Critical Readings

CR Episode 72: Irony in the Poetry of Stephen Crane

29 March 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel analyses the use of irony in the poetic works of Stephen Crane, including selections from "War Is Kind" (1899), and discusses the development of realism and imagism in English literature, especially in poetry about the experience of war.

CR Episode 71: Accepting Complexity in Melville’s Poetry

22 March 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel analyses contradiction in Melville's earliest and latest published poems: three selections from Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War--his first collection--and "Art" from Timoleon and Other Ventures, published only four months before his death.

CR Episode 70: Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard

15 March 2021 S. P. Cooper

In a return to the works of Alexander Pope, the panel reads his "Eloisa to Abelard" in full and discusses the complexity of Eloisa's tragic circumstances: her love for Abelard, her vocation as a nun, and the suffering to which they have been subjected.

CR Episode 69: Keats and The Eve of St. Agnes

8 March 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel discusses the late Romantic shift in focus from nominally Christian, deified Nature to transcendental beauty in three longer works by Keats, including "The Eve of St. Agnes" and excerpts from "Endymion" and the unfinished "Hyperion".

CR Episode 68: Shelley, Ozymandias, and the Death of Keats

1 March 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel engages in a wide-ranging discussion of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his relation to the early and late Romantic movements, his work to establish the reputation of Keats, his association with radical politics, and his own untimely death, aged 29.

CR Episode 67: An Introduction to Lord Byron

22 February 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel begins a multi-week review of Romanticism with a review of the movement's (and the author's) effects upon poetry, including readings of three works: "Darkness", "The Destruction of Sennacherib", and excerpts from "The Bride of Abydos".

CR Episode 66: Poetry and Verse of Robert W. Service

15 February 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel discusses the difference between verse and poetry (including whether such a difference exists), and examines three 'frosty' poems by Service, including "Pullman Porter", "The Prospector", and his famous ballad, "The Cremation of Sam McGee".

CR Episode 65: Three by Elizabeth Bishop

8 February 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel considers the role of time, colour, militarism, rhyme, repetition, meter, and other formal poetic aspects in three of the more popular and widely-anthologised poems written by Elizabeth Bishop: "Roosters", "The Fish", and "One Art".

CR Episode 64: An Introduction to Philip Larkin

1 February 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel examines the complicated irony of Philip Larkin's verse, and considers his use of poetic formalism, and themes including rebelliousness, nihilism, love, and impermanence, in "This Be the Verse", "Aubade", "An Arundel Tomb", and "Days".

CR Episode 63: Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis

11 January 2021 S. P. Cooper

The panel continues to welcome in a new year by looking back to an old year--in this case, A.D. 1666, and Dryden's poem "Annus Mirabilis", which ruminates on the wonders of war with Holland, the Great Fire of London, and the heroic conduct of Charles II.

CR Episode 62: Winter with Longfellow

4 January 2021 S. P. Cooper

As the new year dawns, the panel revisits the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the quintessential Fireside Poet, to reexamine some favourites (Excelsior, The Day Is Done) and some poems which are new to the podcast (Psalm of Life, Paul Revere's Ride).

CR Episode 61: Poetry and Prose of John Donne

28 December 2020 S. P. Cooper

If it must be Donne, let it be done well! The panel reads Donne's selected poetry and prose: a Christmas sermon, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", "The Flea", and selections from both "La Corona" and "Holy Sonnets".