The History of Literature

By Jacke Wilson / The Podglomerate

Arts History

What's The History of Literature about?

Amateur enthusiast Jacke Wilson journeys through the history of literature, from ancient epics to contemporary classics. Episodes are not in chronological order and you don't need to start at the beginning - feel free to jump in wherever you like! Find out more at historyofliterature.com and facebook.com/historyofliterature. Support the show by visiting patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. Contact the show at [email protected]

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481 Moby Dick - 10 Essentia...

01.26.2023

Here we go! Moby-Dick; or, the Whale (1851) by Herman Melville is one of the greatest - and strangest - novels you will ever read. Call it what you will - a literary leviathan, an intellectual chowder, an early entry ...

The History of Literature episodes:

01.26.2023 481 Moby Dick - 10 Essential Questions (Part One) Here we go! Moby-Dick; or, the Whale (1851) by Herman Melville is one of the greatest - and strangest - novels you will ever read. Call it what you will - a literary leviathan, an intellectual chowder, an early entry ...
01.23.2023 480 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (with Ritchie Robertson) In 1878, critic Matthew Arnold wrote, "Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times... because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by ...
01.19.2023 479 Auden and the Muse of History (with Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb) W.H. Auden (1907-1973) was one of the twentieth-century's greatest poets - and also one of the most engaged. As he struggled to make sense of the rise of fascism, two world wars, and industrialized murder, his focus turned to the ...
01.16.2023 478 The Diaries of Franz Kafka (with Ross Benjamin) Kafka! The avatar of anxiety! He's long been one of our favorites here at the History of Literature Podcast. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Ross Benjamin about the new edition of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, published by ...
01.12.2023 477 Does Edith Wharton Hate You? (Part 2 - "The Vice of Reading") Does Edith Wharton hate us? That's a provocative question - but perhaps one that Wharton herself provoked, with her essay on the readers who damaged literature and her fiction satirizing the same. In this two-part series, Jacke takes a look ...
01.12.2023 476 Does Edith Wharton Hate You? (Part 1 - "Xingu") Does Edith Wharton hate us? That's a provocative question - but perhaps one that Wharton herself provoked, with her essay on the readers who damaged literature and her fiction satirizing the same. In this two-part series, Jacke takes a look ...
01.09.2023 475 Portable Magic - A History of Books and Their Readers (with Emma Smith) As we all know, the text of a book can possess incredible powers, transporting readers across time and space. But what about the books themselves? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Emma Smith (This Is Shakespeare) about her new ...
01.05.2023 474 Herman Melville In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life of Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick and many other works. Melville experienced ups and downs, from a fancy Manhattan childhood to financial ruin and back again. Once a literary celebrity, ...
01.02.2023 473 A Hemingway Short Story (with Mark Cirino) Jacke is joined by Professor Mark Cirino, host of the One True Podcast and editor of One True Sentence: Writers & Readers on Hemingway's Art, for a discussion of Hemingway's classic short story about World War I and recovery in ...
12.29.2022 472 The Art of Not Knowing In this special episode, Jacke pays tribute to a friend, including a consideration of endings and beginnings, mystery and grace, and two powerful works: John Berger's The Shape of a Pocket and James Joyce's masterpiece "The Dead." Learn more about ...
12.26.2022 471 Angels of War (with Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris, and Susan Meissner In this episode, Jacke talks to three bestselling authors - Susan Meissner, Kristina McMorris, and Ariel Lawhon - who came together to write When We Had Wings, a historical novel about a trio of World War II nurses who waged ...
12.22.2022 470 Two Christmas Days - A Holiday Story by Ida B. Wells Legendary anti-lynching crusader and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) is best known for her diligent research and brave and compelling journalism. But she was also a feature writer for both black-owned and white-owned newspapers, and her talents were ...
12.19.2022 469 A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (with Gina Buonaguro) Since its publication in 1908, E.M. Forster's classic novel A Room with a View, which tells the story of a young Englishwoman who finds a romantic adventure during a trip to Florence, has inspired countless travelers to expand their minds ...
12.15.2022 468 Chekhov Becomes Chekhov (with Bob Blaisdell) In 1886, the twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was practicing medicine, supporting his family, falling in and out love, writing pieces for newspapers at a furious pace - and gradually becoming one of the greatest short story writers the world has ever ...
12.12.2022 467 TS Eliot and The Waste Land (with Jed Rasula) In 2022, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land turned 100 years old - and it's hard to imagine a poem with a more explosive impact or a more enduring influence. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Jed Rasula about his ...
12.08.2022 466 Kurt Vonnegut, Planetary Citizen (with Christina Jarvis) When novelist Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007, the planet lost one of its most creative and compelling voices. In this episode, Jacke talks to Vonnegut scholar Christina Jarvis (Lucky Mud & Other Foma: A Field Guide to Kurt Vonnegut's Environmentalism ...
12.05.2022 465 Greek Lit and Game Theory (with Professor Josiah Ober) Game theory as a mathematical discipline has been around since the Cold War, but as Professor Josiah Ober (The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason) points out, its roots stretch back to Socrates, if not before. In ...
12.01.2022 464 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Mature Years Following up on Episode 446 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Early Years, Jacke takes a look at the final five years of Percy Bysshe Shelley's life, from 1817-1822, as the poet turned away from hands-on political action in favor of ...
11.28.2022 463 Friedrich Nietzsche (with Ritchie Robertson) Sigmund Freud once said of the philosopher and cultural critic Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) that "he had a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any man who ever lived or was likely to live.” Well known for his iconoclastic views and ...
11.23.2022 462 My Last Book (with Laurie Frankel) The question stopped Jacke in his tracks. "Dear Jacke," said the emailer. "What do you want your "last book" to be? This will be the last book you will ever read..." And so, he set about determining what his "last ...
11.21.2022 461 The Peabody Sisters (with Megan Marshall) Pulitzer-Prize-winning literary biographer Megan Marshall joins Jacke to discuss the book that was twenty years in the making: The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism. This "stunning work of biography," as the New York Times labeled it, tells ...
11.17.2022 460 Rabindranath Tagore In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of the legendary Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). Central to what became known as the Bengali Renaissance, Tagore's poetry, short stories, songs, essays, paintings, and plays earned Tagore ...
11.14.2022 459 Eve Bites Back! An Alternative History of English Literature (with Anna Beer) Jacke talks to author Anna Beer about her new book Eve Bites Back! An Alternative History of English Literature, which tells the stories of eight women (Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Aemilia Lanyer, Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu, ...
11.10.2022 458 Alexander Pushkin (with Robert Chandler) For many Russian writers and readers, Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) holds a special place: his position in Russian literature is often compared to Shakespeare's in English, Dante's in Italian, and Goethe's in German. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pushkin translator ...
11.07.2022 457 The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson's Editor (The Thomas Wentworth Higginson Story) \| PLUS Making (Book) Dreams Come True (with Eve Yohalem and Julie Sternberg) Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) has become famous as the man who in 1862 encouraged young contributors to submit to his magazine - and who received in reply four poems from an unknown woman in Amherst, who asked whether he thought ...
11.03.2022 456 Maya Angelou Best known for her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was a woman of many talents and accomplishments. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of this incredible singer, ...
10.31.2022 455 Gustave Flaubert Perhaps contemporary critic James Wood put it best: "Novelists," he wrote, "should thank Flaubert the way poets thank spring." In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and major works of Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), the Frenchman from Rouen ...
10.27.2022 454 Emma's Pick - A Victorian Ghost Story Happy Halloween! In this episode, producer Emma selects a classic Victorian ghost story for Jacke to read: "Eveline's Visitant" by the publishing powerhouse Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Additional listening suggestions: 270 "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe 450 "The Tell-Tale ...
10.24.2022 453 The Autobiography of Malcolm X (with Dr Rae Wynn-Grant) Jacke talks to Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant about her journey to becoming a wildlife ecologist and two classic works from the 1960s that helped inspire her: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley) and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. ...
10.20.2022 452 Charles and Mary Lamb \| A Letter To My Transgender Daughter (with Carolyn Hays) In this episode, Jacke takes a look at two topics. First, the story of Charles and Mary Lamb, whose children's book Tales from Shakespeare (1807) was published more than two hundred years ago and has never been out of print. ...
10.17.2022 451 Mary Shelley For more than two centuries, the author Mary Shelley (1797-1851) has been eclipsed by others: her famous parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, her even more famous husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and even her own creations, the "modern Prometheus" Victor ...
10.13.2022 450 The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe It's October! Time for dead leaves, spooky twilight, and little goblins running around in search of candy. And of course, the OG Mr. October, Edgar Allan Poe. In this episode, Jacke (finally!) accommodates the voluminous requests for an episode on ...
10.10.2022 449 Method Acting and "Bad Hamlet" (with Isaac Butler) We all talk about actors who use the Method, but do we really understand what that means? And how exactly has the Method changed the way we take in drama? In this episode, Jacke talks to theater expert Isaac Butler ...
10.06.2022 448 Lewis Carroll (with Charlie Lovett) Although best known for his classic children's books involving Alice and her Wonderland adventures, Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) was a man of many talents and interests. In this episode, Jacke talks to Carrollinian scholar and biographer Charlie Lovett about his new ...
10.03.2022 447 Lady Chatterley's Lover (with Saikat Majumdar) D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) started a firestorm with his 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was quickly banned around the world. But the novel eventually found its way into print, after winning numerous obscenity trials in the 1950s and 60s, and ...
09.29.2022 446 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Early Years Jacke takes a look at the early years of Percy Bysshe Shelley, from his idyllic childhood, to his rebellious student years, to his experiments in free love, radical politics, and Wordsworthian poetry. Works discussed include "Queen Mab," "Hymn to Intellectual ...
09.26.2022 445 What Would Cervantes Do? (with David Castillo and William Egginton) As the author of what is generally considered the first and perhaps greatest novel of the modern era, Miguel de Cervantes and his masterpiece Don Quixote belongs on every shelf. But as two scholars point out in their new book, ...
09.22.2022 444 Thrillers on the Eve of War - Spy Novels in the 1930s (with Juliette Bretan) The British spy novel was well established long before Ian Fleming's creation of James Bond in the 1950s. And while it came to be identified with the Cold War, thanks to Fleming and subsequent writers like John le Carré, thriller ...
09.19.2022 443 Updating Bloom's Canon (with Bethanne Patrick) In 1994, Harold Bloom's magnum opus The Western Canon took up the critical cudgels on behalf of 26 writers declared by Bloom to be essential. In this episode, Bethanne Patrick (aka the Book Maven), literary critic and host of the ...
09.15.2022 442 Prince, Emperor, Sage - Bābur and the Bāburnāma (with Anuradha) The warrior and leader known as Bābur (1483-1530) had the kind of life one might expect from the descendant of Timur (Tamburlaine) on his father's side and Genghis Khan on his mother's. Elevated to the throne at age 12, and ...
09.12.2022 441 When Novels Were Novel (with Jason Feifer) It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when reading novels was not a common activity - and then, suddenly, it was. In this episode, Jacke talks to Jason Feifer, an expert on transformative changes in society, to ...
09.08.2022 440 Emma's Pick - "A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin Today, Kate Chopin (1851-1904) might be best known for her groundbreaking feminist novel The Awakening (1899). But she was also an accomplished short story writer, publishing in national magazines like Atlantic Monthly and Vogue. In this episode, Jacke provides an ...
09.05.2022 439 Poets' Guide to Economics (with John Ramsden) Sure, we know poets are experts in subjects like love, death, nightingales, and moonlight. But what about money? Isn't that a little...beneath them? (Or at least out of their area of expertise?) In this episode, Jacke talks to author John ...
09.01.2022 438 How Was Your Ulysses? (with Mike Palindrome) In 1922, a writer for the Observer commented: "No book has been more eagerly and curiously awaited by the strange little inner circle of book-lovers and littérateurs than James Joyce's Ulysses." After declaring Joyce to be a man of genius, ...
08.29.2022 437 A Million Miracles Now - "A Bird, came down the Walk" by Emily Dickinson Responding to a listener email, a heartbroken Jacke takes a close look at Emily Dickinson's astonishing poem "A Bird, came down the Walk." Additional listening suggestions: 120 The Astonishing Emily Dickinson 418 "Because I could not stop for Death" by ...
08.25.2022 The History of Literature Presents: Missing Pages Today, we’d like to introduce you to the new podcast from The Podglomerate, Missing Pages. Missing Pages is an all-new investigative podcast hosted by world-renowned literary critic and publishing insider Bethanne Patrick. In its first season, Missing Pages uncovers the ...
08.22.2022 436 The Lorax by Dr Seuss (with Mesh Lakhani) He was born Theodor Seuss Geisel in 1904, but in the next 87 years, the world came to know and love him by his pen name, Dr. Seuss. Best known for his more than 60 books for children, including The ...
08.18.2022 435 The Story of the Hogarth Press Part 2 - The Virginia Woolf Story That Changed Everything In our last episode, we looked at the decision by Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard to purchase a printing press and run it out of their home. What began as a hobby - a relief from the strains of ...
08.15.2022 434 The Story of the Hogarth Press Part 1 - Virginia Woolf's First Self-Published Story Virginia Woolf has long been celebrated as a supremely gifted novelist and essayist. Less well known, but important to understanding her life and contributions to literature, are her efforts as a publisher. In the decades that she and her husband ...
08.11.2022 433 Emma's Pick - "To Build a Fire" by Jack London Is this the greatest man vs. nature story ever? Hard to say. But it just might be the purest. Kicking off a new HOL feature, producer Emma chooses a short story for Jacke to read and discuss - Jack London's ...

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