Critical Readings

The panel analyses the use of irony in the poetic works of Stephen Crane, including selections from "War Is Kind" (1899), and discusses the development of realism and imagism in English literature, especially in poetry about the experience of war.Continue reading

The panel analyses contradiction in Melville's earliest and latest published poems: three selections from Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War--his first collection--and "Art" from Timoleon and Other Ventures, published only four months before his death.Continue reading

In a return to the works of Alexander Pope, the panel reads his "Eloisa to Abelard" in full and discusses the complexity of Eloisa's tragic circumstances: her love for Abelard, her vocation as a nun, and the suffering to which they have been subjected.Continue reading

The panel discusses the late Romantic shift in focus from nominally Christian, deified Nature to transcendental beauty in three longer works by Keats, including "The Eve of St. Agnes" and excerpts from "Endymion" and the unfinished "Hyperion".Continue reading

The panel engages in a wide-ranging discussion of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his relation to the early and late Romantic movements, his work to establish the reputation of Keats, his association with radical politics, and his own untimely death, aged 29.Continue reading

The panel begins a multi-week review of Romanticism with a review of the movement's (and the author's) effects upon poetry, including readings of three works: "Darkness", "The Destruction of Sennacherib", and excerpts from "The Bride of Abydos".Continue reading

The panel discusses the difference between verse and poetry (including whether such a difference exists), and examines three 'frosty' poems by Service, including "Pullman Porter", "The Prospector", and his famous ballad, "The Cremation of Sam McGee".Continue reading

The panel considers the role of time, colour, militarism, rhyme, repetition, meter, and other formal poetic aspects in three of the more popular and widely-anthologised poems written by Elizabeth Bishop: "Roosters", "The Fish", and "One Art".Continue reading

The panel examines the complicated irony of Philip Larkin's verse, and considers his use of poetic formalism, and themes including rebelliousness, nihilism, love, and impermanence, in "This Be the Verse", "Aubade", "An Arundel Tomb", and "Days".Continue reading

The panel continues to welcome in a new year by looking back to an old year--in this case, A.D. 1666, and Dryden's poem "Annus Mirabilis", which ruminates on the wonders of war with Holland, the Great Fire of London, and the heroic conduct of Charles II.Continue reading

As the new year dawns, the panel revisits the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the quintessential Fireside Poet, to reexamine some favourites (Excelsior, The Day Is Done) and some poems which are new to the podcast (Psalm of Life, Paul Revere's Ride).Continue reading

If it must be Donne, let it be done well! The panel reads Donne's selected poetry and prose: a Christmas sermon, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", "The Flea", and selections from both "La Corona" and "Holy Sonnets".Continue reading

The panel considers the scholarly consensus that Marvell is poetically and politically ambiguous by reading "To His Coy Mistress", "Clorinda and Damon", "A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body", and "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland".Continue reading

The panel continues a survey of English Civil War poetry with a look at Robert Herrick's deliberately contradictory verses, including his Hesperides, and the famous Carpe Diem poems "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" and "Corinna's Going a Maying".Continue reading

The panel examines the poetical works of George Herbert, discussing the Christian theological implications found in the language of three of his lyric poems, each of which is composed on a religious topic: "Prayer (2)", "Divinity", and "Love (3)".Continue reading

The panel examines selected verse of American fire-side poet James Russell Lowell, with a brief survey including some light verse on cigars and seasons, and some more serious writing on nautical themes featuring sirens, seaweed, and ocean-side lyres.Continue reading

The panel reviews the biography of, and some selected works by, the twentieth-century poet Robert Lowell, including his "Falling Asleep over the Aeneid", "Memories of West Street and Lepke", and "Four Spanish Sonnets", with special attention to form.Continue reading

The panel reviews five poems selected from Wallace Stevens' debut collection, Harmonium, and considers the role of Stevens within the larger context of the poetic development of the Romantic movement into its fulfilment with the advent of Modernism.Continue reading

The panel reads Book I of Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad, discusses Pope's approach contextually, compares that approach to the modern translations of Fitzgerald and Fagles (amongst others), and considers theoretical commentary on translations.Continue reading

The panel examines the biography of John Masefield before reading and examining excerpts from his Arthurian cycle, Midsummer Night, with special attention on the unique aspects of Masefield's recasting of traditional Arthurian mythological elements.Continue reading

The panel reviews the epilogue-like Mutabilitie Cantos of the Faerie Queene, reviewing scholarly opinion about their place in the whole poem, and considering the interrelations of the Greco-Roman pantheon to Nature, Time, and the Judeo-Christian God.Continue reading

The panel reviews the second half of Spenser's book of courtesy, with attention given to the scholarly view of C. S. Lewis, Northrop Frye, and others, that Courtesy represents the central portion of the poem and that it is the essential Spenserian virtue.,Continue reading

The panel examines the first half of Spenser's book of courtesy, reading its depictions in the light of the historical development of chevalrie/chivalry and courtoise/courtesy, and comparing its depiction of characters to those found in other Arthuriana.Continue reading

The panel examines historical criticism of Book V, with particular attention to the mid-twentieth-century development of a moral-allegorical reading in contrast to the earlier historical reading, and considers how the two might best be combined.Continue reading

The full panel convenes to discuss Spenser's approach to justice in Book V, with attention given to the challenges Artegall's Solomon-like judgement faces--a dispute between knights, a giant of revolution, and ultimately the Amazon queen Radigund herself.Continue reading

The panel concludes the book of friendship with an examination of the character of Sclaunder, and an account of Spenser's planned poetic cartography--Epithalmion Thamesis--intended to give all the rivers of Britain 'their right names and right passage'.Continue reading

The panel turns its attention to the Book of Friendship, sometimes described as the 'least interesting' of the sections, and discusses whether it has been unfairly maligned or whether Spenser's intentions can explain the book's perceived deficiencies.Continue reading

The panel addresses a reader question before turning to Book III's unwholesome delights and the means by which the virtuous refuse them and the sinful fall prey to them, with special attention to the conduct of Hellenore, Malbecco, and the satyrs.Continue reading

The panel adds a new member, and begins a discussion of the first half of The Faerie Queene, Book III, by focusing on the character of Britomart, her historical and mythological characterisation, potential allegorical connexions, and chivalric impact.Continue reading

The panel reviews the second half of Book II of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, with particular attention shown to the allegorical representation of the seven deadly sins and the means by which they can be overcome through the virtue of temperance.Continue reading

The panel reviews selections from the first six cantos of Book II of Spenser's Faerie Queene, with particular attention to Guyon's interactions with Belphoebe (and her connexion to Diana and Venus), the character of Palmer, and the return of Archimago.Continue reading

The panel examines the second half of the first book of The Faerie Queene, with particular attention to the foundations of textual analysis, demonstrating readings grounded in the texts themselves and in the material and tropes available to the author.Continue reading

The panel welcomes two additional experts to begin a several-month-long survey of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene in its entirety, in this episode examining Spenser's personal history, his letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, and the first half of Book I.Continue reading

The panel discusses two of Robert Frost's best-known nature poems, including "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", and their common misreadings, before discussing the unusually urban setting of his "Acquainted with the Night".Continue reading

The panel bridges McGonagall's Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay to a discussion of twentieth-century poet laureate John Betjeman, who had an abiding fascination for railway buildings both architecturally and as a connecting point for human experiences.Continue reading

In the first podcast of April, the panel examines the work of a truly exceptional poet--the unparalleled and indefatigable William Topaz McGonagall--and discusses three of his poems related to the Tay Bridge (near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green).Continue reading

After a brief delay, the panel concludes its review of Eliot's Four Quartets with a discussion of Little Gidding, focusing on its cyclicality, pentecostal imagery, connexions to Dante's Commedia, and what the poem suggests about the communion of saints.Continue reading

The panel examines 'The Dry Salvages' (rhymes with 'assuages'), the third of Eliot's Four Quartets, and ponders over the speaker's shift away from temporal considerations and towards intercessory prayer and overtly Christian theological symbolism.Continue reading

The panel examines 'East Coker', the second of Eliot's Four Quartets, with particular attention to the poet's developing understanding about the search for meaning in life, the connexion to ancestral history, and the necessity of identifying a telos.Continue reading

The panel begins a four-week reading of T. S. Eilot's 'Four Quartets', beginning with 'Burnt Norton', and with particular attention to the ways in which the poem develops the ideas of the Eternal Present and the human experience of the passage of time.Continue reading

The panel concludes its two-week survey of Irish poets, ending with Peter Fallon's 'The Old Masters', Patrick Kavanagh's 'Address to an Old Wooden Gate', and Seamus Heaney's 'Fosterling'.Continue reading

The panel begins a two-week survey reading Irish poets, beginning with William Allingham's 'The Fairies', James Joyce's 'A Prayer', and Louis MacNeice's 'Prayer before Birth'.Continue reading

The panel reads three poems by Thomas Hardy (including some with an appropriately hibernal theme), discusses Hardy's role in contemporary literature, and plans some short story readings for the summer, along with one especially long poem.Continue reading

The panel considers multiple, potentially competing, readings of three poems from the early, middle, and late work of W. B. Yeats, covering three of his poetic interests: faerie, Irish political events, and a longing for spiritual engagement.Continue reading

The panel examines three poems by W. H. Auden, including his much-anthologised and potentially ironic 'Funeral Blues', the literary biography 'A Thanksgiving', and the seasonally-appropriate conclusion to 'For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio'.Continue reading

The panel reads and surveys three poems by Longfellow: 'The Cross of Snow', 'The Day Is Done', and 'Excelsior', and makes a case for Longfellow's narrative and emotive expression, in contrast to modern critical demands for abstraction and complexity.Continue reading

The panel looks at three poems by Dickinson (nos. 280, 311, and 712) which all centre on a theme of mortality and endings, and discusses their important relevance to modern life, with its focus on perpetual youth and its delusions of immortality.Continue reading

The panel examines four poems by William Blake from Songs of Innocence (Night, The Chimney Sweeper) and Songs of Experience (The Chimney Sweeper, A Poison Tree), and discusses Blake's mysticism, child-like wonder, and poetic depictions of Christianity.Continue reading

The panel examines 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and 'Ode to a Nightingale' by Keats, focusing on the role of transience, mortality, stasis, truth, beauty, and nature--and imagining whether Keats frames his poems within an 'epistemology of aesthetics'.Continue reading

The panel discusses two 'sleep poems' of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: "Sleepless Dreams" from The House of Life, and the early poem "My Sister's Sleep", with special attention, for composition purposes, given to the formal structure of the two poems.Continue reading