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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!)

Recent Episodes

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643 Aesop and His Fables (with Robin Waterfield) | My Last Book with Boel Westin
Oct. 17, 2024

643 Aesop and His Fables (with Robin Waterfield) | My Last Book with Boel Westin

Aesop's fables - including such classics as "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Fox and the Grapes," and "The Ant and the Grasshopper" - are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. But who was Aesop? Why w…
642 Theater and Democracy (with James Shapiro)
Oct. 14, 2024

642 Theater and Democracy (with James Shapiro)

It's hard to imagine now, but the United States government wasn't always hostile or indifferent to the arts. In fact, from 1935 to 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal Government responded to the Great Depres…
641 Blood, Guts, and Books - Inside the Medieval Scriptorium (with Sara Charles) | My Last Book with Elizabeth Coggeshall
Oct. 10, 2024

641 Blood, Guts, and Books - Inside the Medieval Scriptorium (with Sara Charles) | My Last Book with Elizabeth Coggeshall

Medieval manuscripts are so wondrously beautiful they deserve comparison with the world's finest works of art. But what lays behind the production of these manuscripts? We might think of rows of monks, patiently toiling away…
640 Chaucer the Merry Bard (with Mary Flannery)
Oct. 7, 2024

640 Chaucer the Merry Bard (with Mary Flannery)

Yes, he's the father of English poetry, and yes, he's perhaps best known today for bawdy tales like the Wife of Bath. But who was Geoffrey Chaucer? How did he navigate life during one of the most turbulent periods of English…
639 Immersed in Print (with Geoffrey Turnovsky) | My Last Book with Liz Rosenberg
Oct. 3, 2024

639 Immersed in Print (with Geoffrey Turnovsky) | My Last Book with Liz Rosenberg

Bibliophiles everywhere know the sweet feeling of getting lost in a book. And like all good literary snobs, we tend to think that full immersion requires a distraction-free relationship between reader and text. But was it al…
638 Thomas Mann
Sept. 30, 2024

638 Thomas Mann

For fifty years, Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann (1875-1955) lived his life as Germany's preeminent novelist and one of Europe's most respected intellectuals. In this episode, Jacke examines the truth behind the public image,…
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