Close Readings

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 2025:

'Conversations in Philosophy' with Jonathan Rée and James Wood

'Fiction and the Fantastic' with Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis

'Love and Death' with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford

'Novel Approaches' with Clare Bucknell, Thomas Jones and other guests

ALSO INCLUDED IN THE CLOSE READINGS SUBSCRIPTION:

'Among the Ancients' with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones

'Medieval Beginnings' with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley

'The Long and Short' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

'Modern-ish Poets: Series 1' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

'Among the Ancients II' with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones

'On Satire' with Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell

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

'Political Poems' with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry

'Medieval LOLs' with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley

Get in touch: [email protected]

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Education Books Arts Courses

Update frequency: every 6 days
Average duration: 19 minutes
Episodes: 165
Years Active: 2022 - 2025

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The Long and Short: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’

Seamus and Mark step into the counterculture with two long poems, ‘Howl’ and ‘Kaddish’, by Allen Ginsberg, a Beat poet-celebrity with a utopian vision for an America rescued from its corrupted instit…

00:11:35 | Mon 24 Jul 2023

Among the Ancients: Catullus

For the second half of their Among the Ancients series, Emily and Tom move to Ancient Rome, starting with the late Republican poet Catullus. Described by Tennyson, somewhat misleadingly, as ‘the tend…

00:11:00 | Fri 14 Jul 2023

Medieval Beginnings: Havelok the Dane

In their seventh episode of Medieval Beginnings, Irina and Mary continue their run of Romances with the Middle English Havelok the Dane, a double Cinderella story of sex, fishing and surprisingly gra…

00:10:06 | Tue 04 Jul 2023

The Long and Short: D.H. Lawrence's short stories

Controversial, compulsive, and overwhelmingly charismatic, D.H. Lawrence continues to exert an undeniable magnetism through his novels and poetry. But, as Mark argues in this episode, the quintessent…

00:11:31 | Fri 23 Jun 2023

Among the Ancients: Aristophanes

In their sixth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom discuss the comedies of Aristophanes, in particular Clouds and Lysistrata. How did an Aristophanes comedy differ from a satyr play? Was he …

00:11:35 | Wed 14 Jun 2023

Medieval Beginnings: Le Roman de Silence

For the sixth episode in their Medieval Beginnings series, Mary and Irina go full Romance with one of the most elaborate and surprising narrative poems in medieval literature, Le Roman de Silence, a …

00:09:37 | Mon 05 Jun 2023

The Long and Short: Hart Crane's 'The Bridge'

In their fifth episode, Mark and Seamus reach their first 20th century poet of the series, the Ohio-born, New York-loving ad man Hart Crane, and his epic 1930 work The Bridge. Directly inspired by Th…

00:10:07 | Wed 24 May 2023

Among the Ancients: Euripides

Euripides was the youngest of the fifth-century Athenian tragedians, and is often described as the most radical. But how daring was he? How far did he push the boundaries of dramatic form? Focusing o…

00:11:11 | Wed 17 May 2023

Medieval Beginnings: The Lais of Marie de France

If a Middle Ages full of castles, jousts, hawking, illicit love affairs and playful singing in the meadows is what you’re looking for, then look no further than the Lais of Marie de France. These 12t…

00:12:44 | Thu 04 May 2023

The Long and Short: Katherine Mansfield's short stories

In episode four of The Long and Short, Mark and Seamus turn to the squarely modernist Katherine Mansfield, whose writing famously attracted the envy of Virginia Woolf. They discuss how in Mansfield's…

00:11:33 | Mon 24 Apr 2023

Among the Ancients: Sophocles

In the fourth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom ask: what was it like to go to the theatre in Athens in 468 BC? And how far do modern ideas about tragedy, derived from Aristotle, apply to …

00:12:50 | Fri 14 Apr 2023

Medieval Beginnings: The Ancrene Wisse

In the fourth episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina climb inside a tiny cell to explore the Ancrene Wisse, a guidebook written in the early 13th century, originally intended for three anchor…

00:11:13 | Tue 04 Apr 2023

The Long and Short: Henry James's short stories

The third episode of The Long and Short turns to the short stories of Henry James. Mark and Seamus look in particular at ‘The Aspern Papers’, which, like Tennyson’s ‘Maud’, offers a diagnosis of obse…

00:09:51 | Fri 24 Mar 2023

Among the Ancients: Sappho

In the third episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom move from epic to lyric, with the poems of Sappho, or what remains of them. They consider what we know, and don’t know, about her life, and h…

00:11:59 | Tue 14 Mar 2023

Medieval Beginnings: Bede's Life of Cuthbert

In the third episode of Medieval Beginnings, Mary and Irina explore the much-chronicled life of St Cuthbert, as told by the most famous writer of the early medieval period, the so-called Venerable Be…

00:10:07 | Fri 03 Mar 2023

The Long and Short: Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'

In the second episode of The Long and Short, Mark and Seamus turn to Walt Whitman's ‘Song of Myself’, from Leaves of Grass (1855), for Mark ‘one of the most exciting things literature has to offer’. …

00:10:10 | Fri 24 Feb 2023

Among the Ancients: The 'Odyssey'

In episode two of Among the Ancients, Tom and Emily turn to Homer’s Odyssey. They discuss the twisting, turning nature of both the narrative and its hero, the poem’s complex interrogation of the idea…

00:09:21 | Tue 14 Feb 2023

Medieval Beginnings: Letters and Laments

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 v…

00:10:07 | Fri 03 Feb 2023

The Long and Short: Tennyson's 'Maud'

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 ful…

00:09:43 | Tue 24 Jan 2023

Among the Ancients: The 'Iliad'

In their first episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom begin with a beginning, Homer's Iliad: its depictions of anger and grief, of capricious gods and warriors’ bodies, and the sheer narrative …

00:10:33 | Sat 14 Jan 2023

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