Instant Classics

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Join world-renowned classicist Mary Beard and Guardian chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins for Instant Classics — the weekly podcast that proves ancient history is still relevant. Ancient stories, modern twists… and no degree in Classics required. Discover The Odyssey and join the book club at: https://www.exploringtheodyssey.com

1일 전

Medea 3: The Immortal (with Edith Hall)

Mary and Charlotte explore Medea’s afterlife, from Ancient Athens into the 21st Century - the way her story continues to beguile and challenge us. To do this, they are joined by Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Durham University and renowned author of many books including the recent Medea: A Life (Yale University Press, 2026) Edith describes her life-long relationship with Medea - from watching the same 1970s production that changed Mary’s life - to this year’s book. Having two children along the way certainly changed her perspective. Ultimately, she understands Medea as a narcissist, unable to connect with anybody’s needs but her own. Edith also talks about the challenge Medea has always presented to theatre-goers. She believes the reason why Euripides’ play ‘lost’ the Athens theatre competition in 431BC is because Medea knows she is about to do wrong, but does it anyway (tragic heroes are normally convinced of their righteousness until the last moment). With the rise of European nationalism in the 19th Century, directors became interested in the outsider-exile quality of Medea’s story, casting her as a Jewish woman then, in the 20th Century, as a black woman. Feminist (and anti-feminist) readings of Medea date back to the 1850s when changes to the divorce laws in the UK gave women greater rights. Today, actors and directors have to answer big questions about whether she is experiencing psychosis or a cold schemer. Or both. Edith describes her experience working with the legendary Helen McCrory on her National Theatre Production in 2016. Further reading: In addition to the bibliography we gave for our first two episodes on Medea . . . For Robert Brough’s burlesque on Medea, see E. Richardson’s article, “‘A conjugal lesson’” in the journal Ramus 2003. The text of the burlesque itself is available online: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858023958535&seq=3 The career of Amy Levy is discussed by Linda Hunt Beckman, Amy Levy (Ohio UP, 2000) The Cambridge Greek Play has a really good website, with plenty of detail on its history: https://www.cambridgegreekplay.classics.cam.ac.uk/ For the production of Medea we mentioned, see https://www.cambridgegreekplay.classics.cam.ac.uk/past-plays-0/medea-1974 @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
4일 전 · 구독자 전용

The Odyssey#32: Eurycleia recognises her master

Penelope has offered a slave to wash the beggar/Odysseus’ feet according to the code of guest-friendship. Odysseus requests an old woman, knowing there is only one - his childhood nurse Eurycleia. She sees a scar he acquired as a child and recognises her long-lost master. Odysseus spoils an otherwise emotional reunion by threatening violence if she gives away his identity. Afterwards, Penelope resumes her conversation with her mystery guest. She laments her situation - absent husband, intimidating suitors - and asks his advice. Should she marry? She says she will set a challenge: whoever can string Odysseus’ old bow and fire an arrow through a lined-up row of 12 axe heads will be her husband. Odysseus thinks this is an excellent idea. With that, they turn in for the night (separately of course), knowing all will be decided the next day. Further reading: The episode of the scar has attracted an enormous critical commentary. We have already referred to Sheila Murnaghan’s book, Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey (Princeton UP, 1987). But see also the classic discussion by E Auerbach, Mimesis (originally published in 1946, and often reprinted). The opening chapter focuses on Eurycleia and the scar (comparing the story to biblical narrative). A shortened version is available: https://scrollandscreen.com/ULS/ReadTell/auerbach2.htm Michael Longley’s poem, “Eurycleia” (from his collection Gorse Fires (Jonathan Cape, 2009)) is a wonderful response to the episode. If you want a glimpse of the technical complexity in discussions of the derivation of Odysseus’ name, try the discussion in J Peradotto, Man in the Middle Voice (Princeton UP, 1990). There is a useful short blog on the nightingale simile by Alex Seiler: https://classics.ucla.edu/blog/the-odyssey-files-11-penelope-the-nightingale/ Plus further more specialist discussion by O Levaniouk, in The Oxford Critical Guide to Homer’s Odyssey (ed. Christensen), (Oxford UP, 2025). This recent collection is a useful handbook, going through the poem book by book. Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole DOP - Ben Warburton Video Editor: Tom Green Theme music: Casey Gibson
4일 전 · 보너스

BONUS Instant Classics live at the FT Weekend Festival

In September, Mary and Charlotte appeared at the FT Weekend Festival for a wide-ranging conversation covering Greek tragedy, Ukraine, the Bayeux Tapestry, tech bros and - inevitably - Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Here - as a bonus - is a recording of that event, with our thanks to the FT Weekend Festival. Further reading: We both draw on our recent books in this discussion: Charlotte’s Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War (Jonathan Cape, 2026), and Mary’s Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old (Profile Books, 2026) For the gruesome bits of the Bayeux Tapestry, see the full online version: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover-the-bayeux-tapestry/explore-online/ (we have now posted a podcast episode on the Bayeux Tapestry) One of the most evocative translations of Sappho is by Anne Carson, If Not, Winter (Knopf, 2002). We discuss Carson, the newest classical Nobel laureate, in a recent episode of the podcast. There is a good new translation of Catullus (with facing Latin text) by Stephanie McCarter in the Penguin Classics series. Those unfamiliar with the phrase “Caecilius est in horto”, can find it in Book 1 of the Cambridge Latin Course (revised version, Cambridge UP, 2022) @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Recorded at the FT Weekend Festival. © The Financial Times Limited 2026. All rights reserved. Used with permission Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
4일 전

Medea 2: Princess and Witch

Last episode, we saw how Medea was driven to murder her own children, using Euripides’ famous play as our primary source. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte delve deeper into Medea’s life both before and after this shocking incident. Her earlier adventures are told through Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, written in the 3rd Century BCE. Prince Jason of Iolcos is sent by his uncle to steal the Golden Fleece from King Aeëtes of Colchis. Knowing his task is impossible, Athena, who is Jason’s protector, makes King Aeëtes’ daughter Medea fall in love with him and betray her own people. Princess Medea is also the niece of Circe and has inherited her aunt’s witchy powers. Medea helps Jason steal the fleece and escapes with him across the Black Sea. They have many adventures on the way home, many of which involve Medea killing someone. She murders her own brother, when he is sent out to capture her. She tricks the daughters of Jason’s uncle/usurper, King Pelias, into killing their father, which forces her and Jason’s flight to Corinth. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is the best source for what happens after she kills her children and Jason’s new bride. She flees again, this time alone, to Athens where she marries King Aegeus. But killing has become an addiction. She tries to trick Aegeus into murdering his son Theseus, but Aegeus uncovers her plot and banishes her. She is never heard of again. Further reading: A good recent translation of Apollonius with a very helpful introduction is by Richard Hunter, in the Oxford World’s Classics series One innovative discussion of Medea in Apollonius is R. Buxton, “How Medea Moves” in Bartel and Simon (eds), Unbinding Medea (MHRA, 2010). Online: https://classics.domains.skidmore.edu/lit-campus-only/secondary/Apollonius/Buxton%202010.pdf For Ovid, we concentrate on his treatment of Medea in Metamorphoses VII, 1-424; but he also focuses on her in his Heroides 12 (an imaginary letter from Medea to Jason). @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
10월 29일

Medea 1: Child killer

Medea is one of the most intriguing characters in Greek mythology: a sorceress, scion of the sungod, and a serial killer. In the first part of a new series, Mary and Charlotte begin with the incident for which she is most famous: the murder of her own children. The main source for this version of her story is Euripides’ play of 431 BCE. Mary and Charlotte both have powerful memories of encountering the play for the first time, just at the age when they were first becoming interested in ancient Greece, and how it shaped their understanding of the classics. In the hands of another, less brilliant playwright, the story could be single-noted. Medea, jilted by Jason (of Argonaut fame), murders his new spouse and her father, then murders her two children with Jason, seemingly out of spite. But Euripides asks us to sympathise with Medea at crucial moments in the play, going out of his way to show how unfair Athenian society was not only to Medea but to all women. The men in the play - King Creon, Jason and the King of Athens - are truly dreadful and Medea is articulate about the prejudices of the patriarchy, the institution of marriage and the domestic responsibilities of wives. Finally Mary and Charlotte ask why Euripides has Medea kill her own children, because there are other accounts of her story in which this doesn’t happen. Is he asking us to see how far we are willing to go in our sympathies and reflect on our own capacity for violence? Next week, we’re looking at Medea’s early life and how she helped Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece. Further reading: Euripides’ Medea is available in multiple translations, online and in Penguin Classics etc. Charlotte used the one collected in the useful recent anthology of Greek tragedies under the title The Greek Plays, edited by Mary Lefkowtiz and James Romm (Modern Library, 2016). W. Allan, Euripides Medea (Bristol Classical Press, 2002) is a short introduction to the play . Edith Hall’s recent book Medea: A Life (Yale, 2026) offers an intriguing ‘biography’ of this mythical figure. @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
10월 26일 · 구독자 전용

The Odyssey#31: Listener Q&A

We’ve had so many comments and questions come in about the Odyssey, so in this episode Mary and Charlotte take on a couple. The three questions Mary and Charlotte focus on are: 1) What happened to the captured slave women we’re told are on Odysseus’ ships after Troy but are never referred to again? 2) Why do the characters in the Odyssey keep bursting into tears the whole time; 3) Do we know what all these palaces and interiors in the Odyssey looked like? We had many more questions, but the answers to all of them are complicated. We’ve tried to answer these three thoroughly and will come back soon and do some more! Further reading: There has been a huge amount of recent work on ancient emotions (and how far they map onto our own). A clear introduction is: Ramsay MacMullen, Feelings in History (Regina Books, 2003); more up-to-date is D Konstan and D Nelis, A Cultural History of the Emotions in Antiquity (Bloomsbury, 2019) Mary wrote at length about the history of (mostly Roman) laughter in Laughter in Ancient Rome (University of California Press, pb, 2015). For an up-to-date view of the archaeology of Mycenaean palaces, try some of the essays (on a wide range of topics) in E. H. Cline, The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford UP, 2012), with plenty of references to further reading. Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole DOP - Ben Warburton Video Editor: Tom Green Theme music: Casey Gibson
10월 22일

Exploring Anne Carson

It’s not every year that a classicist wins the Nobel Prize for Literature (in fact, it hasn’t happened since 1959), so Mary and Charlotte interrupt the schedule to reflect on Anne Carson’s extraordinary career as both a classicist and a poet. Carson is most famous as a poet, but her work is rooted in her scholarly essays and translations of Ancient Greek. Mary and Charlotte talk about how her pioneering book Eros the Bittersweet (1986, based on her phd thesis) linked Sappho to love poetry throughout the ages, including Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf - at a time when ‘Comparative Literature’ was a dirty phrase. This book also informed Carson’s own bittersweet love poetry in books like Glass and God and The Beauty of the Husband. Mary and Charlotte also discuss Autobiography of Red, her bold re-interpretation of Stesichorus’ account of the monster Geryon and Heracles, which not only responds to an Ancient Greek poet most people haven’t heard of, but brings the story into the present day. Further reading: We discussed in particular, Eros the Bittersweet (available in many different editions) and Autobiography of Red (available online here: https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/PSPA254/AUTOBIOGRAPHY%20OF%20RED.pdf) H of H Playbook is published by Jonathan Cape in the UK and by New Directions in the US. Her full (immense) biography has its own wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Carson_bibliography The interview with Carson in the Paris Review is here: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5420/the-art-of-poetry-no-88-anne-carson The 2013 New York Times profile is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/magazine/the-inscrutable-brilliance-of-anne-carson.html And in the Iowa Review, here: https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/iowareview/article/id/15965/ (there’s a download link) Daniel Mendelsohn engaged with Carson on Sappho in the New York Review of Books 14 August, 2003 @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
10월 15일

Roman Cancel Culture

We think of cancel culture as a 21st-century phenomenon, but it’s been going on since the ancient Egyptians (if not earlier) and the Romans were enthusiastic adopters as a strategy for control. Mary and Charlotte discuss ‘damnatio memoriae’ (condemnation of memory) - the practice of erasing a person from public life and history, usually after their death. (Pedant alert: Romans didn’t use the term ‘damnatio memoriae’ - it was coined much later - and Mary and Charlotte admit straight up that to use the phrase ‘cancel culture’ is a cheeky, and inaccurate, anachronism.) Further reading: The classic study of this is Harriet Flower The Art of Forgetting (Univ of NCarolina Press, pb, 2011) The full text and translation of the senatorial decree on Cn. Piso is in A Cooley, The Senatus Consultum de Cn Pisone patre (Cambridge UP, 2023) On recarving, see E. R. Varner, From Caligula to Constantine (Uni of Washington Press, pb. 2000). Charlotte writes about Carausius and the Tullie House inscriptions in Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain (Vintage paperback 2014) We refer again to the Severan Tondo, now in Berlin: https://search.smb.museum/object/obj-681547 @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Instant Classics - Trailer

A new podcast hosted by Mary Beard and Charlotte Higgins. Ancient stories, modern twists… and no degree in Classics required. Episode 1 Available on Thursday, August 28th, 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices