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The History of Literature Podcast

The History of Literature Podcast

Amateur enthusiast Jacke Wilson journeys through the history of literature, from ancient epics to contemporary classics. (Episodes are not in chronological order - feel free to jump in wherever you'd like!)

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653 J.D. Salinger
Nov. 21, 2024

653 J.D. Salinger

He's best known as the author of The Catcher in the Rye , one of the great publishing and cultural successes of the twentieth century. But there was more to the Jerome David Salinger (1919-2010) story than a single book. In …
652 Writing a Comic Novel (with Charles Baxter) | My Last Book with Bill Eville
Nov. 18, 2024

652 Writing a Comic Novel (with Charles Baxter) | My Last Book with Bill Eville

Jacke talks to award-winning novelist and short story writer Charles Baxter about his new book, Blood Test: A Comedy , which the New York Times says "provides a snapshot of a troubled America, disguised as a speculative come…
651 Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey | The Heroine's Labyrinth (with Douglas Burton) | My Last Book with Douglas Burton
Nov. 14, 2024

651 Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey | The Heroine's Labyrinth (with Douglas Burton) | My Last Book with Douglas Burton

In 1949, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces posited the existence of a "monomyth," a universal pattern that formed the basis of heroic tales in every culture. But although he maintained that more often than not the…
650 Dante's Divine Comedy (with Joseph Luzzi)
Nov. 11, 2024

650 Dante's Divine Comedy (with Joseph Luzzi)

Written in the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy has been an essential component of Western literature for more than 700 years. In this episode, Jacke talks to Joseph Luzzi about his book, Dante's Divine Comedy: A…
649 Mind and Media in the Enlightenment (with Collin Jennings) | Mike Recommends A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway | My Last Book with David L. Cooper
Nov. 7, 2024

649 Mind and Media in the Enlightenment (with Collin Jennings) | Mike Recommends A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway | My Last Book with David L. Cooper

It's a Literary Feast Day at the History of Literature Podcast! First, Jacke talks to old friend Mike Palindrome about his love for A Moveable Feast , Hemingway's late-in-life recollection of his salad days (Pernod days?) in…
648 Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (with Alex Vernon) | My Last Book with Sandra Spanier
Nov. 4, 2024

648 Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (with Alex Vernon) | My Last Book with Sandra Spanier

Throughout the 1930s, Ernest Hemingway was in the public eye as a journalist, short story writer, activist, and one of the most famous writers on the planet. But his 1937 novel To Have and Have Not fell flat, and critics won…
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