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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

82:06

CR Episode 162: Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Horatius

Critical Readings ·

2023/02/13

The panel reads the entirety of Thomas Babington Macaulay's "Horatius" from his collection Lays of Ancient Rome, and discusses the Horatian nature of the work as a narrative which both edifies and delights, along with the formal aspects of the poem.Continue reading

en-GB

67:35

CR Episode 161: James Joyce’s Chamber Music

Critical Readings ·

2023/02/06

The panel reviews selections from James Joyce's inaugural work, the poetry collection titled Chamber Music, the first-published of his substantial works, giving attention to the formal metrics, structure, and interrelated symbolism of the poems.Continue reading

en-GB

66:04

CR Episode 160: The Poetry of Lewis Carroll

Critical Readings ·

2023/01/30

The panel reads four poems by Lewis Carroll and discusses the importance of poetic form in nonsense poetry, along with several potentially complicated readings that go beyond straight-forward narrative and verge upon social commentary.Continue reading

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108:50

CR Episode 159: The Sangraal of Robert Stephen Hawker

Critical Readings ·

2023/01/23

The panel reads "The Quest of the Sangraal" by the nineteenth-century parson and poet, Robert Stephen Hawker, with special attention to the use of differing Arthurian traditions and the fusion of mediæval and modern poetic forms, syntax, and vocabulary.Continue reading

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56:47

CR Episode 158: Introduction to Thomas Traherne

Critical Readings ·

2023/01/16

The panel reads three poems by Thomas Traherne, a late seventeenth-century English poet of imaginative, reflective, and speculative verse, whose manuscripts were discovered by happenstance and saved from the refuse pit in the late nineteenth century.Continue reading

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87:37

CR Episode 157: Washington Irving’s Christmas

Critical Readings ·

2023/01/09

The panel reads Washington Irving's Christmas sequence from The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., and examines how its portrayal of an old-fashioned, English Christmas served to influence attitudes towards the ideal of Christmas in the United States.Continue reading

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114:29

CR Episode 156: The Lay of the Children of Hurin,...

Critical Readings ·

2023/01/02

The panel concludes a three-week reading of The Lay of the Children of Hurin, examining the connexion between the history, geography, and cosmology of Tolkien's imagined Middle-Earth and that of our own, very real, terrestrial middle-earth.Continue reading

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98:13

CR Episode 155: The Lay of the Children of Hurin,...

Critical Readings ·

2022/12/26

The panel reads the second part of The Lay of the Children of Hurin, which relates the tale of Beleg Strongbow, and the doom of Turin Turambar, giving special attention to how the text connects to other mythological and Anglo-Saxon poems and narratives.Continue reading

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106:44

CR Episode 154: The Lay of the Children of Hurin, Part I

Critical Readings ·

2022/12/19

The panel begins a three-week reading and analysis of the first version of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lay of the Children of Hurin", a poetic account of Turin Turambar, written between 1918 and 1925, and first published in The Lays of Beleriand (1985).Continue reading

en-GB

63:02

CR Episode 153: Poetry of Delmore Schwartz

Critical Readings ·

2022/12/12

The panel examines three poems by Delmore Schwartz, with a particular focus on his language and themes, including a poetic biography of Lincoln, a metaphysical examination of Narcissus, and a portrayal of time as a frightening, existential inferno.Continue reading

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78:46

CR Episode 152: Young Goodman Brown

Critical Readings ·

2022/11/28

In Critical Reading's first episode dedicated to a work of prose, the panel reads Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, Young Goodman Brown, and examines its allegorical structure, considering what it might suggest about both human nature and the modern era.Continue reading

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83:35

CR Episode 151: Whitman and the Civil War, Part II

Critical Readings ·

2022/11/21

The panel concludes its series on American Civil War poetry with Whitman's Drum Taps and Sequel to Drum-Taps, focusing in particular upon the structure, symbolism, and historical details of Whitman's three poems on the death of President Lincoln.Continue reading

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71:01

CR Episode 150: Whitman and the Civil War, Part I

Critical Readings ·

2022/11/14

The panel reads a selection of the poems added to the 1860-61 edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, focusing on what the poetry suggests about human nature, political life, and the people of the United States on the eve of the Civil War.Continue reading

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77:48

CR Episode 149: Longfellow and the Civil War, Part II

Critical Readings ·

2022/11/07

The panel reads two poems from Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863): 'Torquemada' and 'The Birds of Killingworth', examining the role of zeal, dogma, and radical conduct in the poems, and what it may suggest about the war between the states.Continue reading

en-GB

61:09

CR Episode 148: Longfellow and the Civil War, Part I

Critical Readings ·

2022/10/31

In the first of a two-part reading of selections from Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn, the panel reads the beginning of the Prelude and then examines "Paul Revere's Ride" in detail, with attention to the structure of the text and its formal aspects.Continue reading

en-GB

51:06

CR Episode 147: Melville and the Civil War, Part II

Critical Readings ·

2022/10/24

The panel concludes a two-part survey of Melville's reading of the Civil War as viewed through his Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) by discussing poems on Stonewall Jackson, the Surrender at Appomattox, and post-war America.Continue reading

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58:49

CR Episode 146: Melville and the Civil War, Part I

Critical Readings ·

2022/10/17

In this first episode of a two-part examination of Melville's poetic response to the Civil War, the panel reads two poems from his first poetry collection, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866): 'The Conflict of Convictions' and 'Gettysburg'.Continue reading

en-GB

63:19

CR Episode 145: E. E. Cummings on Nonconformity

Critical Readings ·

2022/10/03

The panel performs a thorough close readings of two well-anthologised poems by E. E. Cummings--'i sing of Olaf glad and big' and 'the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls'--examining how their structure and formal aspects reflect their content.Continue reading

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52:17

CR Episode 144: Poetry for King Charles

Critical Readings ·

2022/09/26

In celebration of King Charles III, the panel reads two poems written to celebrate the reigns of his predecessors, King Charles I and King Charles II, including a New Year's Gift by Thomas Carew and a coronation panegyric by John Dryden, respectively.Continue reading

en-GB

64:29

CR Episode 143: Poetry In Memoriam Elizabeth II

Critical Readings ·

2022/09/19

The panel reads poetry celebrating the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II, including Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes for the Silver Jubilee, Hughes for the 40th anniversary, Simon Armitage for the Platinum Jubilee, and his newly-written Floral Tribute.Continue reading

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342 results

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