The Thousand and One Nights is an ‘infinite text’: it has no fixed shape or length, no known author and is transformed with each new translation. In this first episode of Fiction and the Fantastic, Marina Warner and Anna Della Subin explore two particularly mysterious stories in the context of the wider mysteries and pleasures of the Nights. ‘The Porter and ... Show More
Mar 23
London Revisited: The Medieval Capital
When the Angles, Saxons and Jutes began settling across England in the wake of the Roman retreat in the early fifth century, the city they found on the north bank of the Thames was hardly a city at all. Within its walls were the great abandoned ruins of antiquity, ‘the works of g ... Show More
24m 29s
Mar 16
Narrative Poems: ‘Paradise Lost’ (Book 9) by John Milton
When Milton came to describe Eve’s tasting of the forbidden fruit, he knew he couldn’t rely on suspense to grip the reader. Instead, he used multiple genres and perspectives to interrogate the moral and emotional significance of ‘man’s first disobedience’, self-consciously drawin ... Show More
16m 26s
Oct 2025
743 Fairy Tales (with Jack Zipes) [RECLAIMED] | Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (#11 GBOAT) | Chaucer News
An early encounter with one of the most famous people in the world initiated Jack Zipes into the world of fairy tales - and he never looked back. In this episode, Jacke talks to the fairy tale expert about his book Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales, which profi ... Show More
1h 2m
Aug 2023
(Volume 1) Arabian Nights - The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night by Anonymous ~ Full Audiobook [folklore]
(Volume 1) Arabian Nights - The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night by Anonymous audiobook. Genre: folklore The main frame story concerns a king and his new bride. The king, Shahryar, upon discovering his ex-wife's infidelity executes her and then declares all women to be unf ... Show More
13h 51m
Jan 2025
671 Shakespeare's Tragic Art (with Rhodri Lewis) | My Last Book with Joel Warner
It is a truth universally acknowledged that tragedy is one of the world's highest art forms, and that Shakespeare was one of the form's greatest practitioners. But how did he do it? What models did he have to draw upon, and where did he innovate? In this episode, Jacke talks to S ... Show More
56m 6s
Mar 2024
596 The Power of Stories (with J Edward Chamberlin) | Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson | Flannery O'Connor (with Mike Palindrome) | My Last Book with Shin Yu Pai
It's a literary smorgasbord! First, Jacke dives into the recent news of the surprising connection between Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson. Next, he welcomes Mike Palindrome, President of the Literature Supporters Club, for a discussion of why Mike has been reading Flannery O'Con ... Show More
1h 10m