Close Readings

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.

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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

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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:

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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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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

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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.

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