Nature in Crisis: ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson London Review of Books (LRB) 2026-09-22 | Nature in Crisis: ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson
If God is a snail: Angela Carter on food in the London Review of Books London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-04-10 | In her writing about food for the London Review of Books in the 1980s, Angela Carter found a potent subject for her unique combination of savage wit and political commentary. In the ‘piggery triumphant’ of modern foodism she saw a ‘hysterical new snobbery’ in which a kirsch roulade is photographed according to the conventions of pornography. In the history and origins of the potato – that ‘godless vegetable’ – she describes a long and turbulent story of imperialism and class politics. And in the cookery writing of Elizabeth David, Patience Gray and others, she found a rich literary form that, much like folk and fairy tales, had been unfairly neglected.In this film, Marco Alessi revisits these pieces and, with Susannah Clapp and Edmund Gordon, explores their humour, style and intellectual background.Read the pieces:Noovs' hoovs in the trough: lrb.me/carteryt1Wolfing it: lrb.me/carteryt2Potatoes and Point: lrb.me/carteryt3ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Human Conditions: ‘The Human Condition’ by Hannah Arendt London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-04-09 | In the fourth episode of Human Conditions, the last of the series with Judith Butler, we fittingly turn to The Human Condition (1956). Hannah Arendt defines action as the highest form of human activity: distinct from work and labour, action includes collaborative expression, collective decision-making and, crucially, initiating change. Focusing on the chapter on action, Judith joins Adam to explain why they consider this approach so innovative and incisive. Together, they discuss Arendt’s continued relevance and shortcomings, The Human Condition’s many surprising and baffling turns, and the transformative power of forgiveness.This conversation was recorded in December 2023.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytJudith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, ‘The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon’.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: • Close Readings Running in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryABOUT THE LRBThe LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
On Satire: The Earl of Rochester London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-04-04 | According to one contemporary, the Earl of Rochester was a man who, in life as well is in poetry, ‘could not speak with any warmth, without repeated Oaths, which, upon any sort of provocation, came almost naturally from him.’ It’s certainly hard to miss Rochester's enthusiastic use of obscenities, though their precise meanings can sometimes be obscure. As a courtier to Charles II, his poetic subject was most often the licentiousness and intricate political manoeuvring of the court’s various factions, and he was far from a passive observer. In this episode Clare and Colin consider why Restoration England was such a satirical hotbed, and describe the ways in which Rochester, with a poetry rich in bravado but shot through with anxiety, transformed the persona of the satirist.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytColin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Political Poems: Easter 1916 by W.B. Yeats London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-03-28 | Yeats’s great poem about the uprising of Irish republicans against British rule on 24 April 1916 marked a turning point in Ireland’s history and in Yeats's career. Through four stanzas Yeats enacts the transfiguration of the movement’s leaders – executed by the British shortly after the event – from ‘motley’ acquaintances to heroic martyrs, and interrogates his own attitude to nationalist violence. Mark and Seamus discuss Yeats’s reflections on the value of political commitment, his embrace of the role of national bard and the origin of the poem’s most famous line.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.Listen ad free and to all our subscriber series in full:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytRead more in the LRB:Terry Eagleton: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n13/terry-eagleton/spookyColm Tóibín:lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n07/colm-toibin/after-i-am-hanged-my-portrait-will-be-interestingFrank Kermode:lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n06/frank-kermode/what-he-didTom Paulin:lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n06/tom-paulin/dreadful-sentimentsABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients II: Herodotus London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-03-25 | Some of the most compelling stories of the Classical world come from Herodotus‘ Histories, an account of the Persian Wars and a thousand things besides. Emily and Tom chart a course through Herodotus‘ history-as-epic, discussing how best to understand his approach to history, ethnography and myth. Exploring a work full of surprising, dramatic and frequently funny digressions, this episode illustrates the artfulness and deep structure underpinning the Histories, and, despite his obvious Greek bias, Herodotus‘ genuine interest in and respect for cultural difference.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford
Medieval LOLs: Old English Riddles London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-03-18 | Riddles are an ancient and universal form, but few people seem to have enjoyed them more than English Benedictine monks. The Exeter Book, a tenth century monastic collection of Old English verse, builds on the riddle tradition in two striking ways: first, the riddles don’t come with answers; second, they are sexually suggestive. Were they intended to test the moral purity of the reader? Are they simply mischievous rhetorical exercises? Mary and Irina read some of them and consider why Anglo-Saxon culture was so obsessed with the enigmatic.Listen ad free and to all our Close Readings series in full, including Irina and Mary's 12-part series 'Medieval Beginnings':Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusyt ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Human Conditions: Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-03-10 | Begun as a psychiatric dissertation, Frantz Fanon’s ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ (1952) became a genre-shattering study of antiblack racism and its effect on the psyche. At turns expressionistic, confessional, clinical, sharply satirical and politically charged, the book is dazzlingly multivocal, sometimes self-contradictory but always compelling. Judith Butler and Adam Shatz, whose biography of Fanon was released in January, chart a course through some of the most explosive and elusive chapters of the book, and show why Fanon is still essential reading.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytJudith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: • Close Readings Running in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryABOUT THE LRBThe LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
On Satire: Ben Jonsons Volpone London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-03-04 | What did English satirists do after the archbishop of Canterbury banned the printing of satires in June 1599? They turned to the stage. Within months of the crackdown, the same satirical tricks Elizabethans had read in verse could be enjoyed in theatres. At the heart of the scene was Ben Jonson, who for many centuries has maintained a reputation as the refined, classical alternative to Shakespeare, with his diligent observance of the rules extracted from Roman comedy.In this episode, Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell argue that this reputation is almost entirely false, that Jonson was as embroiled in the volatile and unruly energies of late Elizabethan London as any other dramatist, and nowhere is this more on display than in his finest play, 'Volpone'.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytColin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Pankaj Mishra: The Shoah after Gaza London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-03-01 | A powerful Western narrative holds the Shoah to be the incomparable crime of the modern era. But we find our moral and political consciousness profoundly altered when Israel, a country founded as a haven for the victims of genocidal racism, is itself charged with genocide. What is the fate of universal values after Israel’s collapse into violent nationalism?Pankaj Mishra delivered his lecture as part of the LRB's Winter Lecture series at St James's Church, Clerkenwell, London on 28 February 2024.Read the lecture here: lrb.me/mishrawlytPankaj Mishra is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and the author of 'Age of Anger', among other books. Subscribe to the LRB for just £1 per issue: lrb.me/ytsub ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Political Poems: W.H. Audens Spain 1937 London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-02-28 | In their second episode, Mark and Seamus look at W.H. Auden's, ‘Spain’. Auden travelled to Spain in January 1937 to support the Republican efforts in the civil war, and composed the poem shortly after his return a few months later to raise money for Medical Aid for Spain. It became a rallying cry in the fight against fascism, but was also heavily criticised, not least by George Orwell, for the phrase (in its first version) of ‘necessary murder’. Mark and Seamus discuss the poem’s Marxist presentation of history, its distinctly non-Marxist language, and why Auden ultimately condemned it as ‘a lie’.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.Listen ad free and to all our subscriber series in full:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytRead more in the LRB:Seamus Heaney: Sounding Auden: lrb.me/heaneyaudencrytAlan Bennett: The Wrong Blond: lrb.me/bennettaudencrytSeamus Perry: That's what Wystan sayslrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n09/seamus-perry/that-s-what-wystan-saysABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients II: Aesop London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-02-26 | Supposedly an enslaved man from sixth-century Samos, Aesop might not have ever really existed, but the fables attributed to him remain some of the most widely read examples of classical literature. A fascinating window into the ‘low’ culture of ancient Greece, the Fables and the figure of Aesop appear in the work of authors as diverse as Aristophanes, Plato and Phaedrus, serving new purposes in new contexts. Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones discuss how Aesop’s fables as we know them came to be, make sense of their moral contradictions and unpack some of the fables that are most opaque to modern readers.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsyt ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval LOLs: The Colloquies of Aelfric Bata London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-02-18 | All teachers know that the best way for students to learn a language is through swear words, and nobody knew this better than Aelfric Bata, a monk from Winchester whose Colloquies, compiled in around the year 1000, instructed pupils to swear in Latin with elaborate and vivid fluency. Mary and Irina work through some of Aelfric’s fruitier dialogues, and ask whether his examples can be taken purely in good humour.Listen ad free and to all our Close Readings series in full, including Irina and Mary's 12-part series 'Medieval Beginnings':Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusyt ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Human Conditions: ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-02-10 | Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz to discuss a landmark in feminist thought, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). Dazzling in its scope, The Second Sex incorporates anthropology, psychology, historiography, mythology and biology to ask an ‘impossible’ question: what is a woman? Focusing on three key chapters, Adam and Judith navigate this dense and dizzying book, exploring the nuances of Beauvoir’s original French phrasing and drawing on Judith’s own experiences teaching and writing about the text. They discuss the book’s startling relevance as well as its stark limitations for contemporary feminism, Beauvoir’s refusal to call herself a philosopher, and the radical possibilities released by her claim that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytJudith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon. ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
On Satire: John Donnes Satires London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-02-04 | In the second episode of 'On Satire', Colin and Clare look at the dense, digressive and often dangerous satires of John Donne and other poets of the 1590s. It’s likely that Donne was the first Elizabethan author to attempt formal verse satires in the vein of the Roman satirists, and they mark not only the chronological start of his poetic career, but a foundation of his whole way of writing. Colin and Clare place the satires within Donne’s life and times, and explain why the secret to understanding their language lies in the poet's use of the ‘profoundly unruly parenthesis’.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytColin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.Read more on John Donne in the LRB:Catherine Nicholson: Who was John Donne?lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n02/catherine-nicholson/batter-my-heartBlair Worden: Donne and Milton's Proselrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n12/blair-worden/things-the-king-liked-to-hearTobias Gregory: Lecherous Goateslrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n20/tobias-gregory/lecherous-goates ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryABOUT THE LRBThe LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Political Poems: Andrew Marvells An Horatian Ode upon Cromwells Return from Ireland London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-01-31 | In the first episode of their new Close Readings series on political poetry, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’ by Andrew Marvell, described by Frank Kermode as ‘braced against folly by the power and intelligence that make it possible to think it the greatest political poem in the language’.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.Further reading in the LRB:Blair Worden: Double Tongued: lrb.me/wordenppytFrank Kermode: Hard Labour: lrb.me/kermodeppytDavid Norbrook: Political Verse: lrb.me/norbrookppytListen ad free and to all our subscriber series in full: Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients II: Hesiod London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-01-24 | Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones kick off their second season of Among the Ancients with a return to the eighth century BCE, exploring the poems of Homer’s near contemporary, Hesiod, the first western writer to craft a poetic persona. In Works and Days, brilliantly translated by A.E. Stallings, Hesiod weaves his personality into a narrative that encompasses everything from brotherly bickering to cosmic warfare. Emily and Tom unpack this wildly entertaining window into Ancient Greek life, and discuss how Stallings’s translation highlights the humour and linguistic flavour of the original text.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval LOLs: Chaucers Millers Tale London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-01-17 | Were the Middle Ages funny? Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley begin their quest for the medieval sense of humour with Chaucer’s 'Miller’s Tale', a story that is surely still (almost) as funny as when it was written six hundred years ago. But who is the real butt of the joke? Mary and Irina look in detail at the mechanics of the plot and its needless but pleasurable complexity, and consider the social significance of clothes and pubic hair in the tale.Listen ad free and to all our Close Readings series in full:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusyt ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Human Conditions: Anti-Semite and Jew by Jean-Paul Sartre London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-01-14 | Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz for the first episode of Human Conditions to look at Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1946 book 'Anti-Semite and Jew', originally published in French as 'Réflexions Sur La Question Juive'. Sartre’s ‘portraits’ of the ‘anti-Semite’ and the ‘Jew’, as he saw them, caused controversy at the time for directly confronting anti-Jewish bigotry in France and how Jewish people had been treated under the Vichy government and before the war.Judith and Adam discuss Sartre’s attempt to develop a philosophical understanding of this kind of hatred and the apparent moral satisfaction it brings, and his contentious suggestion that not only does the anti-Semite owe his identity to the Jew, but that 'the Jew' is a creation of the anti-Semitic gaze. They also consider some of the criticisms levelled at the book, such as its focus on the bourgeois personality, and Sartre’s definition of Jews in entirely negative terms.NOTE: This episode was recorded on 5 October 2023.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytJudith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley.Adam Shatz is the the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, 'The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon'.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
On Satire: What is satire? London Review of Books (LRB) 2024-01-04 | Clare and Colin begin their twelve-part series on satire with the big question: what is satire? Where did it come from? Is it a genre, or more of a style, or an attitude? They then plunge into their first text, The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus, a prose satire from 1511 that lampoons pretty much the whole of sixteenth century life in the voice of Folly herself. This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytColin Burrow and Clare Bucknell are both fellows of All Souls College, Oxford.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: Elizabeth Bowens short stories London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-31 | In the final episode of the Long and Short, we turn to Elizabeth Bowen, widely considered one of the finest writers of the short story. Mark and Seamus unpack ‘the Bowen effect’ and her singularly haunting style: subtle social commentary cut through with humour, and occasionally outright romanticism. A culmination of the short fiction explored in this series, Bowen’s work proves that life ‘with the lid on’ can be just as exhilarating, moving and funny as any sensationalist story.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytFurther reading in the LRB:John Bayley: lrb.me/bayleybowenpodDavid Trotter: lrb.me/trotterbowenpodTessa Hadley: lrb.me/hadleybowenpodABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Seneca London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-31 | For the final episode in Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at Seneca, whose life is relatively well known to us. A child of the established Roman Empire, born around the same time as Jesus, Seneca had turbulent relationships with the emperors of his time: exiled by Caligula, he returned to tutor the young Nero, but was eventually forced to commit suicide after being accused of a treasonous plot. For a long time, Seneca the Philosopher was often assumed to be a different person from Seneca the Tragedian, as they seemed such different writers. As a philosopher, he is the main source of what we know about Roman Stoicism, which prioritises virtue and the dispelling of false beliefs. Seneca's dramas, however, are full of extreme emotions and violence. Emily and Tom focus on two of these tragedies, Thyestes and Trojan Women, and consider how the two sides of Seneca fit together.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-31 | In the final episode of the Long and Short, we turn to Elizabeth Bowen, widely considered one of the finest writers of the short story. Mark and Seamus unpack ‘the Bowen effect’ and her singularly haunting style: subtle social commentary cut through with humour, and occasionally outright romanticism. A culmination of the short fiction explored in this series, Bowen’s work proves that life ‘with the lid on’ can be just as exhilarating, moving and funny as any sensationalist story.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Iliad: Emily Wilson, Juliet Stevenson, Tobias Menzies and Edith Hall London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-22 | Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey, published in 2017, the first into English by a woman, was hailed as a ‘revelation’ by the New York Times and a ‘cultural landmark’ by the Guardian. With her translation of the Iliad, ten years in the making, she has given us a complete Homer for a new generation. In her hands, this thrilling, magical and often horrifying tale now gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes, in crisp but resonant language that evokes the poem’s deep pathos and reveals palpably real, ‘complicated’ characters – both human and divine.In this event recorded at Conway Hall, London, on 2 October 2023, Wilson discusses her work with Edith Hall, professor at Durham University, and Juliet Stevenson and Tobias Menzies read passages from her new translation.Wilson, professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is a regular contributor to the LRB and the host of one of our Close Readings series of podcasts, Among the Ancients. She will be in conversation with Edith Hall, professor at Durham University and the author of many acclaimed books on Ancient Greek culture and its influence on modernity. The event will be chaired by Wilson’s Close Readings co-host, the LRB’s Thomas Jones.Find out about Close Readings here: lrb.me/plusytListen to a free version of Close Readings here: lrb.me/crytABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: Alice Oswalds Dart and Memorial London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-21 | The eleventh episode of the Long and Short brings us to the present day and the distant past, as we turn to two multivocal, monumental poems by Alice Oswald. The dazzlingly polyphonic Dart (2002) celebrates the voices of the river Dart, and the people, animals and supernatural forces entwined with it. Memorial (2011) translates and transfigures the Iliad, stripping back the narrative to reveal the epic’s ‘bright unbearable reality’. Mark and Seamus explore the thematic throughlines in Oswald’s work, unpicking allusions and influences at play in these poems.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Ovid London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-21 | Ovid was perhaps the most prolific poet of Ancient Rome, certainly in the amount of his poetry which has survived (around 30,000 lines). This episode focuses on his 15-book epic, the Metamorphoses, a patchwork of hundreds of stories of transformation, including numerous retellings of famous myths from Apollo and Daphne to the Trojan War.Emily and Tom consider the poem’s depictions of trauma, redemption and the transformation of gender roles, and the formal practices which shape the poetry, such as declamatio and suasoria. They also ask how Ovid’s writing in the time of Emperor Augustus affected his work, and the circumstances around his later exile from Rome.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: The Digby Mary Magdalene Play London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-21 | For sheer scale and spectacle, surely few plays of any period can match The Digby Play of Mary Magdalene. Boasting at least fifty speaking parts, with multiple locations, scaffolds and pyrotechnics, including an ascent into heaven, this wildly ambitious piece of late Medieval theatre mixes traditional hagiographic drama with magical adventure, romance and broad comedy. For audiences of the time this was not just entertainment, but a profound social and religious experience which, despite its fantastical elements and radical departure from the gospel stories, reflected important moments in their daily lives. Irina and Mary try to make sense of the outlandish plot, how it might have been staged, and the complex, composite figure of Mary Magdalene.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytIrina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: Nella Larsen and Langston Hughes London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-20 | In the tenth episode of the series, Seamus and Mark turn to two figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nella Larsen’s ‘Passing’ is taut, tense and tartly stylish take on the Jamesian short story, redolent with ironies and ambiguities, and feels just as relevant today. Widely considered his masterwork, Langston Hughes’s ‘Montage of a Dream Deferred’ draws on the modernist tradition, a documentarian sensibility and the freedoms of bebop to capture the multiplicity of Harlem voices.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Horace London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-20 | Emily and Tom follow Virgil with one of his contemporaries, Horace, whose poetry played an important political role in the early years of Augustan Rome and has had an enormous influence on subsequent European lyric verse. They consider the original meanings of some of Horace’s famous phrases – carpe diem, in medias res, nunc est bibendum – and look at the ways his often complex poetics interrogate the art and value of poetry itself.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: Middle English Lyrics London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-20 | From the first recorded instance of the word ‘fart’ in English, to nuanced vignettes of sexual power dynamics, the numerous Middle English lyrics that have survived down the centuries, often scribbled in the margins of more ‘serious’ texts, offer a vivid snapshot of everyday medieval life. In the tenth episode of Medieval Beginings, Irina and Mary analyse several of these short, fleeting verses, probably set to music, and consider their possible origins and purpose, their delicious ambiguity, and their equivocal relationship to the sacred manuscripts in which they've been found.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytIrina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.Some of the lyrics discussed in this episode can be found with music online:Sumer is icumen in:luminarium.org/medlit/medlyric/cuckou.phpI Have a Yong Susterluminarium.org/medlit/medlyric/suster.phpMaiden in the morluminarium.org/medlit/medlyric/maideninthemoor.php ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: Ted Hughess Gaudete London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-19 | Originally conceived as a film script, 'Gaudete' is Ted Hughes’s apocalyptic vision of an English village in the throes of pagan forces. While it may be ‘the weirdest poem by a very weird poet’, as Mark puts it in this episode, 'Gaudete' shines a light on many Hughesian preoccupations and paved the way for his best-selling collection, Birthday Letters. A strange fusion of Twin Peaks and Midsomer Murders, 'Gaudete' is the former Poet Laureate at his most uninhibited and brilliant.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.ABOUT CLOSE READINGSClose Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0KRunning in 2024:ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare BucknellHUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes EdwardsAMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesPlus two bonus series:MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyPOLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark FordAlso included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas JonesMEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary WellesleyTHE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus PerryMODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Virgil London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-19 | In the ninth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom arrive at Virgil, focusing on his 12-book epic the Aeneid, which describes the wanderings of the Trojan prince Aeneas after the fall of Troy. They discuss the political background to Virgil’s life, which saw the fall of the Roman Republic, and the complex, ambiguous space his poetry inhabits, blending the mythical and historical, the geographical and imaginary, while interrogating the costs of empire and triumph in his own time.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: Troilus and Criseyde London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-19 | Chaucer’s 14th century tale of ‘double sorrow’, Troilus and Criseyde, set during the siege of Troy, is the subject of Irina and Mary’s ninth episode of Medieval Beginnings. Based largely on Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato, Chaucer’s novelistic long poem displays a psychological realism that would make Henry James envious, and, with the matchmaker-uncle Pandarus, introduces a character of startling and often perplexing opacity.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytIrina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: James Joyces Dubliners London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-18 | James Joyce wrote most of the short stories in his landmark collection, Dubliners, when he was still in his 20s, but a tortuous publishing history, during which printers refused or pulped them for their profanity, meant they weren’t published until 1914, when Joyce was 33. In their eighth episode, Mark and Seamus discuss the astonishing confidence of Joyce’s early work, which not only launched his literary career, but also initiated the grand project of his writing life. In Dubliners, the reader experiences already the vastness of Joyce’s literary imagination, his harsh criticism of the Catholic Church, his shameless plundering of the lives of his contemporaries, and a writer’s self-conscious vocation to ‘forge the uncreated conscience of his race’.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus lrb.me/plusytFurther reading in the LRB:Terry Eagleton: lrb.me/eagletonjoyceytColm Tóibín: lrb.me/toibinjoyceytSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Lucretius London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-18 | In their eighth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at a contemporary of Catullus, Lucretius, and the only poem we have from him, De rerum natura (The Nature of Things), which sets out ideas about how to live one’s life based on the Epicurean philosophical tradition, embracing friends, gardens, materialism and moderation.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-18 | In this episode of Medieval Beginnings, Irina and Mary jump to the 14th century for an introspective Arthurian romance about a knight trying to live up to his perfect reputation. The mysterious and intricate Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is perhaps best understood as a series of games within games, in which our hero, a recurring character throughout medieval literature, is never sure what adventure he’s playing.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytIrina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’ London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-16 | Seamus and Mark step into the counterculture with two long poems, ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’, by Allen Ginsberg, a Beat poet-celebrity with a utopian vision for an America rescued from its corrupted institutions and vested interests. Seamus and Mark discuss some of Ginsberg’s influences – including Whitman, Carlos Williams, O’Hara and Blake – and the far-reaching impact of his work, as well as Mark’s own experiences meeting the poet.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Catullus London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-16 | For the second half of their Among the Ancients series, Emily and Tom move to Ancient Rome, starting with the late Republican poet Catullus. Described by Tennyson, somewhat misleadingly, as ‘the tenderest of Roman poets’, Catullus combined a self-conscious technical virtuosity with a broad emotional range and a taste for paradox, often using obscene diction to skirt across the boundaries of gender and aesthetics.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: Havelok the Dane London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-16 | In their seventh episode of Medieval Beginnings, Irina and Mary continue their run of Romances with the Middle English Havelok the Dane, a double Cinderella story of sex, fishing and surprisingly graphic violence, written at the end of the 13th century and set in a pre-Conquest, legendary English past.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytIrina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: D. H. Lawrences short stories London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-15 | Controversial, compulsive, charismatic: D.H. Lawrence continues to exert an undeniable magnetism through his novels and poetry. But, as Mark argues in this episode, the quintessential Lawrence lies in his shorter fiction. Focusing on five stories that span Lawrence’s career, Mark and Seamus discuss the strange mix of uninhibitedness and meticulous detail that make Lawrence’s work essential reading.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Aristophanes London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-15 | In their sixth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom discuss the comedies of Aristophanes, in particular Clouds and Lysistrata. How did an Aristophanes comedy differ from a satyr play? Was he a conservative or a radical? And what happened to comedy after Aristophanes?This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: Le Roman de Silence London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-15 | For the sixth episode in their Medieval Beginnings series, Mary and Irina go full Romance with one of the most elaborate and surprising narrative poems in medieval literature, Le Roman de Silence, a complex, 13th-century Old French tale about gender, power and transformation.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytIrina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: Hart Cranes The Bridge London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-14 | In their fifth episode, Mark and Seamus reach their first 20th century poet of the series, the Ohio-born, New York-loving ad man Hart Crane, and his epic 1930 work The Bridge. Directly inspired by The Waste Land, The Bridge sought to address modernity, as Eliot had done, with all its conflicts, contradictions and difficulties, but infuse it with a Whitman-esque expression of American greatness.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytFurther reading in the LRB: Adam Phillips: lrb.me/hartcranepodSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Euripides London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-14 | Euripides was the youngest of the fifth-century Athenian tragedians, and is often described as the most radical. But how daring was he? How far did he push the boundaries of dramatic form? Focusing on Medea and Hippolytus, Emily and Tom discuss the ways Euripides sought to shock his audiences, make them laugh, and explore their anxieties in a time of cultural change.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: The Lais of Marie de France London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-14 | If a Middle Ages full of castles, jousts, hawking, illicit love affairs and playful singing in the meadows is what you’re looking for, then look no further than the Lais of Marie de France. These 12th century love stories, written in Anglo-Norman by a writer who was unusually keen to make her name known, describe noble stories of passion, devotion, betrayal, self-sacrifice and magical transformations played out in enchanted woodlands and richly-draped chambers.Irina and Mary discuss Marie’s various portrayals of love, her luscious powers of description, and the frequent deployment of animals in her stories to expose and resolve human problems.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytIrina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: Katherine Mansfields short stories London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-13 | In episode four of The Long and Short, Mark and Seamus turn to the squarely modernist Katherine Mansfield, whose writing famously attracted the envy of Virginia Woolf. They discuss how in Mansfield's work the modernist story makes a decisive break from its 19th century predecessors. At turns lyrical, ruthless, moving and darkly comic, these stories demonstrate her knack for close observation and mimicry – no wonder one of them is Mark’s ‘desert island’ story.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Sophocles London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-13 | What was it like to go to the theatre in Athens in 468 BC? And how far do modern ideas about tragedy, derived from Aristotle, apply to Sophocles’ plays? In the fourth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos and Antigone and what the plays have to say about agency and knowledge, and consider issues particular to Sophocles’ time, including civic responsibility and the role of immigrants in Athenian society.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytFurther Reading in the LRB:Hugh Lloyd-Jones: Gods and Heroes: lrb.me/sophoclesytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: The Ancrene Wisse London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-13 | In the fourth episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina climb inside a tiny cell to explore the Ancrene Wisse, a guidebook written in the early 13th century, originally intended for three anchoresses, but which enjoyed a much wider audience (there was even a copy in Henry VIII’s library).This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytFurther reading in the LRB:Mary Wellesley: 'This place is pryson': lrb.me/ancrenewisseyt Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
The Long and Short: Henry Jamess Short Stories London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-12 | The third episode of The Long and Short turns to the short stories of Henry James. Mark and Seamus look in particular at ‘The Aspern Papers’, which, like Tennyson’s ‘Maud’, offers a diagnosis of obsession, in this case through a sensuous, excruciating and often comedic Venetian psychodrama. Mark and Seamus discuss the emergence of the short story at the end of the 19th century, and how certain features of the form – its attachment to unresolved endings, its debt to the dramatic monologue – can be found in James’s own stories, along with his other major themes, such as the tortured relationship between the public and private, and the experience of Americans in Europe.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytFurther reading in the LRB:Dan Jacobson on the story of stories: lrb.me/shortstoriesytSeamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Among the Ancients: Sappho London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-12 | In the third episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom move from epic to lyric, with the poems of Sappho, or what remains of them. They consider what we know, and don’t know, about her life, and how her poetry challenges the heroic tradition, both in its subversion of Homeric ideas of war and nostos, and in its playful use of language.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus lrb.me/plusytEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Medieval Beginnings: Bedes Life of Cuthbert London Review of Books (LRB) 2023-12-12 | In the third episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina explore the much-chronicled life of St Cuthbert, as told by the most famous writer of the early medieval period, the so-called Venerable Bede. From Cuthbert’s childhood interest in naked handstands, to his later work as a charismatic preacher who could elicit total confession, and as a hermit who enjoyed the assistance of friendly sea otters, it was a life which, as told by Bede, both challenged and conformed to the expected patterns of hagiography.This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsytFind out about Close Readings Plus: lrb.me/plusytIrina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers. ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
