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The History of Literature Podcast

The History of Literature Podcast

Amateur enthusiast Jacke Wilson journeys through the history of literature, from ancient epics to contemporary classics. (Episodes are not in chronological order - feel free to jump in wherever you'd like!)

Recent Episodes

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708 Science Fact and Science Fiction (with Keith Cooper) | AI Discovers a Work of Ancient Philosophy and Dreams Up a Reading List
June 11, 2025

708 Science Fact and Science Fiction (with Keith Cooper) | AI Discovers a Work of Ancient Philosophy and Dreams Up a Reading List

For decades, writers and filmmakers have imagined worlds where characters can do things like watch a double sunset (on Tatooine, of course), or stand among the sand dunes of Arrakis, or gaze at the gas-giant planet Polyphemus...
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707 Emile Zola (with Robert Lethbridge) | Graham Greene's Only Ghost Story | My Last Book with Irina Mashinski
June 8, 2025

707 Emile Zola (with Robert Lethbridge) | Graham Greene's Only Ghost Story | My Last Book with Irina Mashinski

For years, listeners have been requesting an episode devoted to the French novelist, journalist, playwright, and public intellectual Émile Zola (1840-1902). In this episode, Jacke talks to author Robert Lethbridge, whose new ...
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706 Living with Jane Austen (with Janet Todd) | A Listener Changes His Life | Bored Parents
June 1, 2025

706 Living with Jane Austen (with Janet Todd) | A Listener Changes His Life | Bored Parents

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Jane Austen's novels make us wish she was our friend. She wouldn't be just any old friend: she'd be the sharpest and wisest, the one we turn to in a crisis, the one who understands...
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705 Runaway Poets - How the Brownings Fell in Love (And Why It Matters)
May 28, 2025

705 Runaway Poets - How the Brownings Fell in Love (And Why It Matters)

Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861) was one of the most prolific and accomplished poets of the Victorian age, an inspiration to Emily Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, and countless others. And yet, her life was full of cloi...
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704 Butterflies Regained
May 25, 2025

704 Butterflies Regained

Poetry, butterflies, and original music oh my! With some help from poets Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Wordsworth, and John Keats, along with original music by composer Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal, Jacke tackles the topic of...
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703 D.H. Lawrence (with David Ellis) | My Last Book with Dorian Lynskey
May 19, 2025

703 D.H. Lawrence (with David Ellis) | My Last Book with Dorian Lynskey

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) is one of the most famous novelists of his era - and one of the most difficult to pin down. Was he a tasteless, avant-garde pornographer? Or the greatest imaginative novelist of his generation (as E....
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