The summer hiatus is over and Rusty Sonnets is back with a salacious tale of envy, power and murder, My Last Duchess by Robert Browning.

00.00 Intro

09.35 My Last Duchess by Robert Browning

13.10 Analysis

40.00 Niall Wanders Off On One.... Wooo!!!

If you enjoy the podcast you can buy me a coffee via my Ko-Fi page: https://ko-fi.com/niallosullivan

It is with regret that, due to summer holiday childcare, I have to put the Rusty Sonnets podcast on the back burner. I will be back on the 7th of September. In the meantime, here’s a little 15 minute waffle about the podcast, where it came from, where it’s going and why poetry is the most egalitarian art form.

This week we look at Thomas Gray's Elegy, an elegy that that strays from tradition in how it celebrates a people rather than a person.

00:00 Intro and background

09:36 Gray's Elegy

17:34 Analysis

38:58 Niall Wanders Off One....Wooo!!!

Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44299/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard

If you enjoy the podcast you can buy me a coffee via my Ko-Fi page: https://ko-fi.com/niallosullivan

Rusty Sonnets #17 - The Tyger by William Blake

This week we visit one of the brightest burning lights of the Romantic era, William Blake, and look at how his most famous poem both is and isn’t about a tiger.

00.00 Intro and background

18.07 The Tyger by William Blake

19.30 Analysis

42.44 Niall Wanders Off On One ...Wooo!

Today we look at a poem from the first African American to publish a book of poems, Phillis Wheatley. We look at her exceptional yet tragic life story and tease out the subtle arguments from her poem, On Being Brought from Africa to America.

00.00 Intro and Background

14.26 On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley

15.06 analysis

27.36 Niall Wanders Off On One.... Wooo!

Poem:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45465/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america

If you enjoy the podcast you can buy me a coffee via my Ko-Fi page: https://ko-fi.com/niallosullivan

This week we do something a little bit different and look at two poems that were written as part of a little private contest. Ozymandias by Percy Shelley and Ozymandias by Horace Smith.

00.00 Intro and Background

17.37 Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

18.47 Ozymandias by Horace Smith

19.43 Analysis

35.00 Niall Wanders Off on One... Wooo!!!

Shelley's poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias

Smith's poem: http://www.potw.org/archive/potw192.html

Hello! This week, a little bit after the D-Day commemorations we look at the poetry of Keith Douglas and ask why we don’t give as much attention to the Second World War poets as we do to the poets of the Great War.

00.00 Intro and background

17.26 How to Kill by Keith Douglas

18.55 Analysis

35.35 Niall Wanders Off On One... Wooo!!!

This week we are finally getting round to the work of Emily Dickinson. Her poems might seem fleeting and brief on the first read but they show that there's plenty to get your teeth into when you slow down and savour her dashes and fragments. Also, I get so carried away that I keep on saying "Shaft of light" rather than "Slant of light" which is annoying but a pain to edit out.

00.00 Intro and background

17.09 There's a Certain Slant of Light by Emily Dickinson

18.04 Analysis

43.25 Niall Wanders Off on One.... Wooo!!!

Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45723/theres-a-certain-slant-of-light-320

This week we hang around the Renaissance and get to know the bricklayer, actor, critic, playwright and all round bad boy Ben Jonson. We look at his poem about grief and how his skilful handling of language slows the poem down before I go off one one about Kant, Einstein and how we can actually control time.

00.00 Intro and background

19.20 Slow, Slow Fresh Fount by Ben Jonson

20.15 Analysis

35.35 Niall Wanders Off on One.... Wooo!!!

Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50680/slow-slow-fresh-fount

This week we go back to the Renaissance to look at one of the first sonnet sequences to be penned in English by a woman, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus by Lady Mary Wroth. The sequence includes a crown of sonnets among many others written in the much more challenging Italian style. While many sonnets written by men to women at the time praised their muses for their “constancy” the speaker in this sequence is a woman imploring her make muse to be the same. Oh, and the object of her affections might also have previous form for being the muse for a sequence of sonnets on unrequited love...

00.00 - Intro and background

19.59 - From Pamphilia to Amphilanthus by Lady Mary Wroth

21.05 - Analysis

37.55 - Niall Wanders Off On One.... Wooo!

Link (last poem in the entire sequence): http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/mary.html