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/donate. Contact the show at [email protected].

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519 Shakespeare's First Fol...

06.05.2023

The compilation of Shakespeare's plays known as the First Folio is one of the most important books in the history of literature. In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar and First Folio expert Emma Smith about the origins, importance, ...

The History of Literature episodes:

06.05.2023 519 Shakespeare's First Folio (with Emma Smith) \| My Last Book with Luke Parker The compilation of Shakespeare's plays known as the First Folio is one of the most important books in the history of literature. In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar and First Folio expert Emma Smith about the origins, importance, ...
06.01.2023 518 The Curse of the Marquis de Sade - A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History (with Joel Warner) \| My Last Book with Diane Rayor Not even imprisonment could stop the Marquis de Sade from writing his insanely intense, unrelenting erotica - and not even Sade's eventual death could stop his secret manuscript, temporarily hidden in a Bastille wall to protect it from looters and ...
05.29.2023 517 The Marquis de Sade The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) was more than just a rake or a cad - based on his egregious conduct, he clearly belonged in prison, and one sympathizes with the father who aimed a pistol at Sade's chest and pulled ...
05.25.2023 516 Sappho (with Diane Rayor) When Diane Rayor was in college, a professor recommended a work by a 2600-year-old poet that changed her life. Now, after years of studying and translating the works of Sappho, the greatest woman poet in Ancient Greece, she joins Jacke ...
05.22.2023 515 The Plague by Albert Camus (with Alice Kaplan and Laura Marris) \| My Last Book with Alison Strayer What were you doing when the pandemic arose? And did you turn to The Plague by Albert Camus to help you make sense of it all? For two Camus scholars, the pandemic resonated in unexpected ways - and shed new ...
05.18.2023 514 Southern Gothic (with David van den Berg) \| My Last Book with Jason Feifer In the aftermath of a Civil War loss that shattered the region and exposed the moral and cultural fault lines in the populace, writers in the American South responded with stories filled with grotesque, macabre, and shockingly violent elements, developing ...
05.15.2023 513 The Writers of Northern Ireland (with Alexander Poots) \| My Last Book with Laura Lee The literary world has long celebrated the incredible contributions of Ireland and its writers, with a special focus on Dublin-centric writers like James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland has been quietly turning out some excellent work as well, ...
05.11.2023 512 Hannah Arendt (with Samantha Rose Hill) \| My Last Book with Scott Carter Born to a German-Jewish family in 1906, Hannah Arendt became one of the most renowned political thinkers of the twentieth century. Her works, including The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and Eichmann in Jerusalem, have never been more relevant ...
05.08.2023 511 Annie Ernaux, Winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature (with Alison Strayer) \| My Last Book with Bob Blaisdell Jacke talks to Alison Strayer, translator of several books by French author Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022. PLUS he talks to author and Chekhov expert Bob Blaisdell about his choice for the last book ...
05.04.2023 510 The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James (Part 2) Does a famous author's body of work contain a hidden meaning? Part Two of Jacke's look at the classic Henry James novella, "The Figure in the Carpet." Additional listening suggestions: 343 The Feast in the Jungle 341 Constance and Henry ...
05.01.2023 509 The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James (Part 1) Does a famous author's body of work contain a hidden meaning? With an assist from Jorge Luis Borges, Jacke explores the classic Henry James novella, "The Figure in the Carpet." Additional listening suggestions: 343 The Feast in the Jungle 341 ...
04.27.2023 508 Byron (with David Ellis) \| My Last Book with Ariel Lawhon, Susan Meissner, and Kristina McMorris The poet Lord Byron is well known as a passionate revolutionary and a brooding hero who harbors dark secrets. But what about his playful sense of humor? In this episode, Jacke talks to Byron biographer David Ellis (Byron) about the ...
04.24.2023 507 The Class of 1989 - A Special Year in Black Cinema (with Len Webb and Vincent Williams) For years, pop culture critics Len Webb and Vincent Williams have hosted the podcast The Micheaux Mission, which aims to watch and review every Black film ever released. In this episode, Jacke talks to Len and Vincent about their new ...
04.20.2023 506 Black Shakespeare (with Ian Smith) \| My Last Book with David Castillo and William Egginton For centuries, Shakespeare's works have been scrutinized by scholars and fans eager to engage with and learn from the texts. And yet, in spite of the prominence of race in today's media headlines and public discourse, the questions of racialized ...
04.17.2023 505 Ford Madox Ford (with Max Saunders) \| My Last Book with Bethanne Patrick Ford Madox Ford lived a fascinating life, surrounded by some of the most famous writers of the era: Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, Henry James, Stephen Crane, D.H. Lawrence, Jean Rhys, Ernest Hemingway, and many others. Today, he's best known for ...
04.13.2023 504 Persuasion (Book Two) (with Mike Palindrome) \| My Last Book with Juliette Bretan Persuaded by the well-meaning Lady Russell, Anne Elliot turns down prospective suitor Frederick Wentworth. Will life give her a second chance at love? And if so, can she persuade herself to take it? In this episode, Jacke talks to Mike ...
04.13.2023 503 Persuasion (Book One) (with Gina Buonaguro) What happens when we let opportunities slip past us? And what if we let others talk us out of what looks like our best chance at love? In this episode, Jacke talks to historical romance novelist Gina Buonaguro (The Virgins ...
04.10.2023 502 Persuasion by Jane Austen Harold Bloom called Persuasion "the perfect novel." Virginia Woolf said "In Persuasion, Jane Austen is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more romantic than she supposed." In this episode, the first of three parts, Jacke ...
04.06.2023 501 The Naked World (with Irina Mashinski) Irina Mashinski is a bilingual Russophone American writer, poet, essayist, teacher, and translator, whose works include Giornata and eleven books of poetry and essays in Russian. She is also the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. In this ...
04.03.2023 500 Episode 500! Meg White, Listener Emails, Johnson and Boswell, and More! (with Margot Livesey) It's Episode 500! Jacke shares some thoughts on Meg White's drumming, Boswell and Johnson, and living in Taiwan. Then author Margot Livesey (The Boy in the Field, The Flight of Gemma Hardy) joins Jacke for a discussion of some My ...
03.30.2023 499 Wilde Nights and Robber Barons (with Laura Lee) Jacke talks to author Laura Lee about her new book Wilde Nights and Robber Barons: The Story of Maruice Schwabe, the Man Behind Oscar Wilde's Downfall, Who with a Band of False Aristocrats Swindled the World. LAURA LEE is the ...
03.27.2023 498 A New Novel by a Legendary Independent Filmmaker (with John Sayles) Jacke talks to legendary independent filmmaker John Sayles (Lone Star, Passion Fish) about his new novel Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade's Journey, which tells a sweeping story of romance and revolution in eighteenth century Scotland and the New World. "Film director ...
03.23.2023 497 The Art of War by Sun Tzu By any measure, the ancient Chinese military treatise The Art of War has had an astonishing literary history, proving itself over two and a half millennia to be one of the world's most essential and enduring books. In this episode, ...
03.20.2023 496 The Wife of Bath (with Marion Turner) The Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognizably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers from Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Few literary characters have led such colorful lives or matched ...
03.16.2023 495 The Creative Spark (with Joe Skinner) How do today's masters create their art? In this episode, Jacke talks to Joe Skinner, producer and host of the podcast American Masters: Creative Spark, about the narrative interviews he's conducted with iconic artists about the creation of a single ...
03.13.2023 494 Three Roads Back - How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives (with Megan Marshall) In a final powerful book, acclaimed literary biographer Robert Richardson told the story of how Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer-prize winner ...
03.09.2023 493 Catullus - The Poet of Love and Hate He loved and he hated. Other than that, not much is known about the life of Catullus, who scandalized the late Roman Republic with his bawdy poems, his aching love for the upper-class married woman he called "Lesbia," and his ...
03.06.2023 492 Nabokov Noir (with Luke Parker) After the October Revolution in 1917, a teenaged Vladimir Nabokov and his family, part of the Russian nobility, sought exile in Western Europe, eventually settling in Berlin, where Vladimir lived for fifteen years. His life then included some politics, some ...
03.02.2023 491 Elizabeth Bishop (with Megan Marshall) Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) was one of the twentieth century's most accomplished and celebrated poets. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Megan Marshall about her personal connection to Bishop, as well as her book Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle ...
03.01.2023 Introducing YE GODS WITH SCOTT CARTER Introducing YE GODS from producer-playwright and frequent guest of History of Literature, Scott Carter. We all know that faith and ethics are recurring themes in literature from Greek mythology to Shakespeare, to the great Russian novels, Charles Dickens, Emiliy Dickinson ...
02.27.2023 490 Writing Hit Songs, Rewriting Charles Dickens, and Murdering Your Employer (with Rupert Holmes) Jacke talks to Edgar Award-winning novelist, Tony Award-winning playwright, and legendary story songwriter Rupert Holmes about writing pop song landmarks ("Escape (The Piña Colada Song))," Broadway whodunit musicals (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), and his new book Murder Your Employer: ...
02.23.2023 489 Schopenhauer (aka The Tunnel and The Hole) "It is difficult to find happiness within oneself," said the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), "but it is impossible to find it anywhere else." In spite of his pessimism - or perhaps because of it - Schopenhauer, who was virtually ...
02.20.2023 488 William Faulkner (with Carl Rollyson) Jacke talks to "serial biographer" Carl Rollyson about his new two-volume biography of William Faulkner, The Life of William Faulkner: The Past Is Never Dead, 1897-1934 (Volume 1) and The Life of William Faulkner: This Alarming Paradox, 1935-1962 (Volume 2). ...
02.16.2023 487 Bond, the Beatles, and the British Psyche (with John Higgs) On October 5, 1962, two items were released, hardly newsworthy at the time. One was Dr. No, the first James Bond film, and the other was Love Me Do, the first Beatles recording. Over the next sixty years, both Bond ...
02.13.2023 486 The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather & Edith Lewis (with Melissa J. Homestead) What was Willa Cather's life really like? Was she - as is often thought - a solitary artist, painstakingly crafting her novels about the Great Plains? Or did she actually have a robust creative partnership with another woman, Edith Lewis, ...
02.09.2023 485 Reading Pleasures - Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Dr Tara Bynum) "In the early United States, a Black person committed an act of resistance simply by reading and writing. Yet we overlook that these activities also brought pleasure." In this episode, Jacke talks to Dr. Tara A. Bynum about her new ...
02.06.2023 484 Reading John Milton (with Stephen Dobranski) John Milton is often regarded as second only to Shakespeare in the history of English verse - and his epic poem, Paradise Lost, is viewed by many as second to none. His literary achievements are all the more remarkable when ...
02.02.2023 483 Margaret Fuller (with Megan Marshall) In her lifetime, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was widely acknowledged as the best read person - male or female - in New England. Her landmark work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, is considered the first full-length treatment of women's rights in ...
01.30.2023 482 Moby Dick - 10 Essential Questions (Part Two) Is Moby-Dick truly the Great American Novel? How did contemporary critics miss it? When (and how) was the book rediscovered? Jacke goes through all this and more, as he continues the countdown of Top 10 Essential Questions about Herman Melville's ...
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 ...

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