Flannery O’Connor, The Lame Shall Enter First. Sheppard is a high-minded liberal. Norton is his disappointing young son, who seems indifferent to Sheppard’s moral crusades. In the opening paragraphs of this short story Flannery O’Connor presents the two of them at breakfast. Every detail of the depiction alludes to just what is wrong within this little f ... Show More
Mar 2024
EP17 – Bred in the Bone | Auden, September 1, 1939
On the day the Nazis invade Poland, beginning the Second World War, a poet nurses a drink in a New York bar. The unwarlike Auden has just immigrated to the United States from England, yet he feels a shadow rising behind him in the east that no one will be able to escape. Auden lo ... Show More
1h 19m
Apr 2024
EP18 - The Numb Fingers | Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part One)
John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part One). The first of a two-part episode that considers John Keats’ gorgeous poem. Set in a dreamy medieval world of castles, blood feuds and esoteric folk rituals, Keats gives us a love story with some of the lushest and most opulent imagery ... Show More
1h 14m
May 2024
EP19 - Into the Storm | Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (Part Two)
John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes,” (Part Two). Today we conclude our examination of Keats’ poem, looking at three pairs of stanzas that describe the strange courtship of Porphyro and Madeline and their escape from the castle.We love hearing from all of you. Please email us at Pr ... Show More
1 h
May 2024
On Satire: John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera'
In The Beggar’s Opera we enter a society turned upside down, where private vices are seen as public virtues, and the best way to survive is to assume the worst of everyone. The only force that can subvert this state of affairs is romantic love – an affection, we discover, that sa ... Show More
13m 44s
Jun 2024
On Satire: 'The Dunciad' by Alexander Pope
Nobody hated better than Alexander Pope. Despite his reputation as the quintessentially refined versifier of the early 18th century, he was also a class A, ultra-pure, surreal, visionary mega-hater, and The Dunciad is his monument to the hate he felt for almost all the other writ ... Show More
13m 23s
Mar 2023
The Art of Noticing – and Appreciating – Our Dizzying World
<p>“Poetry is the attempt to understand fully what is real, what is present, what is imaginable, what is feelable, and how can I loosen the grip of what I already know to find some new, changed relationship,” the poet Jane Hirshfield tells me. Through poetry, she says, “I know so ... Show More
1h 20m
Mar 2023
Episode 532 - Priscilla Gilman
With her new memoir, The Critic's Daughter (Norton), Priscilla Gilman explores her relationship with her father, Theater Critic and Yale Drama professor Richard Gilman (as well as with her mom, literary agent Lynn Nesbit). We get into the perils of literary-kid memoir, the NYC bo ... Show More
1h 24m
Jun 2022
How to Start Over: 'Parents Are Not All Good and All Bad'
Some families have the frictionless ease of unconditional love and understanding, but for many the stalemate of family tensions can be insurmountable. In this episode of How to Start Over, we explore what can be done to evaluate the dynamics in lifelong family relationships, find ... Show More
30m 22s