Professing Literature

Beowulf. A shining young warrior has crossed the water and saved the Danish people from a dreadful monster and his scarcely less dreadful mother. As the Danes honour Beowulf with feasting, gifts and music their aged king offers him some counsel. Hrothgar has ruled the Danes for fifty years, in times of triumph and adversity, and he wants to make sure his young friend can profit from his own hard-won wisdom.
Professing Literature is back! We'd love to hear what you think about this episode or any of the others. Please send questions, comments, or otherwise to ProfessingLiterature@protonmail.com.
------------
Theme Music: "Nobility" by Wicked Cinema
Opening Passage Music: "The White Birch" by Moorland Songs

Macbeth, Act Two, Scene Two. In the inaugural episode of Professing Literature we examine a conversation held in the aftermath of one of literature’s most famous murders. Macbeth has just stabbed a king to gain a throne he will never sit upon securely. His tense exchange of words with Lady Macbeth discloses the moral and psychological stakes of the act, and hints at the consequences that will follow.

J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 11. Jane Gallagher had been the sort of girl who kept her kings in the back row. Is she still? As sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield unravels over the course of a few days in Manhattan his thoughts often return to Jane, who haunts his memory and is connected to so many of his most pressing obsessions: sex, vulnerability, change and authenticity.
As always, thanks for listening. Please send us your questions, comments, or otherwise to ProfessingLiterature@protonmail.com. We love hearing from listeners!

T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Part One). This is the first of two episodes devoted to one of the most famous poems of the twentieth century, wherein Eliot’s enigmatic speaker invites us on an evening stroll through his memories, his fears and his inhibitions.

We'd love to hear what you think about this episode or any of the others. Please send questions, comments, or otherwise to ProfessingLiterature@protonmail.com.

------------

Theme Music: "Nobility" by Wicked Cinema

Opening Passage Music: “If My Companion” by John Dowland, performed by Jon Sayles

Seamus Heaney, “Blackberry-Picking.” Today we consider a lyric poem from Death of a Naturalist, Seamus Heaney’s first collection (1966). In “Blackberry-Picking” Heaney recounts a memory from his childhood, or perhaps from the beginning of his childhood’s end.
----------
We started recording episodes about a year ago and are just now releasing them. We have a handful more of them to publish before we catch up. We hope you enjoy and thanks for listening!
If you have questions for Dr. Anderson, please email us at ProfessingLiterature@protonmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.