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The Long and Short

London Review of Books
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Mark Ford and Seamus Perry follow on from their ‘revolutionary ☆☆☆☆☆’ (The Times) series on 'Modern-ish Poets' , to look at long poems and the short stories in 19th- and 20th-century literature. Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford. 'The Long and Short' is part of the Close Readings podcast from the London Review of Books. Non-subscribers will only hear extracts from the episodes. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

  1. EPISODE 1

    Introducing The Long and Short

    Seamus Perry and Mark Ford introduce their series on long poems and short stories from the 19th and 20th centuries, and talk about some of the ideas which will underpin their twelve episodes. The authors discussed in the series will be: Alfred Tennyson, Henry James, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Nella Larson, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Hughes and Alice Oswald.

    9 min

  2. EPISODE 2

    Tennyson's 'Maud'

    Mark Ford and Seamus Perry start their series, The Long and Short, with Tennyson’s ‘Maud’, a weird and disturbing poem about obsession that Tennyson himself was obsessed by. He would recite it in full at the drop of a hat, sometimes more than once, to friends and foes alike – even though it received notoriously bad reviews when it was published. This episode considers why the poem meant so much to him, and what it tells us about the Victorian age. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠ Read more on Tennyson in the LRB: Seamus Perry: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n02/seamus-perry/are-we-there-yet Danny Karlin: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v09/n20/danny-karlin/tennyson-s-text

    45 min

  3. EPISODE 3

    Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'

    In the second episode of the series, Mark and Seamus turn to ‘Song of Myself’, for Mark 'one of the most exciting things literature has to offer'. They discuss the extraordinary physicality and exuberance of this seminal American poem, its relationship with urbanism, capitalism and sexuality, and its Johnny Appleseed-spirit, among many other things. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠

    10 min

  4. EPISODE 4

    Henry James’s short stories

    The third episode turns to the short stories of Henry James, looking in particular at ‘The Aspern Papers’ which, like Tennyson’s ‘Maud’, offers a diagnosis of obsession, in this case through a sensuous, excruciating and often comedic Venetian psychodrama. Mark and Seamus discuss the emergence of the short story at the end of the 19th century, and how certain features of the form – its attachment to unresolved endings, its debt to the dramatic monologue – can be found in James’s own stories, along with his other major themes, such as the tortured relationship between the public and private, and the experience of Americans in Europe. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠

    10 min

  5. EPISODE 5

    Katherine Mansfield's short stories

    In episode four, we turn to the squarely modernist Katherine Mansfield, whose writing famously attracted the envy of Virginia Woolf. Mark and Seamus discuss the decisive break modernist story makes from its 19th century predecessors, exemplified in Mansfield’s work. At turns lyrical, ruthless, moving and darkly comic, these stories demonstrate her knack for close observation and mimicry – no wonder one of them is Mark’s ‘desert island’ story. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠

    12 min

  6. EPISODE 6

    Hart Crane's 'The Bridge'

    In their fifth episode, Mark and Seamus reach their first 20th century poet of the series, the Ohio-born, New York-loving ad man Hart Crane, and his epic 1930 work The Bridge. Directly inspired by The Waste Land, The Bridge sought to address modernity, as Eliot had done, with all its conflicts, contradictions and difficulties, but infuse it with a Whitman-esque expression of American greatness. Mark and Seamus discuss Crane’s multi-faceted mythologisation of the bridge, the baroque complexity of his language, the deployment of Robert Browning and Gerard Manley Hopkins in service of his questing American origin story, and the personal struggles of a man who, for his brief life, found himself in the exhilarating creative centre of modernist experimentation. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠ Read more in the LRB: ⁠Adam Philips: Roaring Boy⁠ ⁠Michael Hofmann: Three Poems⁠ ⁠Mark Ford: Two Poems

    10 min

  7. EPISODE 7

    D.H. Lawrence's short stories

    Controversial, compulsive, and overwhelmingly charismatic, D.H. Lawrence continues to exert an undeniable magnetism through his novels and poetry. But, as Mark argues in this episode, the quintessential Lawrence lies in his shorter fiction. Focusing on five stories that span Lawrence’s career, Mark and Seamus discuss the strange mix of uninhibitedness and meticulous detail that make Lawrence’s work essential reading. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠ Stories discussed in this episode: ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’ ‘The Prussian Officer’ ‘England, my England’ ‘The Blind Man’ ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’

    12 min

  8. EPISODE 8

    Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’

    Seamus and Mark step into the counterculture with two long poems, ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’, by Allen Ginsberg, a Beat poet-celebrity with a utopian vision for an America rescued from its corrupted institutions and vested interests. Published in 1956, ‘Howl’ influenced post-war culture like no other literary work, a mind-expanded free-verse jeremiad that is also a celebratory poem of absolute ruin, it offered a restless generation a seductive escape from what Lowell called the ‘tranquillised fifties’. In his intensely confessional 1961 poem ‘Kaddish’, a eulogy to his dead mother, Ginsberg offered a graphic account of his traumatic childhood and evolution that plugged directly into his era’s obsession with subjectivity. Seamus and Mark discuss some of Ginsberg’s influences – including Whitman, Carlos Williams, O’Hara and Blake – and the far-reaching impact of his work, as well as Mark’s own experiences meeting the poet. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠

    12 min
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Mark Ford and Seamus Perry follow on from their ‘revolutionary ☆☆☆☆☆’ (The Times) series on 'Modern-ish Poets' , to look at long poems and the short stories in 19th- and 20th-century literature. Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford. 'The Long and Short' is part of the Close Readings podcast from the London Review of Books. Non-subscribers will only hear extracts from the episodes. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlasapple⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/tlassignuppod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

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