The History of Literature

In this episode, Professor Scott G. Bruce shares one of his favorite passages about the underworld from The Penguin Book of Hell, which he edited. Then Jacke talks to author Matthew Sturgis about his new biography, Oscar Wilde: A Life. Enjoy! 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 Podgl...

Following Jacke's discussion with Stephen Mitchell about the first Christmas, Jacke takes a look at a special letter by Rainer Maria Rilke (which Stephen Mitchell translated). In this letter, written in Rome on December 23, 1903, the famed poet explores the difference between childlike wonder and grownup concerns, working his way toward a poetic vision of God. It is, quite simply, one of the most...

Stephen Mitchell has translated or adapted some of the world's most beautiful and spiritually rich texts, including The Gospel According to Jesus, The Book of Job, Gilgamesh, Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, and The Way of Forgiveness. In his latest book, The First Christmas: A Story of New Beg...

Jacke talks to Mike Palindrome about his work on the "Tolstoy Together" project sponsored by Yiyun Li and A Public Space, along with some other thoughts about reading great books on Twitter. THEN Jacke responds to the incredible Peter Jackson film Get Back, with some thoughts about the stories we tell about the Beatles and how narratives shape our understanding who we are and how we fit in the wor...

The English novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was regarded by many as the most brilliant satirical novelist of his time. A self-proclaimed curmudgeon, for whom the Conservative Party was not conservative enough, Waugh converted to Catholicism in his twenties and never looked back. He resisted change in all areas of life, expressing the opinion that he wished he had been born two or three centuries...

Your humble podcaster-squirrel is back! Jacke considers the legacy of Charles M. Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown and Peanuts, and reflects on the difference between being "best known for" and "known for" an artistic endeavor. THEN Jacke continues the discussion of Bob Dylan and literature (is his music literature? is it not? does "poetic song verse" bridge this gap?) with Dylan's own words on the...

What happened in the Sixties? How did singers of popular music transform from mere entertainers to the poetic bards of their generation? Were these songs literature? If so, what does that mean? And if not, what exactly are they? In this episode, Jacke talks to the authors of a new book, Poetic Song Verse: Blues-Based Popular Music and Poetry about a new way of acknowledging, analyzing, and discuss...

Born into a remarkable family full of talented artists, the Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats (1865-1938) nevertheless stood out. Deeply immersed in mysticism and the occult - along with Irish politics, the development of the theater, and devotion to advancing the spirit of Ireland's native heritage - Yeats bridged the divide from the traditional verse forms of the nineteenth century...

Jacke talks to journalist Tom Roston about his new biography of Kurt Vonnegut, The Writer's Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse Five. PLUS Jacke reads excerpts from one of Vonnegut's most famous speeches, the address he gave to Agnes Scott College in 1999. Enjoy! Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podca...

Feeling grateful, Jacke rummages through the literary storage trunk to find works on gratitude by five poets and essayists: Maya Angelou, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sharon Olds, Henry David Thoreau, and W,S. Merwin. Enjoy! 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 mor...

It's a good day for cooking! First up: Scott Carter, author of the play Discord: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy, joins Jacke for a look at the gospel as updated by Leo Tolstoy. Then novelist Laurie Frankel (author of One Two Three) stops by for a special Shakespeare game. Hope you enjoy! Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofl...

During her stormy and mysterious life, Eliza Haywood (1693?-1756) was one of the most prolific writers in England. Her "amatory fictions" were unapologetically sensationalistic, earning her the opprobrium of her mostly male critics. But in spite of being described (some might say slandered) by Alexander Pope in his Dunciad, Haywood kept going - acting, writing, translating, publishing - and set ma...

In her new book Read Until You Understand, beloved professor Farah Jasmine Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art in exploring the culture of Black genius and the lessons and legacies of Black lives and literature. In this episode, Professor Griffin joins Jacke for a discussion of her father, the role literature played in her life after her father's untimely death, and the lifetime she's spent...

It's a literary feast! National bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow joins Jacke for a discussion of her novel So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix, in which four young Black sisters come of age during the American Civil War. PLUS playwright Scott Carter, author of Discord: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy, returns to the podcast to tell Jacke ab...

"I could not write a girls' story," Louisa May Alcott protested after a publisher made a specific request that she do so, "knowing little about any but my own sisters and always preferring boys." But she agreed to try, and the result was Little Women, an immediate bestseller and now a world-famous and well-loved classic. But who was this real-life Jo March? How did her father Bronson's utopian dre...

Brilliant and contentious, the Swiss-born political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (`1712-1768) is one of the key figures of the Enlightenment, with a fame and influence that continues to this day. But although we know him best for his Social Contract, which influenced both the American Constitution writers and the French revolutionaries, in his own time he was as well known for his novels Juli...

Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure Treasure Island gave the world a number of familiar pirate tropes, like parrots on shoulders and X marks the spot. But it also helped lock us into a somewhat limited view of life on the high seas. Pirates and piracy have existed in many eras in many different oceans--and not every would-be adventurer is a young English boy living in the nineteenth century...

Even the best biographical depictions of Oscar Wilde often skip over the years he spent in prison, perhaps because the episode is so sad and painful. But in doing so, they miss the profundity of his life and writings. In this episode, Scott Carter, author of the new play Wilde Man, joins Jacke to talk about Oscar Wilde's time in prison, including the writing of the agonizing masterpiece De Profund...

The American poet Dana Gioia calls Charles Baudelaire "the first modern poet," adding "In both style and content, his provocative, alluring, and shockingly original work shaped and enlarged the imagination of later poets, not only in his native France but across Europe and the Americas." In this episode, acclaimed translator and poet Aaron Poochigian joins Jacke to talk about his new translation o...

The writer, philosopher, and trailblazing feminist Mary Wollstonecraft is perhaps best known as the mother of the author of Frankenstein, but this amazing figure deserves more attention than a line in Mary Shelley's biography. As the author of classic works like Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft advanced arguments hundreds of years ahea...

Mysteries! Beloved by adults and children alike, it's hard to imagine a genre with a more universal appeal. But what makes mysteries so compelling? What is it about mysteries - and human beings, for that matter - that makes mysteries so seductive? And how do authors like Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling turn the mechanics of mystery into the highest art? Jonah Lehrer, author of the new book Mystery: A...

A special guest stops by to help Jacke talk about life, literature, and one of the world's great masterpieces: The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. Hope you 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 following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC...

As a child growing up in Newark, New Jersey in the 1930s and 40s, Philip Milton Roth (1933-2018) never thought about being a writer. By the time he died, he had become one of the most famous and celebrated figures in the literary world - though his writing and personal flaws attracted criticism as well as admiration. In this episode, Jacke and Mike discuss the life and potential legacy of Philip R...

William Sidney Porter (1862-1910) packed a lot of life into his 47 years, traveling from a childhood in North Carolina to work as a rancher and bank teller in Texas to a desperate escape to Honduras, where he hoped to avoid federal prosecution for embezzlement. Eventually he spent three years in prison, where he began writing short stories under the name "O. Henry." By the time he emerged he was n...

John Marcher has been waiting all his life for something rare and strange to happen to him - something that will leap out of the darkness and attack him like a Beast in a Jungle. His friend May Bartram has agreed to wait with him. Together, the pair have been analyzing and enduring this unusual life-situation for years...until finally the Beast appears, first to her, and then to him. In this episo...