The History of Literature

203 William Blake

Jacke takes a look at the astonishing life and works of William Blake (1757-1827), a poet, painter, engraver, illustrator, visionary, and one of the key figures of the Romantic Period. How did the boy who saw God’s head in a window at age four become the man who wrote the most anthologized poem in English (“The Tyger”) AND perhaps the most brilliant and innovative visual artist that England has ever produced? We discuss all that and more!

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Music Credits:

“Magistar” and “Wholesome” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

202 Chekhov

Jacke welcomes in the new year by taking a deep dive into the melancholy (and beautiful) short story “Gooseberries” (1898), by the Russian genius Anton Chekhov.

201 Virginia Woolf (with Gillian Gill)

Through novels like To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway, and essays such as “A Room of One’s Own,” Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) has inspired generations of followers, particularly young women. But who were the women who inspired Virginia Woolf? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Gillian Gill, whose works include biographies of Mary Baker Eddy, Florence Nightingale, and Agatha Christie, about her new book, Virginia Woolf and the Women Who Shaped Her World.

Music Credits:

Ethel Smyth: Concerto for Violin, Horn, and Orchestra
“Nouvelle Noel” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

200 The Magic Mountain

In this special 200th episode of the History of Literature, Jacke and Mike discuss one of Mike’s all-time favorite novels, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. What does Mann do well? What makes this novel so great? And what do the experiences of Hans Castorp teach us about straddling the line between reality and the life of the mind?

Music Credits:

“Nouvelle Noel” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

199 Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was a man who loved ciphers and a cipher of a man, an Anglo-Irishman who claimed not to like Ireland but became one of its greatest champions. He was viewed as an oddity even by the friends who knew him well and admired him most. And yet, in spite of his obscure origins and curious personal hangups, he became famous for works like Gulliver’s Travels, A Tale of a Tub, and A Modest Proposal, in which his clear and incisive prose skewered institutions, authority figures, and conventional wisdom. A master of sustained irony and deft political satire, he’s been read and admired by high-minded critics and general audiences for three centuries.

Music Credits:

“Quirky Dog” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

198 Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was born in Boston in 1932, the daughter of a German-born professor, Otto Plath, and his student, Aurelia Schober. After her father died in 1940, Plath’s family moved to Wellesley, Massachusetts, where her mother taught secretarial studies at Boston University and Plath embarked on a path that she would follow the rest of her life: she was a gifted student, she wrote poetry and stories, she won awards and prizes and scholarships – and she began to suffer from the severe depression that would ultimately lead to her death.

Plath’s life, including her incendiary marriage to British poet Ted Hughes, will be discussed in a separate episode. In this episode, we focus on Plath’s poetry, as superfan Mike Palindrome, President of the Literature Supporters Club, selects five poems to introduce Plath: The Applicant, Lady Lazarus, Morning Song, The Colossus, and The Stones.

Music Credits:

“Allemande Sting” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

197 Margaret Atwood

A week ago, Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) turned 80. A month ago, she was awarded the Booker Prize for her eighteenth novel, The Testaments. But how did the little girl who grew up in the forests of Canada turn into one of the most successful and celebrated authors of her day? And what do we make of someone whose fierce independence is matched only by her commitment to defying all stereotypes and categorizations? In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and career of the incredible Margaret Atwood.

Music Credits:

“Fuzzball Parade,” “Glitter Blast,” “Magistar,” and “Funkorama” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

196 One-Hit Wonders

We all know how difficult it is to scale the mountain of success, whether you’re a musician or a novelist. But why do some artists reach the summit again and again, while others spend the rest of their careers stuck in the valley, gazing up and thinking about what might have been? In this episode, Jacke and Mike take a look at some classic “one-hit wonders” in the world of literature and popular music.

195 Thomas Hardy

He was born to a lower class family of tradesmen in 1840. Eighty eight years later, he died as one of the most celebrated writers in England. His name was Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), and he was at the same time the product of the Victorian era and one of its greatest critics. But how did this man go from being a builder and architect to writing poetry and eventually the novels that made him famous? What made this budding young priest turn away from the church? And why, after becoming a successful and highly accomplished novelist did he quit writing novels altogether, turning back to poetry for the remainder of his years?

Music Credits:

“Piano Between” and “Allemande Sting” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

194 George Saunders

Jacke and Mike take a look at contemporary author George Saunders, author of Pastoralia, Tenth of December, and Lincoln at the Bardo, In spite of some inauspicious beginnings, Saunders somehow managed to ascend to literary greatness, setting aside a career in mining to become, in the words of poet Mary Karr, “the best short-story writer in English–not ‘one of,’ not ‘arguably,’ but the best.”

Music Credits:

“Quirky Dog” and “Amazing Plan” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/