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PODCAST

Critical Readings

CriticalReadings.com

Critical Readings examines key literary texts using close reading and critical analysis, and explains these approaches in discussion. Listeners will learn about the texts themselves and about how to approach a text for critical analysis.

arts literature

All Episodes

97:19

CR Episode 182: Moby Dick, Part VIII

Critical Readings ·

2023/07/03

The panel reads some excellent listener questions, and then discusses chapters 60–71, with special attention to the studied ambiguity of the text, Ahab's identification and contrast with Moby Dick, and the 'problematisation of the hierarchy' (ding-ding).Continue reading

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67:37

CR Episode 181: Moby Dick, Part VII

Critical Readings ·

2023/06/26

The panel discusses chapters 52-59, with special attention given to how the structure of the narrative both anticipates and surpasses post-structuralist critiques whilst challenging the genre of the novel and changing the attitudes of its readers.Continue reading

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83:37

CR Episode 180: Moby Dick, Part VI

Critical Readings ·

2023/06/19

The panel discusses chapters 43-51, examining the presence of Romanticism in the text and character of Ishmael, and highlighting how the text's rapid shifts in perspective and narrative focus may further structuralist and poststructuralist readings.Continue reading

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83:58

CR Episode 179: Moby Dick, Part V

Critical Readings ·

2023/06/12

The panel discusses chapters 35-42, exploring Melville's purpose in adopting a multigeneric style, and paying special attention to Ahab's motivations, including his conception of malice and universal evil, and his understanding of justice and vengeance.Continue reading

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74:34

CR Episode 178: Moby Dick, Part IV

Critical Readings ·

2023/06/05

The panel discusses chapters 26-34, with a particular focus on the effect of genre considerations in framing the novel, its shift into Shakespearean tonality and structure, and Melville's use of humour amidst grave and existential subject matter.Continue reading

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66:25

CR Episode 177: Moby Dick, Part III

Critical Readings ·

2023/05/29

The panel discusses chapters 16-25, with a particular attention to characterisation beyond Ishmael and Queequeg--particularly that of Peleg, Bildad, Elijah, and Bulkington--and to the overarching Old Testament Biblical influences upon the narrative.Continue reading

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84:45

CR Episode 176: Moby Dick, Part II

Critical Readings ·

2023/05/22

The panel reads chapters 5-15, with a special focus on the description and narrative use of religious symbolism and devotional practice, contrasting the Christian Ishmael and the pagan Queequeg to illustrate Ishmael's welcoming, fraternal worldview.Continue reading

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85:35

CR Episode 175: Moby Dick, Part I

Critical Readings ·

2023/05/15

The panel reads the prologues and first four chapters of Moby Dick, provides an overview of the publication history of the text, and discusses the character and reliability of the jocular, circuitous narrator, who commands the reader to 'Call me Ishmael.'Continue reading

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74:09

CR Episode 174: Shakespeare’s Lucrece, Part III

Critical Readings ·

2023/05/08

The panel concludes with an examination of Lucrece's central role as a Shakespearean protagonist, addressing her attitude towards the conflict between Roman shame and the natural law, and how her speech is situated across historical contexts.Continue reading

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78:30

CR Episode 173: Shakespeare’s Lucrece, Part II

Critical Readings ·

2023/05/01

The panel reads the second third of Shakespeare's Lucrece, with particular attention to the paradoxical presentation of light and darkness, and to the dual nature of guilt and shame in the poem, as situated within a putatively historical Roman context.Continue reading

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86:52

CR Episode 172: Shakespeare’s Lucrece, Part I

Critical Readings ·

2023/04/24

In the first of a three-part series on Shakespeare's Lucrece, the panel explores the Roman history and sources for the poem, before reading and examining its metaphors with a focus on Sextus Tarquinius' internal debate and final, abhorrent resolution.Continue reading

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56:01

CR Episode 171: The Poetry of Sir Walter Raleigh

Critical Readings ·

2023/04/17

The panel reads three poems by the courtier, soldier, privateer, and poet, Sir Walter Raleigh, examining their formal (and informal) qualities, and discussing their connexions to other poetic endeavours and movements, and to contemporary events.Continue reading

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57:19

CR Episode 170: Seamus Heaney’s Passion for the Past

Critical Readings ·

2023/04/10

The panel reads and discusses the connexions between three poems by Seamus Heaney: "Blackberry Picking", "Three-Piece", and "Mycenae Nightwatch", with attention to their formal aspects, and their use of highly emotive imagery and references to the past.Continue reading

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56:58

CR Episode 169: The Poetry of Edgar Guest

Critical Readings ·

2023/04/03

The panel reviews the work of "The People's Poet", Edgar A. Guest, national best-seller, sole Poet Laureate of Michigan, host of the A Guest in Your House radio programme, and author of innumerable verses filled with indefatigable, homespun optimism.Continue reading

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45:56

CR Episode 168: The Poetry of Rupert Brooke

Critical Readings ·

2023/03/27

The panel reads three poems by Rupert Brooke, a poet of the Georgian movement of the early twentieth century, whose poetry of the early Great War period suggests sentiments and ideals which were about to be transformed by modernised warfare.Continue reading

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59:46

CR Episode 167: The Poetry of Wilfred Owen

Critical Readings ·

2023/03/20

The panel reads three poems by Wilfred Owen, perhaps the greatest poet of the Great War, including his "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", and "Spring Offensive", with attention to their arresting imagery and formal characteristics.Continue reading

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59:56

CR Episode 166: H. P. Lovecraft’s Polaris

Critical Readings ·

2023/03/13

The panel, joined by special guest Lane Haygood, reads H. P. Lovecraft's Polaris, and discusses its rich symbolism, use of metaphor, deliberately archaic language, ambiguous resolution, and how its formal structure mirrors its narrative content.Continue reading

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68:59

CR Episode 165: Pope’s Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

Critical Readings ·

2023/03/06

The panel reads Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot" and discusses its moral and ethical instruction alongside its waspish skewering of eighteenth-century "dunces", including Colley Cibber, Lord Hervey, and Lady Mary Wortley Montague.Continue reading

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64:56

CR Episode 164: Tennyson’s Locksley Hall

Critical Readings ·

2023/02/27

The panel reads Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" and discusses its connexion to the real Loxley Hall in Staffordshire, as well as the poem's formal qualities, and its depiction of nineteenth-century British social, imperial, and military culture.Continue reading

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70:11

CR Episode 163: Love and Death with Edna St. Vincent...

Critical Readings ·

2023/02/20

The panel closely reads four poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, focusing primarily on her sonnets, and evaluates their formal structure and potential metaphysical and theological implications, whilst connecting each poem to the others in turn.Continue reading

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342 results

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