Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share 70. Layli and Majnun.
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
70. Layli and Majnun.
Her voice was sweet and liquid, like a stream
That lulls all other streams to sleep and dream;
Her eyes like doe’s eyes, whose dark gaze would make
A lion lie down dazed, and half awake.
She seemed an alphabet of loveliness,
Curved letters were the curling of each tress,
Straight letters were her stature, and her lips
Were like a letter formed as an ellipse,
And all the letters made her like that bowl
That shows the world as an enchanted whole.
The story of Layli and Majnun — sometimes written as Layla and Majnun —
was most famously recorded in a book-length poem by the twelfth-century
Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi. Chris and Suzanne consider what the poem has to
say about love, mental illness, and fan culture.
Show Notes.
Nezami Ganjavi: Layla and Majnun, trans. Dick
Davis. [Bookshop.]
Our episode on Conference of the Birds.
Maria Rosa Menocal: Shards of Love: Exile and the Origin of the
Lyric.
Our episode on Enkidu from The Epic of
Gilgamesh.
Raymond Roussel: Locus Solus.
Manuscript images of Layli and Majnun at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5.
And images of Majnun at the Ka’aba with a door knocker:
1,
2.
Our episode on Blind Owl.
The Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892–1910.
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit.
Next: Geoffrey Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde.
(Bookshop. Also a helpful online
modernized and annotated
version.)
You can support us through our network, Megaphonic, on
Patreon.
View all episodes
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma
4.8
3030 ratings
Her voice was sweet and liquid, like a stream
That lulls all other streams to sleep and dream;
Her eyes like doe’s eyes, whose dark gaze would make
A lion lie down dazed, and half awake.
She seemed an alphabet of loveliness,
Curved letters were the curling of each tress,
Straight letters were her stature, and her lips
Were like a letter formed as an ellipse,
And all the letters made her like that bowl
That shows the world as an enchanted whole.
The story of Layli and Majnun — sometimes written as Layla and Majnun —
was most famously recorded in a book-length poem by the twelfth-century
Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi. Chris and Suzanne consider what the poem has to
say about love, mental illness, and fan culture.
Show Notes.
Nezami Ganjavi: Layla and Majnun, trans. Dick
Davis. [Bookshop.]
Our episode on Conference of the Birds.
Maria Rosa Menocal: Shards of Love: Exile and the Origin of the
Lyric.
Our episode on Enkidu from The Epic of
Gilgamesh.
Raymond Roussel: Locus Solus.
Manuscript images of Layli and Majnun at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5.
And images of Majnun at the Ka’aba with a door knocker:
1,
2.
Our episode on Blind Owl.
The Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892–1910.
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit.
Next: Geoffrey Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde.
(Bookshop. Also a helpful online
modernized and annotated
version.)
You can support us through our network, Megaphonic, on
Patreon.
More shows like The Spouter-Inn
View all
The Book Review
3,999 Listeners
Travel with Rick Steves
2,483 Listeners
Dear Hank & John
7,758 Listeners
The History of Literature
1,118 Listeners
All About Agatha Christie
1,102 Listeners
Pod Save America
87,146 Listeners
It’s Just A Show
48 Listeners
You’re Not Funny
1 Listeners
And Thereby Hangs A Tale
1 Listeners
Shedunnit
709 Listeners
The Bulwark Podcast
12,500 Listeners
Dear Reader
1 Listeners
This Is Your Mixtape
10 Listeners
By-The-Bywater: A Podcast about All Things J.R.R. Tolkien
32 Listeners
Life Kit
4,740 Listeners
The Opposite Of Lonely
0 Listeners
A Part Of Our Scare-itage
7 Listeners
The Scene of the Scene
0 Listeners
HubrisWeen!
0 Listeners
Maintenance Phase
16,601 Listeners
Gone Medieval
1,865 Listeners
Game Show 1939!
2 Listeners
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
1,375 Listeners
The Next Level
3,136 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics: US
2,115 Listeners