The Classic English Literature Podcast

M. G. McDonough
  • 4.8 (48)
  • BOOKS
  • UPDATED DAILY

Where rhyme gets its reason! In a historical survey of English literature, I take a personal and philosophical approach to the major texts of the tradition in order to not only situate the poems, prose, and plays in their own contexts, but also to show their relevance to our own. This show is for the general listener: as a teacher of high school literature and philosophy, I am less than a scholar but more than a buff. I hope to edify and entertain!

  1. 6D AGO

    A Critique of Reason: Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

    Send us a text While many may think of Swift's magnificent octopus as a mere children's adventure tale, it is, in fact, one of the darkest and most troubling satires in the English language.  Written as the Enlightenment began asserting rationality as the measure of all things, Gulliver's Travels questions the very premises of western culture themselves.   Link to Gulliver's Travels: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17157/17157-h/17157-h.htm mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring Jewish...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

    50 min

  2. 12/31/2025

    Food for Thought: Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and Other Writings

    Send us a text I hope you've brought your appetite, because today we're looking at some of Dr. Swift's shorter prose satires (along with a couple of poems) and he certainly gives us plenty to chew on. "A Description of the Morning": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45266/a-description-of-the-morning "A Description of a City Shower": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50578/a-description-of-a-city-shower "The Battle of the Books": https://www.gutenberg.org/files/623/623-h/623-h.htm "A Tale of a Tub": https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4737 "A Modest Proposal": https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring Jewish...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

    39 min

  3. 12/21/2025 · BONUS

    Seditious Greetings!: The Political Code of "O Come All Ye Faithful"

    Send us a text One of the most theologically and liturgically important Christmas carols may contain coded messages against the Throne of England! Additional Music: "Adeste Fidelis" by Bing Crosby with The Max Terr choir; John Scott Trotter and his orch.; Traditional; Decca (BM 03929) Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

    14 min

  4. 11/26/2025 · BONUS

    "Read All About It!": The Rise of the Public Press

    Send us a text In the early 18th century, the public press came to dominate English writing.  Pamphlets, newspapers, and periodicals fed the appetite for news and commentary of an ever-hungrier reading public.  Richard Steele and Joseph Addison were the great innovators of the periodical essay, a quintessentially English genre of writing. mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring Jewish...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

    29 min

  5. 11/09/2025

    The First English Novel? Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe

    Send us a text On this trip, we're looking at the conventional candidate for the first modern novel in English.  Defoe's story of a resourceful man shipwrecked on a desert island is so much more than a ripping yarn: it speaks to the rise of a literary vernacular language, the values of an increasing bourgeois and expansionist society, and of spiritual awakening.  Come aboard! Text: https://ia600207.us.archive.org/26/items/cu31924011498676/cu31924011498676.pdf Additional Music: "Theme from Emergency!" by Nelson Riddle. https://archive.org/details/tvtunes_206 "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island" by Sherwood Schwartz.  https://archive.org/details/tvtunes_275 mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring Jewish...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

    37 min

  6. 10/26/2025 · BONUS

    The First Ghost Story? Daniel Defoe's "The Apparition of Mrs. Veal"

    Send us a text For you today, Trick or Treaters, a discussion of what some critics assert is the first modern ghost story in English: Daniel Defoe's 1705 "The Apparition of Mrs. Veal." The text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36587/36587-h/36587-h.htm Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

    22 min

  7. 10/10/2025

    Modish Men and the Way of the World: The Great Restoration Comedies of Manners

    Send us a text Well, I probably should have done this episode earlier, since it might have been good for it to precede our other discussions of Resto comedy.  But I made a last minute decision and included a second play, which kind of threw off the old chronology.  But it's good all the same! The Man of Mode by George Etherege: https://coldreads.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/the-man-of-mode.pdf The Way of the World by William Congreve: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1292/1292-h/1292-h.htm mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring Jewish...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

    33 min

  8. 09/21/2025

    "A Foolish Marriage Vow": John Dryden's Marriage a la Mode and Amphitryon

    Send us a text For our second episode on John Dryden, we'll talk about two of his plays which marked an innovation in the tragi-comic romance: Marriage a la Mode and Amphitryon.  We'll discuss the "split-plot" play, the exorcising of Restoration political anxieties, and why we sometimes mock that which we cherish. Additional sound clip from Monty Python's Flying Circus. Text of Marriage a la Mode: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15349/15349-h/15349-h.htm#page_231 Text of Amphitryon: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47679/47679-h/47679-h.htm#Page_1 mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring Jewish...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

    31 min
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4.8
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48 Ratings

About

Where rhyme gets its reason! In a historical survey of English literature, I take a personal and philosophical approach to the major texts of the tradition in order to not only situate the poems, prose, and plays in their own contexts, but also to show their relevance to our own. This show is for the general listener: as a teacher of high school literature and philosophy, I am less than a scholar but more than a buff. I hope to edify and entertain!

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