The Classic English Literature Podcast

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For our second episode on John Dryden, we'll talk about two of his plays which marked an innovation in the tragi-comic romance: Marriage a la Mode and Amphitryon.  We'll discuss the "split-plot" play, the exorcising of Restoration political anxieties, and why we sometimes mock that which we cherish.

Additional sound clip from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Text of Marriage a la Mode: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15349/15349-h/15349-h.htm#page_231

Text of Amphitryon: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47679/47679-h/47679-h.htm#Page_1

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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra
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Once hailed as the towering literary figure of the Restoration age, John Dryden is little known now by the general reader.  Let's take care of that with a close look at his most enduring works, the poetical satires Mac Flecknoe and Absalom and Achitophel.

Mac Flecknoe text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44181/mac-flecknoe

Absalom and Achitophel text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44172/absalom-and-achitophel 

Mea culpa:  At one point in this episode, I make reference to Dryden's "tasteless" satiric attacks.  I know, of course, that I should have said "distasteful."  I am dreadfully embarrassed by this mistake and I sincerely apologize to all listeners who were horrified and offended at my imbecilic misuse of the noble English tongue.  I vow to do better.

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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!

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Since they wrote in 17th century Massachusetts, poets Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor are often overlooked in surveys of English literature.  Today, though, we'll bring them back into the fold as we look at how their puritanical religious beliefs engaged with the pastoral and metaphysical poetic traditions that celebrated "Arcadia," that vision of unspoiled Nature.

The Works of Anne Bradstreet: 

https://archive.org/details/worksofannebrads00brad/page/n7/mode/2up

The Works of Edward Taylor: https://archive.org/details/poemsofedwardtay00tayl

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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
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Charles II reopened the theatres in 1660 and inaugurated the second golden age of the English stage.  Today's show looks at one of the bawdiest plays to come from the period, a "comedy of manners" whose clever use of language points to the reality of style over substance.

The Country Wife text: https://theater.lafayette.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/2021/03/The-Country-Wife.pdf

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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!

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Today marks the anniversary of one of the most mythologized battles in Anglo-Irish history: the Battle of the Boyne.  In July of 1690, King William III soundly defeated James II and secured Ireland's Protestant supremacy while sowing the seeds for centuries of violent conflict.  The battle also marks the debut of one of Ireland's most prominent writers, Dr. Jonathan Swift, whose poem "Ode to King William" celebrates the Orange victory.

Text of "Ode to King William": https://www.online-literature.com/swift/poems-of-swift/3/

Text of “Written for My Son to His Master, on the Anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne": https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/pba35-w0450.shtml

Additional Music:

"Derry’s Walls": Sam Wilson and the Loyalists, 1963

https://archive.org/details/lp_no-surrender_sam-wilson-the-loyalists/disc1/02.06.+Derry's+Walls.mp3)

"Boyne Water": Stuart Eydmann, 2020

 https://ia601700.us.archive.org/13/items/raretunes-eydmann-boyne-water/RaretunesEydmannBoyneWater.mp3  

"Awake The Trumpet's Lofty Sound": Heroic Music For Organ, Brass And Percussion; New England Brass Ensemble; CBS Masterworks (MS 6354), 1962

https://archive.org/details/lp_heroic-music-for-organ-brass-and-percussio_e-power-biggs-new-england-brass-ensemble

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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
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As Americans celebrate Independence Day, I'm here once again to remind them of the debt American independence owes to English literature and history.  Stick in the mud.  Today, we look at a genuinely weird poem that allegorizes the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (an event that would lay the groundwork for the American Revolution nearly a century later) as a cup of tea.  So, pour yourself one -- milk first or last, doesn't matter to me -- and enjoy the show!

Text of "Panacea": https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A63046.0001.001/1:7?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

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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
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In today's chinwag, we'll explore a candidate for the first novel in English by the first professional female writer in English: Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688).  It's the story of an African prince and his beloved, who are betrayed into slavery and do not live happily ever after.  The novel seems a modest heroic romance, but I think Ms. Behn has a more complex project up her sleeve . . . .

Full text of Oroonoko: 

https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/oroonoko/chapter/the-history-of-the-royal-slave/

Additional music:

"James Bond Theme Song" from The Internet Archive

https://archive.org/details/tvtunes_6995

"Jeopardy Theme Think Music" from The Internet Archive

https://archive.org/details/tvtunes_29826

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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
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Today we look at the diary, a form of writing that became extraordinarily popular over the course of the 1600s.  We'll especially look at famous diarists such as John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, who not only chronicle details of their personal lives, but also give first hand accounts of the dramatic history of the period: the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Great Plague, and the Great Fire of London.

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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
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I'm back before you even had a chance to miss me!

Today, a bit of a genealogy of a now little read mock epic -- Samuel Butler's Hudibras -- which takes Chaucer and Spenser and Jonson and Cervantes, mixes them all up into a gloopy goo, and sprays it all over lemon-sucking Puritans!

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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
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Put on your comfortable shoes and grab your walking stick because today we're embarking on the most famous allegory in the English language: John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from 1678.  We'll cross plains, endure temptations, descend valleys, fight monsters, and ford rivers in our quest for the Celestial City!  Along the way, we'll talk about how this most Puritanical of texts is, ironically, deeply indebted to the ideas of the preceding religions it rejects.  Last one there's a rotten egg!

An apology: please do forgive the plosives on this episode.  Reckon I got too near the microphone's pop filter.  I shall work on my technique in future.

Link to The Pilgrim's Progress:

 https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/bunyan/The%20Pilgrim's%20Progress%20-%20John%20Bunyan.pdf

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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!