Episodes

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 Megan Marshall, who wrote the foreword for the book, about her friend Robert and his look at three great thinkers and the resilience, growth, and creativity that can stem from devastating loss. Additional listening: 491 Elizabeth...

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 invective against Julius Caesar and other Roman notables. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Catullus, whose poetry was lost for a thousand years, but which, once recovered, became highly influential among poets for its accomplished technique and u...

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 writing and translating, some recreational pursuits - and a lot of trips to the cinema, a burgeoning art form and cultural experience that fascinated him. In this episode, Jacke talks to Luke Parker about this period of Nabokov's life, as exp...

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 for Breakfast. MEGAN MARSHALL is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for Margaret Fuller, and the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and was a f...

Introducing YE GODS WITH SCOTT CARTER

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: The McMasters Guide to Homicide. RUPERT HOLMES has received two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, and multiple Tony® and Drama Desk Awards for his Broadway mystery musicals, including the book of ...

"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 unknown until the last few years of his life, went on to influence generations of writers, artists, philosophers, and composers. In this episode, Jacke looks at the life, legacy, and worldview of this darkest of men, including some thoughts on what it...

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). CARL ROLLYSON, Professor of Journalism at Baruch College, The City University of New York, has published more than forty books ranging in subject matter from biographies of Marilyn Monroe, Lillian Hellman, Martha Gellhorn, Norman Mailer, Reb...

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 and the Beatles would become cultural juggernauts, with a reach and influence so vast that they can be hard to fathom. What have those twin phenomena meant to the British psyche? And what have they meant for the rest of the world? In this episode, Jacke talks to author John Higgs abou...

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, which was downplayed at the time and for decades afterward? In this episode, Jacke talks to Melissa J. Homestead about her book, The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather & Edith Lewis, which sheds new light on the life and works of a ...

"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 book, Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America, which finds the "joyous, if messy, humanity" in the lives and works of four canonical Black writers from the 18th and early 19th centuries. Additional listening suggestions: The Trials of Phillis ...

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 one considers the formidable political and personal obstacles Milton faced. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Stephen Dobranski about his new book, Reading John Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times. Additional listening: 154 John Milton 376 Why John Milton?...

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 North America. After finding success as an author, scholar, educator, editor, translator, journalist, and host of a famous series of "conversations," she tragically died at the age of 40 in a sea accident off the coast of Fire Island, New York. In this ...

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 1851 masterpiece. Additional listening: 481 Moby Dick - 10 Essential Questions (Part One) 474 Herman Melville 159 Herman Melville (with Mike Palindrome and Cristina Negrón) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature...

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 in the Great American Novel sweepstakes - or don't call it anything, just call the narrator Ishmael and climb aboard! In this episode, Jacke counts down 10 Essential Questions regarding Melville's (white) whale of a book. Additional listening: 474 Herman Melville 159 Herman M...

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 far our greatest modern man." In this episode, Jacke talks to Ritchie Robertson, author of Goethe: A Very Short Introduction, about the life and works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic, and supreme literary writer in a v...

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 poet's responsibility in the face of unthinkable horrors. How does a poet begin to address these subjects? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb, author of the new book Auden and the Muse of History, about Auden's use of the past to help h...

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 Schocken Books, which includes some material available in English for the first time. “Readers will welcome this new edition of the Diaries, complete, uncensored, in a fluent translation by Ross Benjamin, and supplemented with 78 pages of invaluable notes, the frui...

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 at the type of readers targeted by Wharton: not the readers of trash fiction, whom she believed were harmless enough, but the readers of serious fiction who nevertheless read fiction in the wrong way. Does it include History of Literature Podcast listeners or...

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 at the type of readers targeted by Wharton: not the readers of trash fiction, whom she believed were harmless enough, but the readers of serious fiction who nevertheless read fiction in the wrong way. Does it include History of Literature Podcast listeners or...

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 book, Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers, which provides a material history of books and the people who love them. EMMA SMITH is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University, and the author of This Is Shakespeare (2020). She lives in Oxf...

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, heralded for his early novels based on his experiences living on tropical islands with cannibals, he was nearly forgotten at the time of his death, only to be rediscovered a few decades afterward - and to become a household name for more than a hundred years. ...

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 an Italian hospital, "In Another Country." (If you haven't read the story in a while don't worry - we read it for you!) PLUS we kick off a new series on 99 random fragments of Kafka's life. NOTE: Mark's One True Podcast is planning to run an episode on "In Another Coun...

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 your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices