Podcast Episodes
Back to Search80 Power Play! Shakespeare’s Henry V
Who rules us and why? What does Shakespeare’s Henry V (c. 1599) tell us about the character of a leader? What does it tell us about the character of …
9 years, 3 months ago
79 Music That Melts the Stars – Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
In 1851, a 30-year-old Frenchman named Gustave Flaubert set out to write a novel about a discontented housewife in a style that would melt the stars.…
9 years, 3 months ago
78 Jane Eyre, The Good Soldier, Giovanni’s Room (with Margot Livesey)
Writing about the Scottish-born novelist Margot Livesey, the author Alice Sebold remarked, “Every novel of Margot Livesey’s is, for her readers, a jo…
9 years, 3 months ago
77 Top 10 Literary Cities
What makes a city a great literary city? Having a tradition of famous authors? A culture of bookstores and cafes and publishing houses and universiti…
9 years, 4 months ago
76 Darkness and the Power of Literature – The Forbidden Stories of North Korea (with Terry Hong)
For 70 years, the people of North Korea have lived through a totalitarian nightmare – and those of us in the outside world have had little access to …
9 years, 4 months ago
75 The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki
With a strong claim to be the first novel in history, the Japanese classic The Tale of Genji (ca. 1001-1012), by Murasaki Shikibu, or Lady Murasaki, …
9 years, 4 months ago
74 Great First Chapters (with Vu Tran)
It’s a new year! A time for fresh beginnings! And on the History of Literature Podcast, it’s a time to celebrate beginnings. Vu Tran, author of the n…
9 years, 5 months ago
73 Javier Marias and the Philosophical Novel
The Spanish novelist Javier Marías (b. 1951) has led a fascinating life, from his childhood as the son of a philosopher to his role as the king of a …
9 years, 5 months ago
72 The Best Christmas Stories in Literature
Sure, we all know the story of Frosty and Rudolph… but what about literary Christmas stories? How have great authors treated (or mistreated) this cel…
9 years, 5 months ago
70 Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Just after World War II, the poet and critic W.H. Auden said that Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (ca. 1959) is “of great relevance to our time, though i…
9 years, 5 months ago