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PODCAST

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson / The Podglomerate

Amateur enthusiast Jacke Wilson journeys through the history of literature, from ancient epics to contemporary classics. Episodes are not in chronological order and you don"t need to start at the beginning - feel free to jump in wherever you like! Find out more at historyofliterature.com and facebook.com/historyofliterature. Support the show by visiting patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. Contact the show at historyofliteraturepodcast@gmail.com.

arts books

All Episodes

70:31

652 Writing a Comic Novel (with Charles Baxter) | My...

The History of Literature ·

2024/11/18

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 comedy...a quiet masterpiece." PLUS Bill Eville (Washed Ashore: Family, Fatherhood, and Finding Home on Martha's Vineyard) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.Additional listening: 63 Chekhov, Bellow, Wright, and Fox (with Charles Baxter) 612 Family

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82:14

651 Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey | The...

The History of Literature ·

2024/11/14

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 young heroes followed an archetypal journey--which in addition to ancient myths can be seen in everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter--Campbell acknowledged that heroines seemed to have a different story arc, but not one that he had taxonomies. In other words, female heroes

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66:20

650 Dante's Divine Comedy (with Joseph Luzzi)

The History of Literature ·

2024/11/11

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 Biography, which gives an intimate portrait of the work that has challenged and inspired generations of readers.Additional listening: 131 Dante in Love (with Professor Ellen Nerenberg and Anthony Valerie) 589 Dante and Friendship (with Elizabeth Coggeshall) 327 Natalia

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74:45

649 Mind and Media in the Enlightenment (with Collin...

The History of Literature ·

2024/11/07

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 Paris. Then Collin Jennings (Enlightenment Links: Theories of Mind and Media in Eighteenth-Century Britain) explains how his application of computational methods to eighteenth-century fiction, history, and poetry shed new light on the Enlightenment - and what it means for readers

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65:37

648 Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (with Alex...

The History of Literature ·

2024/11/04

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 wondered if the Hemingway who could write a novel on the level of The Sun Also Rises (1926) or A Farewell to Arms (1929) still existed. All that changed with the publication in 1940 of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Widely read and widely acclaimed, the story of the idealist Robert

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63:18

647 The Brontes [HOL Encore]

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/31

Although their lives were filled with darkness and death, their love for stories and ideas led them into the bright realms of creative genius. They were the Brontes - Charlotte, Emily, and Anne - who lived with their brother Branwell in an unassuming 19th-century Yorkshire town called Haworth. Their house, a parsonage, sat on a hill, with the enticing but sometimes dangerous moors above and a cemetery, their father’s church, and the industrializing town below. It was a dark little home, with little

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67:43

646 Discovering a Long Lost Slave Narrative (with...

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/28

When he undertook his research on Harriet Jacobs and her brother John Swanson Jacobs, scholar Jonathan D.S. Schroeder wasn't expecting to find John's long lost autobiography. But there it was, buried in the archives of an Australian newspaper. Unknown for one hundred and sixty-nine years, the narrative bursts with fire and fury, filled with the energy (and intellectual freedom) of an ex-slave and ex-American writing from outside the United States. In this episode, Jacke talks to Jonathan about what

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66:22

645 Richard Wright

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/24

"Wright was one of those people," said poet Amiri Baraka, "who made me conscious of the need to struggle." In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Black American novelist and poet Richard Wright (1908-1960), author of Uncle Tom's Children, Native Son, Black Boy, and thousands of haiku. Born in Mississippi in desperate poverty to a schoolteacher mother and a sharecropper father (who were themselves the free children of formerly enslaved peoples), Wright had little formal

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71:33

644 Jack Kerouac (with Steven Belletto)

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/21

Critics didn't know quite what to make of twentieth-century American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), but readers had less difficulty. In spite of mixed reviews, On the Road (1957) quickly became a kind of bible for anyone hoping to squeeze more out of life. In this episode, Jacke talks to Steven Belletto, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac, about the continuing fascination with the Beat Generation and its most famous avatar. Additional listening: 339 Jack Kerouac 619

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54:15

643 Aesop and His Fables (with Robin Waterfield) | My...

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/17

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 was he writing these stories - and what about the ones that weren't written for children? Renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, translator of Aesop's Fables: A New Translation, joins Jacke for a discussion of the legendary Aesop and his legendary tales. PLUS Tove Jansson biographer

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56:19

642 Theater and Democracy (with James Shapiro)

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/14

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 Depression by staging over a thousand theatrical productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. How did Roosevelt's administration come to hire over twelve thousand struggling artists,

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63:33

641 Blood, Guts, and Books - Inside the Medieval...

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/10

Medieval manuscripts are so wondrously beautiful they deserve comparison with the world's finest works of art. But what lay behind the book's production? We might think of rows of monks, patiently toiling away in a hushed chamber - but that would be to ignore the actual conditions of book production. Sara Charles (The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages) takes Jacke into the dirty, smelly, boring, and back-breaking world of an actual medieval scriptorium. PLUS Dante scholar

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60:28

640 Chaucer the Merry Bard (with Mary Flannery)

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/07

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 history? And how did he become known as "the merry bard"? In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer Mary Flannery about her new book, Geoffrey Chaucer: Unveiling the Merry Bard. Additional listening suggestions: 523 Geoffrey Chaucer (with Marion Turner) 496 The Wife of

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70:50

639 Immersed in Print (with Geoffrey Turnovsky) | My...

The History of Literature ·

2024/10/03

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 always so? After examining early modern French literature, Geoffrey Turnovsky (Reading Typographically: Immersed in Print in Early Modern France) thinks that the answer might not be so simple. In this episode, Jacke and Geoffrey discuss the stereotypes and myths centering around

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60:04

638 Thomas Mann

The History of Literature ·

2024/09/30

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, as the author of Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, and Mario and the Magician dealt with artistic triumphs, bitter defeats, repressed sexual desires, family turmoil, relentless tragedies, political dangers, exile to America, and ultimately, an uneasy literary

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81:28

637 From the Archives - Heart of Darkness (with Mike...

The History of Literature ·

2024/09/26

We asked, you answered! In response to a listener recommendation, we revisit a conversation from 2017 in which Mike and Jacke discuss Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and Eleanor Coppola's Hearts of Darkness. PLUS novelist Fred Waitzkin (Searching for Bobby Fisher, Anything Is Good) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Enjoy this? Try these from our archive: 110 Heart of Darkness - Then and Now 619 Fred Waitzkin on Kerouac,

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65:15

636 Emily Dickinson's Letters (with Cristanne Miller)

The History of Literature ·

2024/09/23

Who was Emily Dickinson? We think we know her, or at least one side of her, from her poems. But what was she like when she wasn't writing poetry? What was she like with her friends and family? In this episode, we talk to editor Cristanne Miller about her book The Letters of Emily Dickinson, which presents all 1,304 of Dickinson's extant letters.Enjoyed this episode? You might like to try some of these episodes: 120 The Astonishing Emily Dickinson 418 "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" by Emily

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68:03

635 Darwin and Cataclysmic Change (with Allen...

The History of Literature ·

2024/09/19

Dealing with reality can be difficult enough, but when the nature of that reality is completely overturned - as it is in a case like the climate crisis - we're left with a feeling of intense unease. What does this mean for us? How can we absorb a revelation that threatens to undermine everything we believe about ourselves and our place in the universe? In this episode, Jacke talks to Allen MacDuffie about his new book Climate of Denial: Darwin, Climate Change, and the Literature of the Long

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60:35

634 The Bible: A Global History (with Bruce Gordon) |...

The History of Literature ·

2024/09/16

For more than two thousand years, the Bible has been an essential part of the world's conception of humanity and its relationship to God. But although it is in some sense timeless and eternal - literally the word of God - the Bible has always meant different things to different people, as individual communities have regarded this sacred book through their own language and culture. In this episode, Jacke talks to Biblical scholar Bruce Gordon about his new book The Bible: A Global History, which

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72:49

633 Hemingway's Letters (with Sandra Spanier) | My...

The History of Literature ·

2024/09/12

Discussions of Ernest Hemingway tend to focus on the peaks of his career, which are typically centered around his most famous novels. But Hemingway was busy in between those novels too, writing articles, short stories, and letters to friends and professional acquaintances. In this episode, Jacke talks to Sandra Spanier, general editor of the monumental Hemingway Letters project, about the lesser known (but eventful) period in Hemingway's life and career covered in The Letters of Ernest Hemingway,

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