In the first episode of their new Close Readings series on political poetry, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’ by Andrew Marvell, described by Frank Kermode as ‘braced against folly by the power and intelligence that make it possible to think it the greatest political poem in the language’. 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 the poem here
Further reading in the LRB: Blair Worden: Double Tongued Frank Kermode: Hard Labour David Norbrook: Political Verse Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Political Poems: Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland'

The LRB Podcast brings you weekly conversations from Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas. Hosted by Thomas Jones and Malin Hay, with guest episodes from the LRB's US editor Adam Shatz, Meehan Crist, Rosemary Hill and more. Find the LRB's new Close Readings podcast in on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or search 'LRB Close Readings' wherever you get your podcasts. 
 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Rebecca Solnit has lived in San Francisco since 1980, but the city she used to know is fast disappearing, ‘fully annexed’, as she puts it, by the tech firms from Silicon Valley. In this episode of the LRB podcast, Solnit reads her piece from the 8 February issue of the paper, both a eulogy for the city that’s been lost and a dissection of the dystopia that’s replacing it, ‘returning us’, as she puts it, ‘to a kind of feudalism’.
Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/solnitpod Find out more about Serious Readers: https://www.seriousreaders.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca Solnit: In the Shadow of Silicon Valley

The recovery of history’s ‘lost’ women is often associated with the advent of feminism, but, Sophie Smith writes, women’s contributions to Western philosophy have been regularly rediscovered since at least the 14th century. She joins Tom to discuss what we can learn from the women who held their own alongside Plato, Descartes and Hume.
Find Sophie’s piece and further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/sophiesmithpod Find out more about Pace Gallery’s upcoming exhibitions here: https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/ Find out more about Coram Boy at Chichister Festival Theatre here: https://www.cft.org.uk/events/coram-boy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Women in Philosophy

James Pratt and John Smith were the last men hanged in England for the crime of sodomy, reported to the authorities by nosy landlords who later petitioned for clemency. Tom Crewe joins Thomas Jones to explain how exceptional – and unexceptional – the case was, the historical forces that led to the death sentence and the surprising ambivalence many Londoners felt about ‘unnatural crimes’ in the 1830s.
Find out more about Bluets at the Royal Court theatre here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bluets/ Find Tom Crewe’s piece and further reading at the episode page: https://lrb.me/prattsmithpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unspeakable Acts

The word ‘culture’ now drags the term ‘wars’ in its wake, but this is too narrow an approach to a concept with a much more capacious history. In the closing LRB Winter Lecture for 2024, Terry Eagleton examines various aspects of that history – culture and power, culture and ethics, culture and critique, culture and ideology – in an attempt to broaden the argument and understand where we are now.
Terry Eagleton delivered this lecture as part of the LRB's Winter Lecture series at St James's Church, Clerkenwell, London on 27 March 2024.
Read Terry Eagleton’s lecture in the LRB: https://lrb.me/eagletonwl Watch the lecture on YouTube: https://lrb.me/eagletonwlyt Find out more about Bluets here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bluets/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Where does culture come from?

In her recent LRB Winter Lecture, Hazel V. Carby discussed ways contemporary Indigenous artists are rendering the ordinarily invisible repercussions of ecocide and genocide visible. She joins Adam Shatz to expand on the artists discussed in her lecture, and how they disrupt the ways we’re accustomed to seeing borders, landmasses, and landscapes empty – or emptied – of people.
Find the lecture and further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/carbypod Watch the lecture on YouTube: lrb.me/carbyyt Find out more about Bluets at the Royal Court theatre here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/bluets/ Listen to the We Society Podcast here: https://acss.org.uk/we-society-podcast/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Political Poems: Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland'

Download our free app to listen on your phone