Close Readings

• Novel Approaches: ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë

  When Wuthering Heights was published in December 1847, many readers didn’t know what to make of it: one reviewer called it ‘a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors’. In this episode of ‘Novel Approaches’, Patricia Lockwood and David Trotter join Thomas Jones to explore Emily Brontë’s ‘completely amoral’ novel. As well as questions of Heathcliff’s mysterious origins and ‘obscene’ wealth, of Cathy’s ghost, bad weather, gnarled trees, even gnarlier characters and savage dogs, they discuss the book’s intricate structure, Brontë’s inventive use of language and the extraordinary hold that her story continues to exert over the imaginations of readers and non-readers alike.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrnaIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsnaRead more in the LRB:David Trotter: Heathcliff Redoundinghttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n09/david-trotter/heathcliff-redoundingJohn Bayley: Kitchen Devilhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n24/john-bayley/kitchen-devilAlice Spawls: If It Weren’t for Charlottehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n22/alice-spawls/if-it-weren-t-for-charlottePatricia Lockwood: What a Bear Wantshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n16/patricia-lockwood/pull-off-my-headGet the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Love and Death: ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray

  Situated on the cusp of the Romantic era, Thomas Gray’s work is a mixture of impersonal Augustan abstraction and intense subjectivity. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and continues to exert its influence on contemporary poetry. Mark and Seamus explore three of Gray’s elegiac poems and their peculiar emotional power. They discuss Gray’s ambiguous sexuality, his procrastination and class anxieties, and where his humour shines through – as in his elegy for Horace Walpole’s cat.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrldIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsldFurther reading in the LRB:John Mullan: Unpranked Lyrehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n24/john-mullan/unpranked-lyreTony Harrison: ‘V.’https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n01/tony-harrison/vGet the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklistRead the texts online:https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/sorwhttps://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/elcchttps://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/odfcNext episode: Mid-20th century elegies: Betjeman, Lowell, Bishop Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino

  Italo Calvino’s novella Invisible Cities is a hypnagogic reimagining of Marco Polo’s time in the court of Kublai Khan. Polo describes 55 impossible places – cities made of plumbing, free-floating, overwhelmed by rubbish, buried underground – that reveal something true about every city. Marina and Anna Della read Invisible Cities alongside the Travels of Marco Polo, and explore how both blur the lines between reality and fantasy, storyteller and audience. They discuss the connections between Calvino’s love of fairytales and his anti-fascist politics, and why he saw the fantastic as a mode of truth-telling.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrffIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsffFurther reading in the LRB:Salman Rushdie: Calvinohttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n17/salman-rushdie/calvinoJames Butler: Infinite Artichokehttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n12/james-butler/infinite-artichokeJonathan Coe: Calvinoismhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n06/jonathan-coe/calvinoismNext episode: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Conversations in Philosophy: 'Circles' and other essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Circular reasoning is normally condemned by philosophers, but in his 1841 essay ‘Circles’, Emerson proposes that not getting anywhere is precisely what we need to do to find out where we already are. In this episode, Jonathan and James consider Emerson’s use of the circle to demonstrate an idealistic philosophy rooted in the natural world, in which individuals are bounded by self-created horizons, and the extent to which this fits with Transcendentalist notions of progress and independence. They also discuss what his other essays, including ‘Self-Reliance’, ‘Art’ and ‘Nature’, have to say about the importance of thinking one’s own thoughts, and why Emerson had such a powerful influence on writers as varied as Nietzsche, Saul Bellow and Louisa May Alcott.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcipIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscipRead 'Circles' here:https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-first-series/circles/Read more in the LRB:Tony Tanner on the life of Emerson:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n10/tony-tanner/arctic-habitsColin Burrow on the American canon:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n22/colin-burrow/the-magic-bloomschtickNext episode: John Stuart Mill's Autobiography Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Novel Approaches: 'Crotchet Castle' by Thomas Love Peacock

  Thomas Love Peacock didn’t want to write novels, at least not in the form they had taken in the first half of the 19th century. In Crotchet Castle he rejects the expectation that novelists should reveal the interiority of their characters, instead favouring the testing of opinions and ideas. His ‘novel of talk’, published in 1831, appears largely like a playscript in which disparate characters assemble for a house party next to the Thames before heading up the river to Wales. Their debates cover, among other things, the Captain Swing riots of 1830, the mass dissemination of knowledge, the emerging philosophy of utilitarianism and the relative merits of medieval and contemporary values. In this episode Clare is joined by Freya Johnston and Thomas Keymer to discuss where the book came from and its use of ‘sociable argument’ to offer up-to-date commentary on the economic and political turmoil of its time.Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrnaIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsnaRead more in the LRB:Thomas Keymer on Peacockhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n03/thomas-keymer/bring-some-madeiraPaul Foot: The not-so-great Reform Acthttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n09/paul-foot/shoy-hoys Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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