The Classic English Literature Podcast

Send us Fan Mail For this Easter holiday, I thought we'd look at a hymn lyric from a very influential writer who is often overlooked in discussions of literature: Isaac Watt. You can find the full text of the lyric in the transcript. Additional Music: "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" perf. The Choir of St. Margaret's, Westminster (1931) His Master's Voice (B 3746) https://archive.org/details/78_when-i-survey-the-wondrous-cross_choir-of-st-margarets-westminster-miller-herber_gbia043807...

Send us Fan Mail While many may think of Swift's magnificent octopus as a mere children's adventure tale, it is, in fact, one of the darkest and most troubling satires in the English language. Written as the Enlightenment began asserting rationality as the measure of all things, Gulliver's Travels questions the very premises of western culture themselves. Link to Gulliver's Travels: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17157/17157-h/17157-h.htm Support the show If you...

Send us Fan Mail One of the most theologically and liturgically important Christmas carols may contain coded messages against the Throne of England! Additional Music: "Adeste Fidelis" by Bing Crosby with The Max Terr choir; John Scott Trotter and his orch.; Traditional; Decca (BM 03929) Support the show If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful! Or Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.c...

Send us Fan Mail On this trip, we're looking at the conventional candidate for the first modern novel in English. Defoe's story of a resourceful man shipwrecked on a desert island is so much more than a ripping yarn: it speaks to the rise of a literary vernacular language, the values of an increasing bourgeois and expansionist society, and of spiritual awakening. Come aboard! Text: https://ia600207.us.archive.org/26/items/cu31924011498676/cu31924011498676.pdf Additional Music: "Th...

Send us Fan Mail Well, I probably should have done this episode earlier, since it might have been good for it to precede our other discussions of Resto comedy. But I made a last minute decision and included a second play, which kind of threw off the old chronology. But it's good all the same! The Man of Mode by George Etherege: https://coldreads.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/the-man-of-mode.pdf The Way of the World by William Congreve: https://www.gutenberg.or...

Send us Fan Mail Once hailed as the towering literary figure of the Restoration age, John Dryden is little known now by the general reader. Let's take care of that with a close look at his most enduring works, the poetical satires Mac Flecknoe and Absalom and Achitophel. Mac Flecknoe text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44181/mac-flecknoe Absalom and Achitophel text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44172/absalom-and-achitophel Mea culpa:&nbs...

Send us Fan Mail Charles II reopened the theatres in 1660 and inaugurated the second golden age of the English stage. Today's show looks at one of the bawdiest plays to come from the period, a "comedy of manners" whose clever use of language points to the reality of style over substance. The Country Wife text: https://theater.lafayette.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/2021/03/The-Country-Wife.pdf Support the show If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donatio...

Send us Fan Mail As Americans celebrate Independence Day, I'm here once again to remind them of the debt American independence owes to English literature and history. Stick in the mud. Today, we look at a genuinely weird poem that allegorizes the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (an event that would lay the groundwork for the American Revolution nearly a century later) as a cup of tea. So, pour yourself one -- milk first or last, doesn't matter to me -- and enjoy the show! Text o...

Send us Fan Mail Today we look at the diary, a form of writing that became extraordinarily popular over the course of the 1600s. We'll especially look at famous diarists such as John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, who not only chronicle details of their personal lives, but also give first hand accounts of the dramatic history of the period: the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Great Plague, and the Great Fire of London. Support the show If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it wit...

Send us Fan Mail Put on your comfortable shoes and grab your walking stick because today we're embarking on the most famous allegory in the English language: John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from 1678. We'll cross plains, endure temptations, descend valleys, fight monsters, and ford rivers in our quest for the Celestial City! Along the way, we'll talk about how this most Puritanical of texts is, ironically, deeply indebted to the ideas of the preceding religions it rejects.&nb...

Send us Fan Mail We often think of science fiction as a particularly modern genre of storytelling, born of the science and technology of the electronic and digital age. But speculative fiction goes back centuries, back to the beginning of what we now call the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s. On today's show, we look at two of the foundational books in the genre: Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moon and Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World. May the Force be wit...

Send us Fan Mail Here's another episode in our foundling series "Out of Time." Today, I correct an oversight from our 15th century literature discussions and survey the very earliest surviving tales of the outlaw and all-around-swell-guy Robin Hood! Let's jump in the Wayback Machine! Here's a link to the Robin Hood Project at the University of Rochester, where you can find the texts we're discussing today and a wealth of other resources! https://d.lib.rochester.edu/project/robin-h...