Close Readings

Wordsworth was not unusual among Romantic poets for his enthusiastic support of the French Revolution, but he stands apart from his contemporaries for actually being there to see it for himself (‘Thou wert there,’ Coleridge wrote). This episode looks at Wordsworth’s retrospective account of his 1791 visit to France, described in books 9 and 10 of The Prelude, and the ways in which it reveals a passionate commitment to republicanism while recoiling from political extremism. Mark and Seamus discuss why, despite Wordsworth’s claim of being innately republican, discussion of the intellectual underpinnings of the revolution is strangely absent from the poem, which is more often preoccupied with romance and the imagination, particularly in their power to soften zealotry.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4dbjbjGIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Seamus Perry:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n24/seamus-perry/regrets-vexations-lassitudesE.P. Thompsonhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n22/e.p.-thompson/wordsworth-s-crisisColin Burrow:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n13/colin-burrow/a-solemn-and-unsexual-manMarilyn Butlerhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n12/marilyn-butler/three-feet-on-the-groundThomas Keymerhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n12/thomas-keymer/after-meditationGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his long 1938 poem, Louis MacNeice took many of the ideals shared by other young writers of his time – a desire for relevance, responsiveness and, above all, honesty – and applied them in a way that has few equivalents in English poetry. This diary-style work, written from August to December 1938, reflects with ‘documentary vividness’, as Ian Hamilton has described, on the international and personal crises swirling around MacNeice in those months. Seamus and Mark discuss the poem’s lively depiction of the anecdotal abundance of London life and the ways in which its innovative rhyming structure helps to capture the autumnal moment when England was slipping into an unknowable winter.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4dbjbjGIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsRead more in the LRB:Samuel Hynes: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v11/n05/samuel-hynes/like-the-trees-on-primrose-hillIan Hamilton: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n05/ian-hamilton/smartened-up Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Goblin Market’ was the title poem of Christina Rossetti’s first collection, published in 1862, and while she disclaimed any allegorical purpose in it, modern readers have found it hard to resist political interpretations. The poem’s most obvious preoccupation seems to be the Victorian notion of the ‘fallen woman’. When she wrote it Rossetti was working at the St Mary Magdalene house of charity in Highgate, a refuge for sex workers and women who had had non-marital sex. Anxieties around ‘fallen women’ were explored by many writers of the day, but Rossetti's treatment is striking both for the rich intensity of its physical descriptions and the unusual vision of redemption it offers, in which the standard Christian imperatives are rethought in sisterly terms. Seamus and Mark discuss how post-Freudian readers might read those descriptions and what the poem says about the place of the ‘market’ in Victorian society.Read the poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44996/goblin-marketThis episode features a full reading of 'Goblin Market' by Shirley Henderson and Felicity Jones at the Josephine Hart Poetry Hour. Watch the reading here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMnHW9MevJkFind more about the Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation here: https://www.thepoetryhour.com/foundationSubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts, click 'subscribe' at the top of this podcast to unlock all the episodes;In other podcast apps here: https://lrb.me/ppsignupRead more in the LRB:Penelope Fitzgerald: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v04/n05/penelope-fitzgerald/christina-and-the-sidJacqueline Rose: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n20/jacqueline-rose/undone-defiled-defacedJohn Bayley: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n06/john-bayley/missingness Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whitman wrote several poetic responses to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He came to detest his most famous, ‘O Captain! My Captain!’, and in ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd’ Lincoln is not imagined in presidential terms but contained within a love elegy that attempts to unite his death with the 600,000 deaths of the civil war and reconfigure the assassination as a symbolic birth of the new America. Seamus and Mark discuss Whitman’s cosmic vision, with its grand democratic vistas populated by small observations of rural and urban life, and his use of a thrush as a redemptive poetic voice.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wilfred Owen wrote ‘Strange Meeting’ in the early months of 1918, shortly after being treated for shell shock at Craiglockhart hospital in Edinburgh, where he had met the stridently anti-war Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon's poetry of caustic realism quickly found its way into Owen’s work, where it merged with the high romantic sublime of his other great influences, Keats and Shelley. Mark and Seamus discuss the unstable mixture of these forces and the innovative use of rhyme in a poem where the politics is less about ideology or argument than an intuitive response to the horror of war.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupFurther reading in the LRB:Seamus Heaney on Auden (and Wilfred Owen): https://lrb.me/pp6heaney Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shelley’s angry, violent poem was written in direct response to the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819, in which a demonstration in favour of parliamentary reform was attacked by local yeomanry, leaving 18 people dead and hundreds injured. The ‘masque’ it describes begins with a procession of abstract figures – Murder, Fraud, Hypocrisy – embodied in members of the government, before eventually unfolding into a vision of England freed from the tyranny and anarchy of its institutions. As Mark and Seamus discuss in this episode, ‘The Masque of Anarchy’, with its incoherence and inconsistencies, amounts to perhaps the purest expression in verse both of Shelley’s political indignation and his belief that, with the right way of thinking, such chains of oppression can be shaken off ‘like dew’.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupRead more in the LRB:Seamus Perry: Wielded by a Wizard https://lrb.me/perryppThomas Jones: Hard Eggs and Radishes https://lrb.me/jonespp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s deeply disturbing 1847 poem about a woman escaping slavery and killing her child was written to shock its intended white female readership to the abolitionist cause. Browning was the direct descendant of slave owners in Jamaica and a fervent anti-slavery campaigner, and her dramatic monologue presents a searing attack on the hypocrisy of ‘liberty’ as enshrined in the United States constitution. Mark and Seamus look at the origins of the poem and its story, and its place among other abolitionist narratives of the time.Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupRead more in the LRBMatthew Bevis: Foiled by Pleasure: https://lrb.me/bevisppAlethea Hayter: Reader, I married you: https://lrb.me/hayterppJohn Bayley: A Question of Breathing: https://lrb.me/bayleyppColin Grant: Leave them weeping: https://lrb.me/grantppFara Dabhoiwala: My Runaway Slave, Reward Two Guineas: https://lrb.me/dabhoiwalapp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupRead more in the LRB:Terry Eagleton: https://lrb.me/eagletonppColm Tóibín: https://lrb.me/toibinppFrank Kermode: https://lrb.me/kermode2ppTom Paulin: https://lrb.me/paulinpp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.Sign up to the Close Readings subscription to listen ad free and to all our series in full:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupRead more in the LRB:Seamus Heaney: Sounding AudenAlan Bennett: The Wrong BlondSeamus Perry: That's what Wystan says Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.Sign up to the Close Readings subscription to listen ad free and to all our series in full:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignupIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignupRead the poem hereFurther reading in the LRB:Blair Worden: Double Tongued: https://lrb.me/wordenppFrank Kermode: Hard Labour: https://lrb.me/kermodeppDavid Norbrook: Political Verse: https://lrb.me/norbrookppGet in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apuleius’ ‘Metamorphoses’, better known as ‘The Golden Ass’, is the only ancient Roman novel to have survived in its entirety. Following the story of Lucius, forced to suffer as a donkey until the goddess Isis intervenes, the novel includes frenetic wordplay, filthy humour and the earliest known version of the Psyche and Cupid myth. In this episode, Tom and Emily discuss Apuleius’ anarchic mix of the high and low brow, and his incisive depiction of the lives of impoverished and enslaved people.This is an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Peter Parsons: Ancient Greek Romanceshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n15/peter-parsons/ancient-greek-romancesLeofranc Holford-Strevens: God’s Willhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v25/n10/leofranc-holford-strevens/god-s-will Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we tackle Juvenal, whose sixteen satires influenced libertines, neoclassicists and early Christian moralists alike. Conservative to a fault, Juvenal’s Satires rails against the rapid expansion and transformation of Roman society in the early principate. But where his contemporary Tacitus handled the same material with restraint, Juvenal’s work explodes with vivid and vicious depictions of urban life, including immigration, sexual mores and eating habits. Emily and Tom explore the idiosyncrasies of Juvenal’s verse and its handling in Peter Green’s translation, and how best to parse his over-the-top hostility to everyone and everything.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Remembering Peter Greenhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/september/peter-green-1924-2024Claude Rawson: Blistering Attackshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n21/claude-rawson/blistering-attacksClare Bucknell & Colin Burrow: What is satire?https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/on-satire-what-is-satire Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Annals, Tacitus’ study of the emperors from Tiberius to Nero, covers some of the most vivid and ruthless episodes in Roman history. A masterclass in political intrigue (and how not to do it), the Annals features mutiny, senatorial backstabbing, wars on the imperial frontiers, political purges and enormous egos. Emily and Tom explore the many ambiguities that make the Annals rewarding, as well as difficult, reading and discuss Tacitus’ knotty style and approach to history.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Mary Beard: Four-Day Caesarhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n02/mary-beard/four-day-caesarAnthony Grafton: Those Limbs We Admirehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n14/anthony-grafton/those-limbs-we-admireShadi Bartsch: Fratricide, Matricide and the Philosopherhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n12/shadi-bartsch/fratricide-matricide-and-the-philosopherMark Ford: The Death of Petroniushttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n24/mark-ford/the-death-of-petroniusEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his prodigious, prolific and very short career, Lucan was at turns championed, disavowed and finally forced into suicide at 25 by the emperor Nero. His only surviving work is Civil War, an account of the bloody and chaotic power struggle between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. In their first episode on Latin literature’s so-called ‘Silver Age’, Tom and Emily dive into this brutal and unforgiving epic poem. They explore Lucan’s slippery relationship to power, his rhetorical virtuosity and the influence of Stoicism on his worldview.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract form this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:John Henderson: Dead Eyes and Blank Faceshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n07/john-henderson/dead-eyes-and-blank-facesNora Goldschmidt: Pompeian Group Therapyhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n18/nora-goldschmidt/pompeian-group-therapyThomas Jones: See you in hell, punkhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n23/thomas-jones/see-you-in-hell-punkEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode seven, we turn to some of the earliest surviving examples of Roman literature: the raucous, bawdy and sometimes bewildering world of Roman comedy. Plautus and Terence, who would go on to set the tone for centuries of playwrights (and school curricula), came from the margins of Roman society, writing primarily for plebeians and upsetting the conventions they simultaneously established. Plautus’ ‘Menaechmi’ is full of coinages, punning and madcap doubling. Terence’s troubling ‘Hecyra’ tells a much darker story of Roman sexual mores while destabilizing misogynistic stereotypes. Emily and Tom discuss how best to navigate these very early and enormously influential plays, and what they lend to Shakespeare, Sondheim and the modern sitcom.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The broad theme of this series, truth and lies, was a favourite subject of Lucian of Samosata, the last of our Greek-language authors. A cosmopolitan and highly cultured Syrian subject of the Roman Empire in the second century CE, Lucian wrote in the classical Greek of fifth-century Athens. His razor-sharp satire was a model for Erasmus, Voltaire and Swift. Emily and Tom share some of their favourite excerpts from ‘A True History’ and other works – with trips to the moon, boundary-pushing religious scepticism and wildly improbable but not technically untrue readings of Homer – and discuss why they still read as fresh and funny today.Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Tim Whitmarsh: Target Practicehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n04/tim-whitmarsh/target-practiceJames Davidson: Stomach-Churninghttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n02/james-davidson/stomach-churningEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Plato’s Symposium, his philosophical dialogue on love, or eros, was probably written around 380 BCE, but it’s set in 416, during the uneasy truce between Athens and Sparta in the middle of the Peloponnesian War. A symposium was a drinking party, though Socrates and his friends, having had a heavy evening the night before, decide to go easy on the wine and instead take turns making speeches in praise of love – at least until Alcibiades turns up, very late and very drunk. In this episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom discuss the dialogue’s philosophical ideas, historical context and narrative form, and why Aristophanes gets the hiccups.Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading:Donald Davidson: Plato’s Philosopherhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n14/donald-davidson/plato-s-philosopherAnne Carson: Oh What a Night (Alkibiades)https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n22/anne-carson/oh-what-a-night-alkibiadesM.F. Burnyeat: Art and Mimesis in Plato’s Republichttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n10/m.f.-burnyeat/art-and-mimesis-in-plato-s-republicEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the fifth episode of Among the Ancients II we turn to Greek lyric, focusing on Pindar’s victory odes, considered a benchmark for the sublime since antiquity, and the vivid, narrative-driven dithyrambs of Bacchylides. Through close reading, Emily and Tom tease out allusions, lexical flourishes and formal experimentation, and explain the highly contextual nature of these tightly choreographed, public-facing poems. They illustrate how precarious work could be for a praise poet in a world driven by competition – striking the right note to please your patron, guarantee the next gig, and stay on good terms with the gods.Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Leofranc Holford-Strevens: Dithyrambs for Athenshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n04/leofranc-holford-strevens/dithyrambs-for-athensBarbara Graziosi: Flower or Fungus?https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n04/leofranc-holford-strevens/dithyrambs-for-athensEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB: Peter Green: On Liking Herodotushttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n07/peter-green/on-liking-herodotusEmily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 and Tom 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.Non-subscriber will only hear extracts from the rest of this series. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB: Tim Whitmarsh: Crashing the Delphic Partyhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n12/tim-whitmarsh/crashing-the-delphic-party Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.