Episodes

It's a paradox that has bothered Shakespeare's fans for centuries: the man was as insightful into human beings as anyone whoever lived, and yet his own life is barely documented. This combination of literary genius plus biogr...

For years, we've enjoyed talking to writers about the books they love best. In this "best of" episode, we go deep into the archive for three of our favorites: Jim Shepard and his youthful discovery of Bram Stoker's Dracula ; ...

Since the first publication of his six-volume magnum opus, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , Edward Gibbon (1734-1797) has been ranked among the greatest historians who ever lived. What made his work d...

In our last episode, Jacke looked at the life of celebrated Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), the widely acknowledged master of haiku. In this episode, Jacke looks deeper into the nature of Bashō's best works, organizin...

In addition to being what is probably the most widely used poetic form, haiku is almost certainly the most often misunderstood. In this episode, Jacke examines the life and works of Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), haiku's greatest ...

Born Tomáš Sträussler, in what was then Czechoslovakia, celebrated playwright Tom Stoppard (1937- ) became one of the most famous British playwrights in the world. Known for his wit and humor, his facility with language, and ...

Czech novelist Karel Čapek (1890-1938) might be best known as the pioneering science fiction writer who first coined the term "robot." But readers have long appreciated the transcendent humanity of his works. "There was no wr...

Jacke spends his birthday reflecting on Chicago film critic Roger Ebert (1942-2013), the Judd Apatow show Freaks and Geeks , and other literature-and-life topics. Enjoy! Additional listening suggestions: 421 HOL Goes to the M...

During his lifetime, Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) became famous for his prizewinning fiction and autobiographical works; his dedication to environmental causes; and his initiation of the creative writing program at Stanford Un...

Summertime! The season for watching blockbuster movies in arctic conditions, heart-pounding suspense flicks that heat the blood, and cool-breeze dramas that stir the soul. In this best-of episode, Jacke celebrates the summer ...

Very few novelists can match the ambition or output of French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850). A pioneer of the great nineteenth-century "realism" tradition, his novel sequence La Comédie Humaine presents a panoramic vi...

It's the Christina Rossetti episode! Jacke finally musters up the energy to finish what he started, and takes a look at one of the great poets of the Victorian era (and the creator of "Goblin Market," one of the strangest poe...

Because Jacke could not stop for the scheduled episode topics, a certain poem kindly stopped for him. Luckily it's one of the greatest poems of all time! It's by the 19th-century American genius Emily Dickinson, and it packs ...

It's one of the great mysteries in American history. The "lost colony" of Roanoke Island, where 120 or so men, women, and children living in the first permanent English settlement in North America simply disappeared, leaving ...

In his lifetime, the Romantic poet and engraver William Blake (1757-1827) was barely known and frequently misunderstood. Today, his genius is widely celebrated and his poems are some of the most famous in the English language...

As a devout and passionate religious observer, Victorian poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) lived a life that might seem, at first glance, as proper and tame. Even some of her greatest works, devotional poems and verses for ...

Money. Sex. Power. Family. Those are the conceits at the heart of Henry James's late-period masterpiece, The Golden Bowl . In this episode, Jacke talks to author Dinitia Smith, whose new novel The Prince reinvigorates this cl...

In this episode, we resume our look at Walt Whitman's life and body of work, focusing in particular on the years 1840-1855. Did Whitman's teaching career end with him being tarred and feathered by an angry mob, as has long be...

In this best-of History of Literature episode, Jacke revisits the topic of war and literature with three guests: Professor Elizabeth Samet ( Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point ), who teach...

In 1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson called for a new poet who would reflect the spirit and potential of America. In 1855, a then-unknown poet named Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass , his attempt to fulfill Emerson's wish. In t...

America, America, America... a continent, a nation, a people, and a whole lotta books. But how does America define itself? Who defines it? Where did the idea of American exceptionalism come from? And how does literature fit i...

In our last look at Søren Kierkegaard, we left our hero after he had just left the love of his life, Regine Olsen, in favor of a life devoted to God and philosophy. In this episode, Jacke looks at one of the great products of...

Do not go gentle into this good episode! Rage, rage against the dying of the... well, things fall apart there, don't they? (Because we're not gifted poets like Dylan Thomas!) In this episode, Jacke talks to producer, playwrig...

Elizabeth Gaskell had only written one novel when Charles Dickens started publishing her work in his journal Household Words . But soon she would become famous as the author of Cranford and North and South , two of the best n...