Close Readings

The third episode of The Long and Short turns to the short stories of Henry James. Mark and Seamus look 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.

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Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.

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In the third episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom move from epic to lyric, with the poems of Sappho, or what remains of them. They consider what we know, and don’t know, about her life, and how her poetry challenges the heroic tradition, both in its subversion of Homeric ideas of war and nostos, and in its playful use of language.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

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Emily Wilson:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n01/emily-wilson/tongue-breaks

Terry Castle:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n19/terry-castle/always-the-bridesmaid

Mary Beard:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n19/mary-beard/sappho-speaks

Peter Green:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n22/peter-green/what-we-know

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

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In the third episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina explore the much-chronicled life of St Cuthbert, as told by the most famous writer of the early medieval period, the so-called Venerable Bede. From Cuthbert’s childhood interest in naked handstands, to his later work as a charismatic preacher who could elicit total confession, and as a hermit who enjoyed the assistance of friendly sea otters, it was a life which, as told by Bede, both challenged and conformed to the expected patterns of hagiography.

This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

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In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

Get in touch: [email protected]

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In the second episode of The Long and Short, Mark and Seamus turn to Walt Whitman's ‘Song of Myself’, from Leaves of Grass (1855), 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.

This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.

Get in touch: [email protected]

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In episode two of Among the Ancients, Tom and Emily turn to Homer’s Odyssey. They discuss the twisting, turning nature of both the narrative and its hero, the poem’s complex interrogation of the idea of ‘home’, and the violence Odysseus brings with him on his return from the Trojan War.

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Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.

Readings by Hazel Holder

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In episode two of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina turn the pages of the Exeter Book, a remarkable 10th century manuscript containing numerous poems and riddles, some of which are written in the voices of women. They consider in particular the enigmatic and beautiful ‘Wife’s Lament’ and ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’, and their numerous interpretations, and compare them to an extraordinary collection of letters written by influential women to St Boniface in the 8th century.

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

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Find reading resources for this episode on the LRB website:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/medieval-beginnings-letters-and-laments

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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:

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Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.

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

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In their first episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom begin with a beginning, Homer's Iliad: its depictions of anger and grief, of capricious gods and warriors’ bodies, and the sheer narrative force of Homer’s epic of the Trojan War.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from the rest of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Read more in the LRB:

James Davidson: Like a Meteorite

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n15/james-davidson/like-a-meteorite

Edward Luttwak: Homer Inc.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-inc

Colin Burrow: The Empty Bath

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n12/colin-burrow/the-empty-bath

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

Readings by Hazel Holder

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Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu start their Medieval Beginnings series with Beowulf, a tale of monsters and heroes that is also a complex collection of interwoven stories about war and the conduct of a warrior society. They consider the poem’s preoccupations with kingship and a pagan past seen through the eyes of a Christian culture, as well as many of the mysteries which still surround its, not least its authorship and many narrative curiosities.

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

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On the centenary of the publication of Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ in book form, Mark and Seamus finish the second series of Modern-ish Poets by considering how revolutionary the poem was, the numerous meanings that have been drawn out of it, and its lasting influence.

To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

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Further reading on Eliot in the LRB:

Frank Kermode: https://lrb.me/kermodeeliotpod

Dan Jacobson: https://lrb.me/jacobsoneliotpod

Barbara Everett: https://lrb.me/everetteliotpod

Mark Ford: https://lrb.me/fordeliotpod

Terry Eagleton: https://lrb.me/eagletoneliotpod

Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.

This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in December 2022.

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