The History of Literature

By Recorded History Podcast Network

What's The History of Literature about?

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Marcel Proust

07.22.2019

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) did little of note until he turned 38 years old - but from that point forward, he devoted the rest of his life to writing a masterpiece. The result, the novel In Search of Lost Time, published ...

The History of Literature episodes:

07.22.2019 Marcel Proust Marcel Proust (1871-1922) did little of note until he turned 38 years old - but from that point forward, he devoted the rest of his life to writing a masterpiece. The result, the novel In Search of Lost Time, published ...
04.08.2019 George Eliot Perhaps the greatest of all the many great English novelists, George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans in 1819 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Her father Robert managed an estate for a wealthy family; her mother Christina was the daughter of ...
04.01.2019 Samuel Beckett (with Nic Barilar) We're back! A newly reenergized Jacke Wilson returns for a deep dive into the life, works, and politics of Samuel Beckett. Yes, we know him as one of the key figures bridging the gap between modernism and post-modernism - but ...
03.06.2019 182 Darkness and Light (with Jessica Harper) Jessica Harper has had the kind of life it would take ten memoirs to capture. Born in 1949, she went from a childhood in Illinois to a career as a Broadway singer, a Hollywood actor and movie star, a songwriter, ...
02.27.2019 181 David Foster Wallace (with Mike Palindrome) Frequent guest Mike Palindrome takes the wheel for another solo episode on David Foster Wallace, including a deep dive into Wallace's unfinished manuscript The Pale King, published posthumously in 2011.DAVID FOSTER WALLACE (1962-2008) was an American author best known for ...
02.20.2019 180 Donald Barthelme Donald Barthelme’s “The Balloon” (1966) is one of the strangest and most enduring short stories to come out of the second half of the twentieth century. Filled with Barthelme’s gift for observation and detail, his wild imagination, and his playful ...
02.13.2019 179 The Oscars by Decade (with Brian Price) Screenwriter and film scholar Brian Price (author of Classical Storytelling and Contemporary Screenwriting: Aristotle and the Modern Screenwriter) joins Jacke for a decade-by-decade look at the Oscar Winners for Best Picture. Which decade had the best movies? When did Hollywood ...
02.06.2019 178 "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson (with Evie Lee) In this episode, we take a look at the classic twentieth-century American short story, "The Lottery" (1948) by Shirley Jackson. Why did it cause such an uproar? Who banned it and why? And how well does it hold up today? ...
01.30.2019 177 Sherwood Anderson (with Alyson Hagy) One hundred years ago, a collection of short stories by a little-known author from Ohio burst onto the literary scene, causing a minor scandal for their sexual frankness. In the years since, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (1919) became more famous ...
01.23.2019 176 William Carlos Williams (The Use of Force) Today, the American modernist poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) is famous among poetry fans for his vivid, economical poems like "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This Is Just to Say." But for most of his lifetime, he struggled to achieve success ...
01.16.2019 175 Virgin Whore - The Virgin Mary in Medieval Literature and Culture (with Professor Emma Maggie Solberg) Today, we know the Virgin Mary as quiet, demure, and (above all) chaste, but this wasn't always the way she was understood or depicted. In her new book Virgin Whore, Professor Emma Maggie Solberg investigates a surprising - and surprisingly ...
01.09.2019 174 David Foster Wallace (A Mike Palindrome Special!) Ask and ye shall receive! It's an all-Mike episode devoted entirely to one of his literary heroes, David Foster Wallace. Enjoy! Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by ...
01.01.2019 173 The Yellow Wallpaper (with Evie Lee) Happy new year! Host Jacke Wilson is joined by special guest Evie Lee, a vice-president at the Literature Supporters Club, for a conversation about the classic short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN (1860-1935) wrote nine ...
12.19.2018 172 Holiday Movies (with Brian Price) Seasons Greetings! In this episode, Jacke attempts to recover from last week's gloominess with something lighter and cheerier: a trip to the movies! Holiday movies dominate screens big and little during the month of December - but what do they ...
12.12.2018 171 To Sleep Perchance to Dream - On Writers and Death "To die, to sleep - to sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come..." In these immortal lines, Shakespeare's Hamlet gives voice to one of the greatest of all ...
12.05.2018 170 Toni Morrison TONI MORRISON (b. 1931) is one of the most successful and admired authors in the history of American literature. Her novels include The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977) and Beloved (1987), which is widely considered to ...
11.28.2018 169 Dostoevsky FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (1821-1881) was, in the estimation of James Joyce, “the man more than any other who has created modern prose.” “Outside Shakespeare,” Virginia Woolf wrote, “there is no more exciting reading.” His influence is as impossible to understand as ...
11.21.2018 168 Jhumpa Lahiri ("The Third and Final Continent") What was it like to relocate from India to London to America in the early 1970s? And how can a daughter hope to recapture the experience of her father and convey it in fiction? In today's episode of the History ...
11.07.2018 167 F Scott Fitzgerald What happens when the party is over? Can you ever truly escape your past? Jacke and Mike take a look at F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic 1931 story of guilt and melancholy, "Babylon Revisited." F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) was the quintessential ...
10.31.2018 166 Stephen King (with the Sisters of Slaughter) STEPHEN KING (1947- ) was born in the northern state of Maine, where he has lived most of his life. For more than forty years, he has been the world's leading practitioner of scary fiction. He’s also won numerous awards, ...
10.24.2018 165 Ezra Pound EZRA POUND (1885-1972) was born in a small mining town in Idaho and died in Venice, Italy. In his eighty-seven years, he changed the face of American poetry. A restless, tireless advocate for his artistic views and the authors who ...
10.17.2018 164 Karl Marx Karl Marx (1818-1883) turned his early interest in literature and philosophy into a lifelong study of the socioeconomic forces unleashed by the rise of capitalism. His works The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, among others, influenced the course of the ...
10.10.2018 163 Gabriel Garcia Marquez (with Sarah Bird) Jacke welcomes author Sarah Bird to the program to talk about her background, her writing, and her readerly passion for the fiction of the great twentieth-century novelist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ (1927-2014) was one of the most revered ...
10.03.2018 162 Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the most famous American writers of the twentieth century. His plain, economical prose style--inspired by journalism and the King James Bible, with an assist from the Cezannes he viewed in Gertrude Stein’s apartment--became a ...
09.26.2018 161 Voltaire Voltaire was born Francois Marie Arouet in 1694 in Paris, France, the son of a respectable but not particularly eminent lawyer. By the time he died at the age of 83, he was widely regarded as one of the greatest ...
09.17.2018 160 Ray Bradbury (with Carolyn Cohagan) Special guest Carolyn Cohagan, author of the Time Zero trilogy and founder of the creative writing workshop Girls with Pens, joins Jacke for a discussion of her writing process, her origins in standup comedy and theater, and her early love ...
09.10.2018 159 Herman Melville Today, Herman Melville (1819-1891) is considered one of the greatest of American writers, and a leading candidate for THE American novelist thanks to his classic work, Moby-Dick. How did this unpromising student become one of the most inventive and observant ...
09.03.2018 158 "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien In the 1960s and '70s, the Vietnam War dominated the hearts and minds of a generation of Americans. In 1990, the American writer Tim O'Brien, himself a former soldier, published "The Things They Carried," a short story that became an ...
08.22.2018 157 Travel Books (with Mike Palindrome) "The world is a book," said Augustine, "and those who do not travel read only one page." But what about books ABOUT traveling? Do they double the pleasure? Transport us to a different place? Inspire and enchant? Or are they ...
08.15.2018 156 The Sonnet “A sonnet,” said the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “is a moment’s monument.” But who invented the sonnet? Who brought it to prominence? How has it changed over the years? And why does this form continue to be so compelling? In ...
08.09.2018 155 Plato “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition,” said Alfred North Whitehead, “is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” We’ve all heard the name of Plato and his famous mentor Socrates, and most of us ...
08.01.2018 154 John Milton John Milton (1608 - 1674) was a revolutionary, a republican, an iconoclast, a reformer, and a brilliant polemicist, who fearlessly took on both church and king. And he ranks among the greatest poets of all time, a peer of Shakespeare ...
07.25.2018 153 Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was the greatest novelist of the Victorian age. In his 58 years he went from a hardscrabble childhood to a world-famous author, beloved and admired for his unforgettable characters, his powers of observation and empathy, ...
07.18.2018 152 George Sand George Sand wrote an astonishing number of novels and plays, and had friendships and affairs with an astonishing range of men and women. She dressed in men’s clothing, and she inspired a host of 19th century authors and artists, including ...
07.11.2018 151 Viking Poetry - The Voluspa (with Noah Tetzner) The Vikings! Sure, they had helmets and hammers, but did they also have... poetry? Indeed they did! In this episode, we talk to Noah Tetzner, host of The History of Vikings Podcast, about the collection of Old Norse verses called ...
07.04.2018 150 Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog" It's a deceptively simple story: a man and a woman meet, have an affair, are separated, and reunite. And yet, in writing about Anton Chekhov's story, "The Lady with the Little Dog" (1899), Vladimir Nabokov said, "All the traditional rules ...
06.27.2018 149 Raising Readers (aka The Power of Literature in an Imperfect World) Jacke and Mike respond to an email from a listener who is about to become a father and wondering about the role of literature in the life of a young child.Works and authors discussed include J.K. Rowling, Phillip Pullman, Andrew ...
06.20.2018 148 Great Literary Hoaxes What can we count on? What do we know is true? In this episode, host Jacke Wilson takes a look at a motley crew of inventive liars who set out to fool the literary world - and often did, at ...
06.13.2018 147 Leo Tolstoy When asked to name the three greatest novels ever written, William Faulkner replied, “Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina.” Nabokov said, “When you are reading Turgenev, you know you are reading Turgenev. When you read Tolstoy, you are reading because ...
06.07.2018 146 Power Ranking the Nobel Prize for Literature The Nobel Prize for Literature has a special place in the literary landscape. We revere the prize and its winners - and yet we often find ourselves puzzled by the choices. The list of fantastic writers who never won a ...
05.31.2018 145 Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know - The Story of Lord Byron The Later Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, once described by Lady Caroline Lamb as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know," lived 36 years and became world famous, his astonishing career as a poet matched only by his astonishing record as ...
05.21.2018 144 Food in Literature (with Ronica Dhar) Food, glorious food! We all know its power for nourishment, pleasure, and comfort -- and we’ve all felt the sharp pangs of its absence. How has this essential part of being alive made its way into novels, short stories, and ...
05.14.2018 143 A Soldier's Heart - Teaching Literature at the U.S. Military Academy (with Professor Elizabeth Samet) Since ancient times, societies have used rousing lines of poetry to inspire soldiers to acts of heroism, courage, and sacrifice. But what about literature that expresses doubts about war? Or fear? Or that conveys its brutal nature? Should those works ...
05.07.2018 142 Comedian Joe Pera Talks with Us (with Joe Pera) Comedian Joe Pera has been hailed as one of the top "Comedians Under 30," "20 of the Most Innovative Comedians Working Today," and the "Cozy Sweater of Comedy." His lovable, pleasantly awkward delivery style has made him a breakout star ...
04.30.2018 141 Kurt Vonnegut (with Mike Palindrome) "The year was 2081," the story begins, "and everyone was finally equal." In this episode of the History of Literature, Jacke and Mike take a look at Kurt Vonnegut's classic short story, "Harrison Bergeron." In this 1961 story, Vonnegut imagines ...
04.23.2018 140 Pulp Fiction and the Hardboiled Crime Novel (with Charles Ardai) In 1896, an enterprising man named Frank Munsey published the first copy of Argosy, a magazine that combined cheap printing, cheap paper, and cheap authors to bring affordable, high-entertainment fiction to working-class folks. Within six years, Argosy was selling a ...
04.16.2018 139 A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka In 1922, the miserable genius Franz Kafka wrote a short story, Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist), about another miserable genius: a man whose “art” is to live in a cage and display his fasting ability to crowds that don't always ...
04.09.2018 138 Why Poetry (with Matthew Zapruder) In his new book Why Poetry, the poet Matthew Zapruder has issued "an impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for its accessibility to all readers." The poet Robert Hass says, "Zapruder on poetry is ...
04.01.2018 137 Haruki Murakami Haruki Murakami (b. 1949) is one of the rare writers who combines literary admiration with widespread appeal. Host Jacke Wilson is joined by lifelong Murakami fan Mike Palindrome to discuss what makes his novels so compelling, so mysterious, and so ...
03.23.2018 136 The Kids Are Alright (Aren't They?) - Making the Case for Literature Why does literature matter? Why read at all? Jacke Wilson takes questions from high school students and attempts to make the case for literature.Works and authors discussed include Beloved, The Great Gatsby, Shakespeare, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill ...

Older episodes

The History of Literature

What's The History of Literature about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The History of Literature episodes:

Marcel Proust

George Eliot

Samuel Beckett (with Nic Barilar)

182 Darkness and Light (with Jessica Harper)

181 David Foster Wallace (with Mike Palindrome)

180 Donald Barthelme

179 The Oscars by Decade (with Brian Price)

178 "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson (with Evie Lee)

177 Sherwood Anderson (with Alyson Hagy)

176 William Carlos Williams (The Use of Force)

175 Virgin Whore - The Virgin Mary in Medieval Literature and Culture (with Professor Emma Maggie Solberg)

174 David Foster Wallace (A Mike Palindrome Special!)

173 The Yellow Wallpaper (with Evie Lee)

172 Holiday Movies (with Brian Price)

171 To Sleep Perchance to Dream - On Writers and Death

170 Toni Morrison

169 Dostoevsky

168 Jhumpa Lahiri ("The Third and Final Continent")

167 F Scott Fitzgerald

166 Stephen King (with the Sisters of Slaughter)

165 Ezra Pound

164 Karl Marx

163 Gabriel Garcia Marquez (with Sarah Bird)

162 Ernest Hemingway

161 Voltaire

160 Ray Bradbury (with Carolyn Cohagan)

159 Herman Melville

158 "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

157 Travel Books (with Mike Palindrome)

156 The Sonnet

155 Plato

154 John Milton

153 Charles Dickens

152 George Sand

151 Viking Poetry - The Voluspa (with Noah Tetzner)

150 Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog"

149 Raising Readers (aka The Power of Literature in an Imperfect World)

148 Great Literary Hoaxes

147 Leo Tolstoy

146 Power Ranking the Nobel Prize for Literature

145 Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know - The Story of Lord Byron

144 Food in Literature (with Ronica Dhar)

143 A Soldier's Heart - Teaching Literature at the U.S. Military Academy (with Professor Elizabeth Samet)

142 Comedian Joe Pera Talks with Us (with Joe Pera)

141 Kurt Vonnegut (with Mike Palindrome)

140 Pulp Fiction and the Hardboiled Crime Novel (with Charles Ardai)

139 A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka

138 Why Poetry (with Matthew Zapruder)

137 Haruki Murakami

136 The Kids Are Alright (Aren't They?) - Making the Case for Literature

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