history of literature
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The History of Literature #169 – Dostoevsky
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL4056729298.mp3 FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (1821-1881) was, in the estimation of James Joyce, “the man more than any other who has created modern prose.” “Outside Shakespeare,” Virginia Woolf wrote, “there is no more exciting reading.” His influence is as impossible to understand as it is to overstate: he is widely credited as the forerunner of modern psychology,… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #168 – Jhumpa Lahiri (“The Third and Final Continent”)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL5314501983.mp3 What was it like to relocate from India to London to America in the early 1970s? And how can a daughter hope to recapture the experience of her father and convey it in fiction? In today’s episode of the History of Literature, Jacke and Mike look at a contemporary classic story, Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #164 – Karl Marx
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL7610977492.mp3 Karl Marx (1818-1883) turned his early interest in literature and philosophy into a lifelong study of the socioeconomic forces unleashed by the rise of capitalism. His works The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, among others, influenced the course of the twentieth century like few others. But who was Karl Marx? How did his ideas become so widespread?… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #163 – Gabriel García Márquez (with Sarah Bird)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL5528223655.mp3 In this episode, Jacke welcomes author Sarah Bird to the program to talk about her background, her writing, and her readerly passion for the fiction of the great twentieth-century novelist, Gabriel García Márquez. GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ (1927-2014) was one of the most revered and influential novelists of the twentieth century. Born in a small… Continue reading
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162 Ernest Hemingway
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL5052941823.mp3 Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the most famous American writers of the twentieth century. His plain, economical prose style–inspired by journalism and the King James Bible, with an assist from the Cezannes he viewed in Gertrude Stein’s apartment–became a hallmark of modernism and changed the course of American literature. In this episode, Jacke… Continue reading
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161 Voltaire
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL9193713738.mp3 Voltaire was born Francois Marie Arouet in 1694 in Paris, France, the son of a respectable but not particularly eminent lawyer. By the time he died at the age of 83, he was widely regarded as one of the greatest French writers in history, a distinction he still holds today. Astoundingly prolific, he is… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #159 – Herman Melville
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL9179456128.mp3 Today, Herman Melville (1819-1891) is considered one of the greatest of American writers, and a leading candidate for THE American novelist thanks to his classic work, Moby-Dick. How did this unpromising student become one of the most inventive and observant writers of his time? What obstacles did he face, and what did he do… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #158 – “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL3236940460.mp3 In the 1960s and ’70s, the Vietnam War dominated the hearts and minds of a generation of Americans. In 1990, the American writer Tim O’Brien, himself a former soldier, published “The Things They Carried,” a short story that became an instant classic. Through its depiction of the members of a platoon in Vietnam, told… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #157 – Travel Books (with Mike Palindrome)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL1955560639.mp3 “The world is a book,” said Augustine, “and those who do not travel read only one page.” But what about books ABOUT traveling? Do they double the pleasure? Transport us to a different place? Inspire and enchant? Or are they more like a forced march through someone else’s interminable photo album? Mike Palindrome, President… Continue reading
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The History of Literature #156 – The Sonnet
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL3663385565.mp3 “A sonnet,” said the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “is a moment’s monument.” But who invented the sonnet? Who brought it to prominence? How has it changed over the years? And why does this form continue to be so compelling? In this episode of the History of Literature, we take a brief look at one… Continue reading
Jacke Wilson 