Send us Fan Mail

A Subcast episode!  Let's read two Old English poems that treat the female experience in Anglo-Saxon England: "Wulf and Eadwacer" and "The Wife's Lament" -- the only surviving OE poems written in a woman's voice!

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

What do peasants, poets, and priests write about when a toxic slurry of starvation, deprivation, and taxation spill over into the largest popular insurrection in English history?  Find out as we look at the literature surrounding the Great Rising of 1381.

With regards to Contemptua X. Smugly.

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

Today we look at Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an anonymous narrative poem from the late 14th century Midlands.  The Gawain Poet is a gifted technician and craftsman as well as storyteller whose technique interlaces disparate strands into an elegant pattern -- imagine a Celtic knot, the monastic Gospel illuminations, or the intricate metalwork of Saxon artisans, and you have the visual equivalent of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the greatest English Arthurian romance! 

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

Have you ever wondered if Chaucer's satirical broadsides against the Church could get him into trouble?  Well, seems he may have thought so . . . . or maybe not.

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

 Alisoun, the Wife of Bath, is perhaps the most psychologically complex character in all of medieval English literature.  Bawdy, rebellious, haughty, and rambunctious, the Wife smashes the patriarchy . . . or does she?  

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

WARNING: Contains strong language.

In this Subcast minisode, I look at what would have been considered foul language in the Middle Ages.  If you are of a sensitive disposition or a delicate constitution, if you are prone to the vapors or simply upright in your rectitude,  might I suggest that you listen to this episode with your fingers plugged firmly into your ears?  It may be helpful to also hum a happy tune.

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

On our second episode for Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, we take a deep look at a character that scholars have called "pre-Shakespearean" in his psychological roundness and complexity: The Pardoner.

Additional music: Timbre Milton Intro Remix

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

A little stocking stuffer of a bonus episode: a couple of Middle English poems taking a look at Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the Nativity.  Happy happy joy joy!

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

April showers bring May flowers, and May flowers bring pilgrims.  No, not those stern po-faced separatists in New England, but a merry fellowship in old England!  We come today to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the monument of medieval English literature.  In this episode, we'll focus on the "General Prologue" to the tales: its satirical project, its narrative structure, and a couple of its characters.

Additional music:  "Village Theme" by Gesornoud; "Consort for Brass" by Kevin Macleod; "Medieval Flute" by Carlos Carty

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Send us Fan Mail

For us moderns, dreams are personal and interior, bubbling up from the deep chasms of experience, neurochemistry, and cultural symbolism.  But for the medievals, dreams were exterior: penetrative, intrusive -- they came from the outside, from beyond.  They perhaps were messages from God Himself.  On today's episode, we look at two poems about dream visions: the Old English "Dream of the Rood" and (a quick tour of) William Langland's Middle English "The Vision of Piers Plowman."

Support the show

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation.  Click the "Support the Show" button.  So grateful!

Or 

Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/classicenglishliterature

Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen.  Thank you!

Email: [email protected]

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards
Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org
My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!