in northern France between the 12th and 14th centuries, often featuring crafty characters in rustic settings and overwhelmingly concerned with money and sex. In this episode Irina and Mary look at two of these comic verses, both containing surprisingly explicit sexual language, and consider the ways in which they influenced Boccaccio, Chaucer and others.
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/medlolapplesignup
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignup
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Human Conditions: ‘The Human Condition’ by Hannah Arendt
In the fourth episode of Human Conditions, the last of the series with Judith Butler, we fittingly turn to The Human Condition (1956). Hannah Arendt defines action as the highest form of human activity: distinct from work and labour, action includes collaborative expression, collective decision-making and, crucially, initiating change. Focusing on the chapter on action, Judith joins Adam to explain why they consider this approach so innovative and incisive. Together, they discuss Arendt’s continued relevance and shortcomings, The Human Condition’s many surprising and baffling turns, and the transformative power of forgiveness.
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/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Judith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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On Satire: The Earl of Rochester
According to one contemporary, the Earl of Rochester was a man who, in life as well is in poetry, ‘could not speak with any warmth, without repeated Oaths, which, upon any sort of provocation, came almost naturally from him.’ It’s certainly hard to miss Rochester's enthusiastic use of obscenities, though their precise meanings can sometimes be obscure. As a courtier to Charles II, his poetic subject was most often the licentiousness and intricate political manoeuvring of the court’s various factions, and he was far from a passive observer. In this episode Clare and Colin consider why Restoration England was such a satirical hotbed, and describe the ways in which Rochester, with a poetry rich in bravado but shot through with anxiety, transformed the persona of the satirist.
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/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
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Political Poems: 'Easter 1916' by W.B. Yeats
Yeats’s great poem about the uprising of Irish republicans against British rule on 24 April 1916 marked a turning point in Ireland’s history and in Yeats's career. Through four stanzas Yeats enacts the transfiguration of the movement’s leaders – executed by the British shortly after the event – from ‘motley’ acquaintances to heroic martyrs, and interrogates his own attitude to nationalist violence. Mark and Seamus discuss Yeats’s reflections on the value of political commitment, his embrace of the role of national bard and the origin of the poem’s most famous line.
Sign up to the Close Readings subscription to listen ad free and to all our series in full:
Directly in Apple Podcasts
In other podcast apps
Read more in the LRB:
Terry Eagleton:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n13/terry-eagleton/spooky
Colm Tóibín:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n07/colm-toibin/after-i-am-hanged-my-portrait-will-be-interesting
Frank Kermode:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n06/frank-kermode/what-he-did
Tom Paulin:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n06/tom-paulin/dreadful-sentiments
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