Critical Readings

Released on 17 January 2022:

The panel reads the first part of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, providing an overview of the formal aspects of the poem, the history of the manuscript (Cotton Nero A.x), theories about authorship, and analysis of the poem’s titular, veridian symbolism.

Released on 10 January 2022:

The panels searches for a smile / And dwells with Ogden Nash a while. / Some lines are light and some are scary / But the formal aspects rather vary. / Most of them rhyme in a manner relaxin’, / But the metrics range from good to absen’.

Released on 3 January 2022:

In the first podcast of 2022, the panel reads five poems spanning the entire poetic arc of Langston Hughes, from the famous lines of “I, Too” to the scenes of the “Lincoln Theatre”, before ending with the Christmas message of “Shepherd’s Song”.

Released on 27 December 2021:

In a special, Christmas episode, the panel reads selections from W. S. Gilbert’s libretto to H.M.S. Pinafore, and discusses how they are representative of Gilbert’s penchant for comic ‘topsy-turvy’ plots which include keen-eyed social commentary.

Released on 20 December 2021:

The panel reads “The Red Wheelbarrow”, “This Is Just to Say”, and “Gulls” by William Carlos Williams and discusses both their connexion to the Imagist and Modernist movements of the early twentieth century, and their complexity in relation to Minimalism.

Released on 13 December 2021:

The panel reads three of Jonathan Swift’s poems which satirise responses to the inescapable facts of human biology, and focuses on their depictions of privacy and separation, essential human dignity, and cultural attitudes towards sexuality.

Released on 6 December 2021:

The panel reads extended selections from each canto of Sir Walter Scott’s narrative poem, “The Lady of the Lake”, highlighting Scott’s interest in reviving the medieval, the importance of history to his work, and his use of varying poetic forms.

Released on 29 November 2021:

The panel reads a selection of poems by Ted Hughes compassing the scope of his poetic oeuvre, from the early and animalistic imagery of “The Jaguar” to the modernist scenes of “Here Is the Cathedral”, before concluding with the confessional “Last Letter”.

Released on 22 November 2021:

The panel reads four poems by Richard Wilbur, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”, “A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra”, “Mind”, and “Year’s End”, particularly examining the intricacy of their details and their formal attributes.

Released on 15 November 2021:

The panel traces themes of wanderlust, resignation, wistfulness, lonliness, and fatalism in six poems excerpted from Stevenson’s Songs of Travel, including “The Vagabond”, “Bright Is the Ring of Words,” “Whither Must I Wander”, and “The Woodman”.