The Classic English Literature Podcast

Send us a text In the early 18th century, the public press came to dominate English writing. Pamphlets, newspapers, and periodicals fed the appetite for news and commentary of an ever-hungrier reading public. Richard Steele and Joseph Addison were the great innovators of the periodical essay, a quintessentially English genre of writing. Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classic...

Send us a text 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: "Them...

Send us a text For you today, Trick or Treaters, a discussion of what some critics assert is the first modern ghost story in English: Daniel Defoe's 1705 "The Apparition of Mrs. Veal." The text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36587/36587-h/36587-h.htm Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: [email protected] Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. If you enjoy the...

Send us a text 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.org/...

Send us a text For our second episode on John Dryden, we'll talk about two of his plays which marked an innovation in the tragi-comic romance: Marriage a la Mode and Amphitryon. We'll discuss the "split-plot" play, the exorcising of Restoration political anxieties, and why we sometimes mock that which we cherish. Additional sound clip from Monty Python's Flying Circus. Text of Marriage a la Mode: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15349/15349-h/15349-h.htm#pag...