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Close Readings

Close Readings

London Review of Books

Close Readings is a new multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books. Two contributors explore areas of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to some episodes for free here, and extracts from our ongoing subscriber-only series.


How To Subscribe

In Apple Podcasts, click 'subscribe' at the top of this podcast feed to unlock the full episodes.

Or for other podcast apps, sign up here: https://lrb.me/closereadings


Running in 2024:

On Satire with Clare Bucknell and Colin Burrow

Human Conditions with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards

Among the Ancients II with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones

Political Poems with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford

Medieval LOLs with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley


PLUS: More series starting in 2025...


Get in touch: [email protected]



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Top 10 Close Readings Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Close Readings episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Close Readings for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Close Readings episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Close Readings - Medieval Beginnings: Letters and Laments
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02/03/23 • 10 min

In episode two of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina turn the pages of the Exeter Book, a remarkable 10th century manuscript containing numerous poems and riddles, some of which are written in the voices of women. They consider in particular the enigmatic and beautiful ‘Wife’s Lament’ and ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’, and their numerous interpretations, and compare them to an extraordinary collection of letters written by influential women to St Boniface in the 8th century.


Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.


Subscribe to Close Readings:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings


Find reading resources for this episode on the LRB website:


https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/medieval-beginnings-letters-and-laments



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Close Readings - The Long and Short: Tennyson's 'Maud'
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01/24/23 • 9 min

Mark Ford and Seamus Perry start their series, The Long and Short, with Tennyson’s ‘Maud’, a weird and disturbing poem about obsession that Tennyson himself was obsessed by. He would recite it in full at the drop of a hat, sometimes more than once, to friends and foes alike – even though it received notoriously bad reviews when it was published. This episode considers why the poem meant so much to him, and what it tells us about the Victorian age.

This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Mark Ford is Professor of English Literature at University College London.



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Close Readings - Medieval Beginnings: Beowulf
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01/04/23 • 11 min

Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu start their Medieval Beginnings series with Beowulf, a tale of monsters and heroes that is also a complex collection of interwoven stories about war and the conduct of a warrior society. They consider the poem’s preoccupations with kingship and a pagan past seen through the eyes of a Christian culture, as well as many of the mysteries which still surround its, not least its authorship and many narrative curiosities.

Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn and Mary Wellesley as a historian and author of Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers.

Subscribe to Close Readings:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Close Readings - Modern-ish Poets Live! T. S. Eliot
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12/10/22 • 68 min

On the centenary of the publication of Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ in book form, Mark and Seamus finish the second series of Modern-ish Poets by considering how revolutionary the poem was, the numerous meanings that have been drawn out of it, and its lasting influence.

To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading on Eliot in the LRB:

Frank Kermode: https://lrb.me/kermodeeliotpod

Dan Jacobson: https://lrb.me/jacobsoneliotpod

Barbara Everett: https://lrb.me/everetteliotpod

Mark Ford: https://lrb.me/fordeliotpod

Terry Eagleton: https://lrb.me/eagletoneliotpod

Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.

This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in December 2022.



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Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the lives and works of Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, close friends and leading lights of the New York School, who sought to create an anti-academic, hedonistic poetry, freeing themselves from the puritan American tradition.

To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings

Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.


Further reading on O'Hara and Ashbery in the LRB:

C.K. Stead: https://lrb.me/steadashberypod

John Bayley: https://lrb.me/bayleyashberypod

Stephanie Burt: https://lrb.me/burtashberypod

John Kerrigan: https://lrb.me/kerriganashberypod


This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in June 2022.



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Close Readings - Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Charlotte Mew
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12/08/22 • 47 min

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at the life and work of Charlotte Mew, who brought the Victorian art of dramatic monologue into the 20th century, and whose difficult experiences are often refracted through her damaged and marginalised characters.

To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading on Mew in the LRB:

Matthew Bevis: https://lrb.me/bevismewpod

Penelope Fitzgerald: https://lrb.me/fitzgeraldmewpod

Susannah Clapp: https://lrb.me/clappmewpod

Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.

This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2021.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Close Readings - Modern-ish Poets Series 2: W. B. Yeats
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12/07/22 • 62 min

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford continue their series with a look at the life and work of W.B. Yeats, from his early quest for a mythological Irish culture, to his shift towards the Modernist experiment, and preoccupation with the ‘murderousness of the world’.

To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings

Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.

Read more in the LRB:

Seamus Deane: https://lrb.me/deaneyeatspod

Michael Wood: https://lrb.me/woodyeatspod

Colm Tóibín: https://lrb.me/toibinyeatspod

This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in December 2021.



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Close Readings - Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Emily Dickinson
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12/06/22 • 63 min

Seamus Perry, Mark Ford and Joanne O’Leary discuss the life and work of Emily Dickinsonher dashes, death instinct and obliquity.

To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings

Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.

This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in June 2021.

Further reading on Dickinson in the LRB:

Joanne O'Leary: https://lrb.me/olearydickinsonpod

Mark Ford: https://lrb.me/forddickinsonpod

Danny Karlin: https://lrb.me/karlindickinsonpod

Tom Paulin: https://lrb.me/paulindickinsonpod

Susan Eilenberg: https://lrb.me/eilenbergdickinsonpod



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Close Readings - Modern-ish Poets Series 2: Derek Walcott
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12/05/22 • 56 min

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of the Saint Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, the island poet and playwright surrounded by an oceanic consciousness, whose writing recognises at once the terrible gulfs between peoples and our common predicament.

To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadings

Series one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.

This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2021.


Further reading on and by Walcott in the LRB:

'Militia' by Derek Walcott: https://lrb.me/walcottmilitiapod

Ian Sansom: https://lrb.me/sansomwalcottpod

Nicholas Everett: https://lrb.me/everettwalcottpod

Stephen Brook: https://lrb.me/brookwalcottpod

Blake Morrison: https://lrb.me/morrisonwalcottpod



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Mary and Irina resume their discussion of Boccaccio’s Decameron, focusing on three stories of female agency, deception and desire. Alibech, an aspiring hermitess, is tricked into indulging her powerful sexual urges; Petronella combines business and pleasure at the expense of her husband and lover; while Lydia demonstrates her devotion by killing hawks and pulling teeth. As Mary and Irina discuss, these stories exemplify the ambiguous depiction of women in the Decameron, where the world is powered by rapacious female lusts, sex has no consequences and conventional morality is suspended.


Read more on the Decameron in the LRB: https://lrb.me/decameronpod


Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series including Mary and Irina's twelve-part series Medieval Beginnings, sign up:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignup

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignup

Get in touch: [email protected]



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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FAQ

How many episodes does Close Readings have?

Close Readings currently has 112 episodes available.

What topics does Close Readings cover?

The podcast is about Courses, Podcasts, Books, Education and Arts.

What is the most popular episode on Close Readings?

The episode title 'The Long and Short: Tennyson's 'Maud'' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Close Readings?

The average episode length on Close Readings is 21 minutes.

How often are episodes of Close Readings released?

Episodes of Close Readings are typically released every 6 days, 6 hours.

When was the first episode of Close Readings?

The first episode of Close Readings was released on Oct 1, 2022.

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