love – Jacke Wilson

May 12, 2022

The History of Literature #405 – Kierkegaard Falls in Love

The nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is well known as the father of existentialism and one of the great Christian thinkers of all time. But it is in his relationship with Regine Olsen – his love for her, their brief engagement, and the horrible breakup, in which he left her for a life devoted Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature

Literature, love, philosophy, Regine Olsen, Søren Kierkegaard

April 25, 2022

The History of Literature #397 – Plath, Hughes, and the “Other Woman” – Assia Wevill and Her Writings (with Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick and Peter Steinberg)

In 1961, poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath rented their flat to a Canadian poet and his wife, the beautiful, accomplished, and slightly mysterious Assia Wevill. Soon afterward, Ted and Assia began having an affair. Within a year, Assia was pregnant with Ted’s child and Sylvia, after years of suffering from depression, had committed suicide. Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature

Assia Wevill, Literature, love, Poetry, Sylvia plath, ted hughes

April 16, 2022

The History of Literature #387 – Loving Virginia Woolf | Fashion in Literature (with Lauren S. Cardon)

What’s it like to be in love with a genius? How does one express oneself? Jacke takes a look at a beautiful 1926 love letter that Vita Sackville-West sent to Virginia Woolf. Then Professor Lauren S. Cardon, author of FASHIONING CHARACTER: Style, Performance, and Identity in Contemporary American Literature, stops by for a discussion of how Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, history of literature

fashion, Lauren S. Cardon, Literature, love, Virginia Woolf

April 11, 2022

The History of Literature #382 – Forbidden Victorian Love (with Mimi Matthews) | The Poet Who Hated Love | Does Margot Still Love Boswell and Johnson

Love is all around! On podcasts as well as holidays… In this episode, Jacke talks to USA Today bestselling author Mimi Matthews about her love for the Victorian era and how that fueled her latest work, the historical romance The Siren of Sussex, in which an ambitious equestrienne teams up with a devastatingly handsome half-Indian dressmaker to take Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, Fiction, history of literature

historical romance, Literature, love, margot livesey, Mimi Matthews, Victorian Era

July 11, 2021

The History of Literature #302 – Jane in Love – The story of Jane Austen and Thomas Lefroy

In the Christmas holidays of 1795-96, a young Irishman named Thomas Lefroy left his legal studies in London to visit some relatives who lived in the countryside. While staying with them, he attended a series of provincial balls that also happened to be attended by the Austens, including the 20-year-old Jane Austen. “I am almost Continue reading

history of literature, Podcast

cassandra austen, courtship, irish suitor, Jane Austen, love, Pride and Prejudice, thomas lefroy

January 18, 2021

The History of Literature #257 Shakespeare’s Best | Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)

Continuing the “Shakespeare on Thursdays” theme for August, Jacke takes a look at Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”), another one of Shakespeare’s most beloved and well known sonnets. What does the poem say about love? How does it fit into the world of weddings? And what does it have Continue reading

Arts, Authors, history of literature, Podcast

love, marriage, Poetry, Shakespeare

April 2, 2017

History of Literature #86 – Don Juan in Literature (aka The Case of the Red-Hot Lover)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:17 — 36.9MB) | Embed Subscribe: iTunes | Android | Email | RSS | More From his earliest days as a popular legend, through many appearances in drama and poetry and fiction and film, the sexual conquistador Don Juan has been the vehicle for authors and artists to Continue reading

Arts, Authors, books, history of literature, Podcast, Writing

cheers, don jon, don juan, guilt, hell, lord byron, love, mozart don giovanni, sam malone, sex, sin

November 20, 2015

Cezanne’s Mystery Woman

What does a genius painter reach for when drafting a love letter? Why, the back of one of his canvases, of course. Who has time to look for paper when you are this tormented by love? I saw you, and you let me kiss you, from that moment I have had no peace from profound turmoil. Continue reading

Arts

cezanne, love, love letter, mystery woman

December 3, 2014

The Cladogram (A History of Jacke in 100 Objects #27)

I was a young father raising a toddler in New York City. I was also a broke, miserable student buried under an avalanche of student loans. In my filthy, sleep-deprived condition I suddenly remembered Thomas Hobbes’s description of life, which I’d read years earlier. What was the line? Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and…something else. Continue reading

Authors, Fiction, The History of Jacke, Writing

american museum of natural history, cladogram, evolution, life, love, meryl streep, parenting, thomas hobbes, Writing

November 26, 2014

Thanksgiving Week 3: Life’s Sweet Partners

Oh, here we go! We’ve taken a look at the youth and the elders in my life (or at least the fictionalized version of it). How about Life’s Sweet Partner! Who else could travel through the world with Jacke at her side. That’s not easy! Deserving of all my gratitude and then some. I like Continue reading

Authors, Fiction, Writing

apartment, ghosts, girlfriend, love, sweet partner, thanksgiving, wife