James Joyce wrote most of the short stories in his landmark collection, Dubliners, when he was still in his 20s, but a tortuous publishing history, during which printers refused or pulped them for their profanity, meant they weren’t published until 1914, when Joyce was 33. In their eighth episode, Mark and Seamus discuss the astonishing confidence ... Show More
Aug 31
Narrative Poems: ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ by Robert Browning
‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ has baffled readers and critics ever since it was published in Men and Women in 1855. It baffled its author, too. It ‘came upon me as a kind of dream’, Browning recalled. ‘I had to write it then and there, and I finished it the same day.’ Th ... Show More
18m 1s
Aug 24
Nature in Crisis: ‘Lessons for Survival’ by Emily Raboteau
Over the past twelve years, the walls and shop shutters of Upper Manhattan have been gradually filled by giant paintings of climate-threatened birds, inspired by the species depicted by the artist John James Audubon, who lived in the area. Emily Raboteau’s ‘Lessons for Survival’ ... Show More
12m 6s
Aug 17
Who’s afraid of realism? ‘Pnin’ by Vladimir Nabokov
If Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day (1956) belongs firmly to postwar American realism, then Pnin (1957) certainly doesn’t. With its self-conscious fictionality and unreliable narrator, Nabokov’s novel is a model of postmodernism. Yet for all its playfulness, the book maintains, in its ... Show More
23m 43s
Dec 2017
122 Young James Joyce
We often think of James Joyce as a man in his thirties and forties, a monkish, fanatical, eyepatch-wearing author, trapped in his hovel and his own mind, agonizing over his masterpieces, sentence by sentence, word by laborious word. But young James Joyce, the one who studied lite ... Show More
1h 4m
Nov 2023
Oh Man, James Joyce was a Dirty Dude!
James Joyce is, without question, one of the most famous authors in the English language. Millions of readers have enjoyed (and sometimes struggled with) his groundbreaking novels and short stories. However... that's not all Joyce wrote. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max expl ... Show More
42m 11s
Mar 2023
The Fart Letters of James Joyce
James Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He was a part of the avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. He also delighted in the sounds and smells of his beloved wife, Nora Barnacle's farts. ... Show More
23m 23s
