Close Readings

Our pioneering podcast subscription: two contributors explore an area of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to extracts from each episodes, and some full free episodes, here.

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Medieval Beginnings: Troilus and Criseyde

Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley, 29 October 2024

4 September 2023 · 11mins

Chaucer’s 14th century tale of ‘double sorrow’, Troilus and Criseyde, set during the siege of Troy, is the subject of Irina and Mary’s ninth episode of Medieval Beginnings. Based largely on Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato, Chaucer’s novelistic long poem displays a psychological realism that would make Henry James envious, and, with the matchmaker-uncle Pandarus, introduces a character of startling and often perplexing opacity.

The Long and Short: James Joyce’s Dubliners

Mark Ford and Seamus Perry, 29 October 2024

24 August 2023 · 10mins

In their eighth episode, Mark and Seamus discuss the astonishing confidence of Joyce’s early work, which not only launched his literary career, but also initiated the grand project of his writing life.

Among the Ancients: Lucretius

Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones, 29 October 2024

14 August 2023 · 10mins

In their eighth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at a contemporary of Catullus, Lucretius, and the only poem we have from him, De rerum natura (The Nature of Things), which sets out ideas about how to live one’s life based on the Epicurean philosophical tradition, embracing friends, gardens, materialism and moderation.

Medieval Beginnings: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley, 29 October 2024

4 August 2023 · 11mins

Irina and Mary jump to the 14th century for an introspective Arthurian romance about a knight trying to live up to his perfect reputation. The mysterious and intricate Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is perhaps best understood as a series of games within games, in which our hero, a recurring character throughout medieval literature, is never sure what adventure he’s playing.

 

Among the Ancients: Catullus

Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones, 29 October 2024

18 July 2023 · 11mins

Emily and Tom move to Ancient Rome for the second half of their series, starting with the late Republican poet Catullus.

Medieval Beginnings: Havelok the Dane

Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley, 29 October 2024

4 July 2023 · 10mins

Irina and Mary continue their run of Romances with the Middle English Havelok the Dane, a double Cinderella story of sex, fishing and surprisingly graphic violence, written at the end of the 13th century and set in a pre-Conquest, legendary English past.

Among the Ancients: Aristophanes

Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones, 29 October 2024

14 June 2023 · 11mins

In their sixth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom discuss the comedies of Aristophanes, in particular Clouds and Lysistrata. How did an Aristophanes comedy differ from a satyr play? Was he a conservative or a radical? And what happened to comedy after Aristophanes?

Medieval Beginnings: Le Roman de Silence

Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley, 29 October 2024

4 June 2023 · 09mins

For the sixth episode in their Medieval Beginnings series, Mary and Irina go full Romance with one of the most elaborate and surprising narrative poems in medieval literature, Le Roman de Silence, a complex, 13th-century Old French tale about gender, power and transformation.

The Long and Short: Hart Crane's 'The Bridge'

Mark Ford and Seamus Perry, 29 October 2024

24 May 2023 · 10mins

In their fifth episode, Mark and Seamus reach their first 20th century poet of the series, the Ohio-born, New York-loving ad man Hart Crane, and his epic 1930 work The Bridge.

Among the Ancients: Euripides

Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones, 29 October 2024

14 May 2023 · 09mins

Euripides was the youngest of the fifth-century Athenian tragedians, and is often described as the most radical. But how daring was he?

Medieval Beginnings: The Lais of Marie de France

Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley, 29 October 2024

4 May 2023 · 12mins

If a Middle Ages full of castles, jousts, hawking, illicit love affairs and playful singing in the meadows is what you’re looking for, then look no further than the Lais of Marie de France.

The Long and Short: Katherine Mansfield's short stories

Mark Ford and Seamus Perry, 29 October 2024

24 April 2023 · 11mins

In episode four of The Long and Short, we turn to the squarely modernist Katherine Mansfield, whose writing famously attracted the envy of Virginia Woolf. At turns lyrical, ruthless, moving and darkly comic, these stories demonstrate her knack for close observation and mimicry – no wonder one of them is Mark’s ‘desert island’ story.

Among the Ancients: Sophocles

Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones, 29 October 2024

14 April 2023 · 12mins

In the fourth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom ask: what was it like to go to the theatre in Athens in 468 BC? And how far do modern ideas about tragedy, derived from Aristotle, apply to Sophocles’ plays?