The History of Literature

Shakespeare's plays and poetry are some of the most towering achievements in the history of humankind. What was Shakespeare the person like? How did he work? What made him laugh? In this episode, Jacke talks to Sir Stanley Wells about his new book What Was Shakespeare Really Like? Then David Ellis (Byron: A Critical Life) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the selected poetry of Emily Dickinson, with a look at Poem 204 ("I'll tell you how the Sun rose -"). Music Credits: “⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! After taking a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #1 94 ("Title divine - is mine!"), Jacke talks to Cambridge University's Jess Cotton, whose biography of John Ashbery (John Ashbery: A Critical Life) charts Ashbery's rise from a minor avant-garde figure to the most important poet of his generation. PLUS contemporary poet David van den Berg (Love Letters from an Arsonist) stops by to offer his choice for the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke takes a look at "A Haunted House," Virginia Woolf's modernist ghost story. PLUS Ford Madox Ford biographer Max Saunders (Ford Madox Ford: A Critical Life) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Music Credits: “⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to novelist Shilpi Suneja about her childhood in India, her discovery of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, and her new novel House of Caravans, which offers its own fresh look at Indian Independence and its aftermath. Shilpi Suneja is the author of House of Caravans. Born in India, her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in Guernica, McSweeney’s, Cognoscenti, and the Michigan Quarterly Review. Her writing has been supported by a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship, a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship, a Grub Street Novel Incubator Scholarship, and she was the Desai fellow at the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. She holds an MA in English from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from Boston University, where she was awarded the Saul Bellow Prize. She lives in Cambridge, MA. Music Credits: “⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke takes a look at the life and works of eighteenth-century novelist Charlotte Lennox, whose poetry, plays, novels, and criticism earned her the approbation of the best literary minds of her day. Best known for The Female Quixote, a parody of Cervantes that later inspired Jane Austen, and Shakespear Illustrated, a pioneering feminist critique of Shakespeare's use of his sources (and frequent diminishment of his female characters), Lennox combined an active intelligence with an unusual fearlessness. PLUS Jacke talks to Camus scholars Laura Marris and Alice Kaplan, co-authors of States of Plague: Reading Camus in a Pandemic, about their choices for the last book they will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just who was F. Scott Fitzgerald? How do we make sense of his many different sides? In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer Arthur Krystal about his new book Some Unfinished Chaos: The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald. PLUS Jed Rasula (What the Thunder Said: How The Waste Land Made Poetry Modern) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Music Credits: “⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hardly anyone knows Ursula Parrott today, but not long ago she was close to being a household name. As a bestselling novelist of the Roaring Twenties and beyond, Parrott's life was filled with literature, celebrity, and scandal. In this episode, Jacke talks to Parrott's biographer Marsha Gordon (Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott) about this fascinating figure, whose racy novel Ex-Wife reads like a Jazz Age forerunner to Bridget Jones, Sex and the City, and the works of authors like Erica Jong and Nora Ephron. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro about his new book, Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future, which looks at eight contentious periods in American history to see how Shakespeare plays and performances illuminated the concerns of each era. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through Emily Dickinson's poems with Poem 165 ("I have never seen 'Volcanoes' - "). Music Credits: “⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to author William Egginton about his new book Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality, which uses the examples of three profound thinkers to explore the differences between reality "out there" and reality as we experience it. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a look at Poem 138 ("To fight aloud is very brave - "). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to Professor Maaheen Ahmed, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Comics, about the popular, multifaceted, and dynamic art form of manga, graphic novels, and other comics. PLUS Elizabeth Winkler (Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature) selects her choice for the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to author Ed Simon about his new book Heaven, Hell, and Paradise Lost, which considers Paradise Lost within the scope of Simon's alcoholism and recovery. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a look at Poem 134 ("Did the Harebell loose her girdle"). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Jacke and Mike discuss Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee's stunning 1999 novel about sex, violence, salvation, and ruin in post-apartheid South Africa. Telling the story of David Lurie, a fiftysomething professor who has fallen from grace after a sexual misconduct case involving one of his students, the novel explores themes of guilt, isolation, and the inescapability of history. PLUS a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #129 ("Our lives are Swiss"). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rome! The Eternal City! It's a place for celebrating lives both present and past - and in addition to all the art and culture and architecture and food, it's a place to think deeply about the meaning of life. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Scott Samuelson about his new book Rome as a Guide to the Good Life: A Philosophical Grand Tour, which offers a thinking person's guide to the pleasures of Rome. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke begins with a look at Emily Dickinson's poem #122, then continues (and concludes) his reading and analysis of the Henry James masterpiece, "The Altar of the Dead." Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During a horrible period of grief, literary failure, and general bewilderment, Henry James turned to art - and created some of his greatest masterpieces. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at one of James's best (and most underappreciated) stories, "The Altar of the Dead." Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke kicks things off with a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #90, then welcomes author Vanessa Riley for a discussion of her new historical novel Queen of Exiles, which tells the story of Haiti's Queen Marie-Louise Christophe. PLUS author Jolene Hubbs selects her choice for the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke and Mike take a look at the stormy Fitzgerald marriage and F. Scott Fitzgerald's fourth novel, Tender Is the Night, which many consider to be his masterpiece. (Yes, even better than Gatsby!) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke continues his Emily Dickinson series with a reading of Poem #32. Then Professor Patrick Whitmarsh stops by for a discussion of his new book Writing Our Extinction: Anthropocene Fiction and Vertical Science, which examines works by Don DeLillo, Karen Tei Yamashita, Reza Negarestani, and Colson Whitehead (among others) to see how post-Oppenheimer authors have responded to the existential crises of climate change and the nuclear age. And finally, Kurt Vonnegut's biographer Christina Jarvis selects two books to be the last ones she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to Professor Hamid Dabashi about his new book The Persian Prince: The Rise and Resurrection of an Imperial Archetype, which replaces Machiavelli's Il Principe with a bold new figurative ideal. Drawing on works from Classical Antiquity to postcolonial literature, Dabashi reveals an archetype of a Persian Prince - leader, rebel, prophet, and poet - deeply rooted in the collective memories of multiple nations, Muslim empires, and the wider Mediterranean world. PLUS Jacke starts a new series reading his way through the poems of Emily Dickinson, beginning with Poem #23. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a trip to the Big Easy! The city of New Orleans is so famous for its music, its food, and its Mardi Gras mentality that it's sometimes overlooked as a magnet for writers like Walt Whitman, Zora Neale Hurston, and William Faulkner. In this episode, Jacke talks to New Orleans scholar T.R. Johnson, author of the new book New Orleans: A Writer's City, about the neighborhoods of New Orleans and the writers who've been inspired by them. PLUS Len Webb and Vincent Williams, hosts of the podcasts The Class of 1989 and The Micheaux Mission, stop by to select the last book they will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Australia! After promising listeners an episode about Australia for years, Jacke FINALLY gets his act together - and luckily he has the perfect guest to help him out. In this episode, Australian novelist Pip Williams, who achieved international bestsellerdom with her debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, joins Jacke for a discussion of literary culture in Australia, her life as a reader and writer, and her new novel The Bookbinder. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The hits keep coming at the History of Literature Podcast! In this episode, Jacke follows up on last week's episode on Crime and Punishment with a look at the short story that literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin called "practically a complete encyclopedia of Dostoevsky's most important themes." (Don't worry if you haven't read "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" before - we read the short story as part of the episode.) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's another packed episode! First, Jacke talks to Langston Hughes scholars Vera Kutzinski and Anthony Reed about their new book, Langston Hughes in Context, which shows how Hughes was much more than just a poet of the Harlem Renaissance. PLUS Melissa Homestead, who last joined us for a look at Willa Cather and her creative partnership with Edith Lewis, selects the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"It is directly obvious," said Virginia Woolf after reading Crime and Punishment, "that [Dostoevsky] is the greatest writer ever born." In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the classic novel of murder, guilt, and redemption, including the letter Dostoevsky wrote proposing his book, a likely source for inspiration, and the two young men in Chicago who set out to prove themselves worthy of one of the novel's more nefarious propositions. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke and Mike discuss the life and works of novelist Martin Amis (1949-2023), who recently died of esophageal cancer. The son of writer Kingsley Amis, Martin forged his own path, writing fifteen novels and several other works of essays and memoirs, with a devotion to style that earned him comparisons with Joyce and Flaubert. For decades, Amis was a fixture on the Anglo-American literary scene, dominating the landscape even as his books were famously snubbed by critics and prize committees. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to Shin Yu Pai, currently the Civic Poet of Seattle, about her career as an artist and her podcast Ten Thousand Things, which explores a collection of objects and artifacts that tell us something about Asian American life. PLUS Ross Benjamin (translator of The Diaries of Franz Kafka) selects the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The words of its writers are part of the texture of Dublin, an invisible counterpart to the bricks and pavement we see around us." Exploring this synergy - between a city and its chief cultural export - is the promise of a new book called Dublin: A Writer's City (part of the Imagining Cities series). In this episode, Jacke talks to author and series editor Christopher Morash about his step-by-step examination of the stomping grounds of Joyce, Yeats, Beckett, Heaney, and many others. AND THEN Jacke talks to author John Higgs (Love and Let Die: James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche; William Blake vs. the World) about his choice for the last book he will ever read. PLUS Shin Yu Pai, the Civic Poet of Seattle and host of the podcast Ten Thousand Things, previews her appearance on the History of Literature Podcast with a reading of her poem "Virga." Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2019, journalist Elizabeth Winkler wrote an article for the Atlantic, in which she asked whether Shakespeare's plays might have been written by someone other than the man born in Stratford-upon-Avon. The backlash to her article raised a new set of questions: Why are academics - even those who acknowledge the relative lack of evidence for the Stratford man writing the plays - so reluctant to explore this question? Who gets to decide how literature is discussed and debated? And what does this need for certainty say about us as a society? In this episode, Jacke talks to Elizabeth Winkler (Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature) about how an inquiry and its backlash turned into an inquiry OF the backlash. PLUS Jacke talks to Pulitzer-winning literary biographer Megan Marshall (Margaret Fuller: A New American Life; Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast) about her choice for the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) was an American author who was, by his reckoning, seven-eighths white, though he identified as black. Rejecting the opportunity to "pass," he instead devoted his life to improving race relations through the medium of fiction. Known for his complex portrayals of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South, he has gone from being admired by his fellow writers to appreciated and studied by scholars interested in the African American experience in the decades following emancipation. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at one of his most popular stories, "The Wife of His Youth" (1898). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don DeLillo (White Noise, Underworld) is a writer's writer's writer. Often called one of the most important novelists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, his themes and style have made him one of the most highly regarded and influential writers of our time. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Jesse Kavadlo, the President of the Don DeLillo Society, about the new book he has edited, Don DeLillo in Context, which examines how geography, biography, history, media studies, culture, philosophy, and the writing process provide critical frameworks and ways of reading and understanding DeLillo's prodigious body of work. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Graduate, a 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols and based on a novel by Charles Webb, introduced the world to actor Dustin Hoffman and became one of the most beloved Hollywood comedies ever made. Telling the story of a disaffected college graduate who has an affair with an older woman and then falls in love with her daughter, the movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards (with Nichols winning for Best Director) and soon became a favorite of critics and college campuses everywhere. How does the movie hold up? Is the novel any good? Why did Roger Ebert fall out of love with it, finding it to be much less worthy at age 55 than he had thought thirty years earlier? And why did the author Charles Webb, together with the real-life inspiration for the movie's Elaine, end up destitute and living out of a VW bus? In this episode, Jacke takes a look at a classic film and what it means to grow old as art grows old too (or does it?). Music Credits: "Quirky Dog" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks mostly to the achievement and success of his Canterbury Tales, poet Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s-1400) has been called "the Father of English literature" for more than 500 years. In this episode, Jacke talks to University of Oxford Professor Marion Turner (Chaucer: A European Life; The Wife of Bath: A Biography) about what made Chaucer so special - and why his poetry is still vibrant today. PLUS Jacke talks to Lee Saunders, President of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, about a new podcast I Am Story, which retells the story of the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968, a labor struggle that rocked a city and altered our history. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late nineteenth century, a popular magazine ran a cartoon with what it called "a race problem." Tensions between black and white Americans in the postwar era? Nope. It was referring to a poor white southerner - shabby, slouching, lazy, and dumb - the kind of good-for-nothing layabout who would bring down the striving white middle class. (Think: Huck Finn's father Pap.) In this episode, Jacke talks to author Jolene Hubbs about her new book Class, Whiteness, and Southern Literature, which looks at twentieth-century middle-class white anxieties about poor whites - and how authors like Charles Chesnutt, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor worked within and against this tradition. PLUS Hemingway expert Mark Cirino of the One True Podcast joins Jacke to select the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The empress Messalina, third wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, was a ruthless, sexually insatiable schemer - or was she? But while the stories about her are wild (nightly visits to a brothel, a 24-hour sex competition), the real story is much more complex. In this episode, Jacke talks to historian Honor Cargill-Martin about her new book Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World. PLUS Jacke talks to author Robert Chandler (translator of Alexander Pushkin) about his choice for the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. called it, simply, the greatest American short story. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Ambrose Bierce and his masterpiece, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Music Credits: “⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, status, and legacy of this essential work, which celebrates its 400th birthday this year. PLUS Jacke asks Nabokov scholar Luke Parker for his choice of the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 revolutionaries, from haunting its owners as though possessed by a demonic force. Now one of the most valuable manuscripts in the world and viewed as a French national treasure, Sade's novel 120 Days of Sodom has been fascinating and repelling readers for more than two hundred years. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Joel Warner about his new book The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History. PLUS Diane Rayor, expert and translator of Sappho, joins Jacke for a discussion of the last book she would like to read. Music Credits: “⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 the trigger, hoping to end the demon's life. (The gun misfired.) But what about Sade's novels? Are those out of bounds as well? In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of the notorious French libertine, who left behind a legacy of erotic and philosophical writings that two hundred years of cultural scrubbing has still not managed to erase. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 for a conversation about her book Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 light on a work they'd been studying for years. In this episode, Jacke talks to authors Alice Kaplan and Laura Marris about their book States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic. PLUS Jacke talks to Alison Strayer, translator of French Nobel Laureate Annie Ernaux, about her choice for the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 a genre that came to be known as Southern Gothic. In this episode, Jacke talks to poet David van den Berg (Love Letters from an Arsonist) about growing up in Florida, his relationship with twentieth-century Southern Gothic literature, and how the elements of Southern Gothic have played out in his poetry. PLUS Jacke talks to entrepreneur and futurist Jason Feifer about his choice for the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, thanks to figures like C.S. Lewis and Seamus Heaney, among many others. Are there common themes uniting the Irish writers - and the Northern Irish writers in particular? How has the tumultuous history of Northern Ireland worked its way into the writings of its best novelists and poets? In this episode, Jacke talks to Alexander Poots about his new book The Strangers' House: Writing Northern Ireland. PLUS Jacke talks to author Laura Lee (Wilde Nights & Robber Barons) about her choice for the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 than they are today. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Samantha Rose Hill about her biography Hannah Arendt, part of the Critical Lives series by Reaktion Books. PLUS Jacke talks to producer, playwright, and podcast host Scott Carter about his choice for the last book he will ever read. Samantha Rose Hill is a senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and associate faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Scott Carter is an award-winning television producer (HBO, PBS) and playwright. His podcast Ye Gods discusses personal faith and ethics with a diverse roster of interfaith and non-faith celebrity guests to uncover what we believe and what we don't. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 he will ever read. ANNIE ERNAUX (The Years, Getting Lost) has written some twenty works of fiction and memoir. She is considered by many to be France's most important writer. ALISON L. STRAYER is a Canadian writer and translator. She won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Pix du live de Montreal, the Prix littéraire France-Québec, and the Man Booker International Prize. BOB BLAISDELL (Chekhov Becomes Chekhov) is Professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough College and the author of Creating Anna Karenina. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 - The Story of "Miss Grief" 320 Henry James 414 Henry James's The Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Constance and Henry - The Story of "Miss Grief" 320 Henry James 414 Henry James's The Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Romantic poet's flamboyant life and work. PLUS Ariel Lawhon, Susan Meissner, and Kristina McMorris, the bestselling authors of When We Had Wings, return for a discussion of the last books they will ever read. Additional listening suggestions: 145 Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know - The Story of Lord Byron The Brontes 446 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Early Years 471 Angels of War (with Ariel Lawon, Kristina McMorris, and Susan Meissner) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 limited-run series The Class of 1989, which focuses on six films (Harlem Nights, Lean on Me, Glory, A Dry White Season, Do the Right Thing, and Driving Miss Daisy) that helped spark a Black film renaissance. Additional listening suggestions: 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) 94 Smoke, Dusk, and Fire - The Jean Toomer Story 485 Reading Pleasures - Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Dr Tara Bynum) 103 Literature Goes to the Movies Part 1 - Great Adaptations (with Mike Palindrome) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 blackness and whiteness raised by Shakespeare's plays are often resisted. In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar Ian Smith (Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race) about the role that systemic whiteness has played on the interpretation of Shakespeare's plays. PLUS authors David Castillo and William Egginton (What Would Cervantes Do? Navigating Post-Truth with Spanish Baroque Literature) select the last books they will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 his editing of others and for his modernist classics The Good Soldier (1915) and the Parade's End tetralogy (1924-8). Who was Ford Madox Ford? What was he like as a person? Just how complicated did his personal affairs get - and how did he manage to endure them? In this episode, Jacke talks to Max Saunders, "the doyen of Ford scholars," about his biography of Ford Madox Ford. PLUS Bethanne Patrick, aka the Book Maven, chooses the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices