Close Readings

• Love and Death: Elegies for children by Ben Jonson, Anne Bradstreet, Geoffrey Hill and Elizabeth Bishop

  This episode looks at four poems whose subject would seem to lie beyond words: the death of a child. A defining feature of elegy is the struggle between poetic eloquence and inarticulate grief, and in these works by Ben Jonson, Anne Bradstreet, Geoffrey Hill and Elizabeth Bishop we find that tension at its most acute. Mark and Seamus consider the way each poem deals with the traditional demand of the elegy for consolation, and what happens when the form and language of love poetry subverts elegiac conventions.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrldIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsldRead the poems here:Ben Jonson: On My First Sonhttps://lrb.me/jonsoncrldAnne Bradstreet:In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreethttps://lrb.me/bradstreetcrldGeoffrey Hill: September Songhttps://lrb.me/hillcrldElizabeth Bishop: First Death in Nova Scotiahttps://lrb.me/bishopcrldRead more in the LRB:Blair Worden on Ben Jonsonhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n19/blair-worden/the-tribe-of-benBlair Worden on puritanismhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n19/blair-worden/the-tribe-of-benColin Burrow in Geoffrey Hill:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n04/colin-burrow/rancorous-old-sodHelen Vendler on Elizabeth Bishophttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n05/helen-vendler/the-numinous-mooseNext episode:Two elegies by Thomas Gray:https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44299/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyardhttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44302/ode-on-the-death-of-a-favourite-cat-drowned-in-a-tub-of-goldfishes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ by Jonathan Swift

  Jonathan Swift’s 1726 tale of Houyhnhnms, Yahoos, Lilliputians and Struldbruggs is normally seen as a satire. But what if it’s read as fantasy, and all its contradictions, inversions and reversals as an echo of the traditional starting point of Arabic fairytale: ‘It was and it was not’? In this episode Marina and Anna Della discuss Gulliver’s Travels as a text in which empiricism and imagination are tightly woven, where fantastical realms are created to give different perspectives on reality and both writer and reader are liberated from having to decide what to think.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrffIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsffFurther reading in the LRB:Terry Eagleton:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n16/terry-eagleton/a-spot-of-firm-governmentClare Bucknell: Oven-Ready Childrenhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n02/clare-bucknell/oven-ready-childrenThomas Keymer: Carry Up your Coffee Boldlyhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n08/thomas-keymer/carry-up-your-coffee-boldlyNext episode: Marco Polo’s Il Milione and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Conversations in Philosophy: 'The Essence of Christianity' by Ludwig Feuerbach

  In The Essence of Christianity (1841) Feuerbach works through the theological crisis of his age to articulate the central, radical idea of 19th-century atheism: that the religion of God is really the religion of humanity. In this episode, Jonathan and James discuss the ways in which the book applies this thought to various aspects of Christian doctrine, from sexual relations to the Trinity, and consider why Feuerbach would never have described himself as an atheist. They also look at George Eliot’s remarkable translation of the work, published only thirteen years after the original, which not only ensured Feuerbach’s influence in the Anglophone world but invented a new philosophical vocabulary in English for German thought.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcipIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscipFurther reading in the LRB:James Wood: What next?https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n08/james-wood/what-s-nextTerry Eagleton: George Eliothttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n18/terry-eagleton/biogspeak Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  10:29
• Novel Approaches: ‘Mansfield Park’ by Jane Austen

  On one level, Mansfield Park is a fairytale transposed to the 19th century: Fanny Price is the archetypal poor relation who, through her virtuousness, wins a wealthy husband. But Jane Austen’s 1814 novel is also a shrewd study of speculation, ‘improvement’ and the transformative power of money.In the first episode of Novel Approaches, Colin Burrow joins Clare Bucknell and Thomas Jones to discuss Austen’s acute reading of property and precarity, and why Fanny’s moral cautiousness is a strategic approach to the riskiest speculation of all: marriage.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrnaIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsnaClare Bucknell is a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and hosted the Close Readings series On Satire with Colin Burrow. The Treasuries, her social history of poetry anthologies, was published in 2023.Thomas Jones is a senior editor at the LRB and host of the LRB Podcast. With Emily Wilson, he hosted the Close Readings series Among the Ancients.Next episode: Clare Bucknell and guests on Thomas Love Peacock’s Crotchet Castle. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  31:53
• Love and Death: Milton's 'Lycidas'

  Milton wrote ‘Lycidas’ in 1637, at the age of 29, to commemorate the drowning of the poet Edward King. As well as a great pastoral elegy, it is a denunciation of the ecclesiastical condition of England and a rehearsal for Milton’s later role as a writer of national epic. In the first episode of their new series, Seamus and Mark discuss the political backdrop to the poem, Milton’s virtuosic mix of poetic tradition and innovation, and why such a fervent puritan would choose an unfashionable, pre-Christian form to honour his friend.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrldIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsldRead more in the LRB:Colin Burrow (on the 'two-handed engine'):https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n05/colin-burrow/shall-i-go-onFreya Johnston (on Samuel Johnson's criticism):https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n08/freya-johnston/own-your-ignoranceMaggie Kilgour (on the young Milton):https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n20/maggie-kilgour/pens-and-heads Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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