Critical Readings

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