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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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670 The Parable
Jan. 16, 2025

670 The Parable

Inspired by an email (from a listener?) with mysterious origins, Jacke takes a look at the brief narrative form the parable. How did parables get their name? What are their key features? Why did Jesus rely on them so heavily…
669 Obsessed with Melville (with Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder) | My Last Book with Alexander Poots
Jan. 13, 2025

669 Obsessed with Melville (with Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder) | My Last Book with Alexander Poots

What happens when a woman becomes obsessed with Herman Melville during the pandemic? What if the process of sorting fact from fiction in Melville's work inspires a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition? And wh…
668 Book and Dagger - The Scholars and Librarians Who Became Spies and Fought the Nazis (with Elyse Graham) | Jane Austen Turns 250
Jan. 9, 2025

668 Book and Dagger - The Scholars and Librarians Who Became Spies and Fought the Nazis (with Elyse Graham) | Jane Austen Turns 250

When the U.S. joined the war in the 1940s, it had a problem: its military had virtually no intelligence service. Enter the librarians! In this episode, Jacke talks to Elyse Graham about her work Book and Dagger: How Scholars…
667 Sui Sin Far (with Victoria Namkung) | My Last Book with Samantha Rose Hill
Jan. 6, 2025

667 Sui Sin Far (with Victoria Namkung) | My Last Book with Samantha Rose Hill

Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914) grew up in unusual circumstances: her father was an English merchant who traveled to China on business, and her mother was a formerly enslaved tightrope walker and human knife-throwing target wh…
666
Jan. 2, 2025

666 "Winter Dreams" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (with Mike Palindrome) | My Last Book with Lev Grossman

First published in December of 1922, "Winter Dreams" was one of the short stories known as the "Gatsby cluster," as F. Scott Fitzgerald worked out the characters, themes, and prose style that would later make his famous nove…
665 Keats's Great Odes (with Anahid Nersessian) [Ad-Free Encore Edition]
Dec. 30, 2024

665 Keats's Great Odes (with Anahid Nersessian) [Ad-Free Encore Edition]

In 1819, John Keats quit his job as an assistant surgeon, abandoned an epic poem he was writing, and focused his poetic energies on shorter works. What followed was one of the most fertile periods in the history of poetry, a…
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