Medieval LOLs: 'Tales of Count Lucanor' by Juan Manuel

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#Books #Higher Education #Arts #Podcasting Education #Anthony Wilks #London Review Of Books

13:44

Legendary actor and mental health advocate Glenn Close is on a quest to change how we think about mental health, starting with her decision to speak out about her own family's struggles — a brave choice considering the stigma that pervades the topic. This week, we're revisiting this sweeping conversation with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, where Close shares the inspiration behind the advocacy group she founded to combat the crisis, underscoring the transformative power of community and the critical need for comprehensive mental health care systems. Want to help shape TED’s shows going forward? Fill out our survey ! Become a TED Member today at https://ted.com/join Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

about a year ago 14:12

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If you’re looking for advice on sustaining a marriage, or robbing a grave, or performing liver surgery, then a series of self-help stories by a 14th-century Spanish prince is a good place to start. Tales of Count Lucanor, written between 1328 and 1335 by Prince Juan Manuel of Villena, is one of the earliest works of Castilian prose. The tales follow the familiar shape of many medieval stories, presented as a kind of medicine to improve the lives of its readers by example. Yet in his preface Manuel makes an unusual assertion about the individuality of all people, a philosophy that, as Mary and Irina discuss in this episode, leads to bizarre and opaque moral messages intended more to make the reader think for themselves than reach a universal conclusion.

Find a translation of the Tales here: https://elfinspell.com/CountLucanor1.html

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151 episodes

Medieval LOLs: 'Tales of Count Lucanor' by Juan Manuel

Close Readings

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published about a year ago

MP3•Episode home

Find a translation of the Tales here: https://elfinspell.com/CountLucanor1.html

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignup

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignup

Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

151 episodes

#Books #Higher Education #Arts #Podcasting Education #Anthony Wilks #London Review Of Books

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1
Love and Death: 'In Memoriam' by Tennyson 12:28

6 days ago12:28

12:28

Tennyson described 'In Memoriam' as ‘rather the cry of the whole human race than mine’, and the poem achieved widespread acclaim as soon as it was published in 1850, cited by Queen Victoria as her habitual reading after the death of Prince Albert. Its subject is the death in 1833 of Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam at the age of 22, and in its 131 sections it explores the possibilities of elegy more extensively than any English poem before it, not least in its innovative, incantatory rhyme scheme, intended to numb the pain of grief. From its repeated dramatisations of the experience of private loss, 'In Memoriam' opens out to reflect on the intellectual turmoil running through Victorian society amid monumental advances in scientific thought. In this episode, Seamus and Mark discuss the unique emotional power of Tennyson’s style, and why his great elegy came to represent what mourning, and poetry, should be in the public imagination of his 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/applecrld In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Read more in the LRB: Frank Kermode: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n09/frank-kermode/eliot-and-the-shudder⁠ Seamus Perry: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n02/seamus-perry/are-we-there-yet⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Fiction and the Fantastic: Tales by Jan Potocki and Isak Dinesen 15:05

11 days ago15:05

15:05

‘With Potocki,’ Italo Calvino wrote, ‘we can understand that the fantastic is the exploration of the obscure zone where the most unrestrained passions of desire and the terrors of guilt mix together.’ The gothic is a central seam of the fantastic, and in this episode Marina and Adam turn to two writers in that mode who lived over a hundred years apart but drew on the period of the Napoleonic wars: Jan Potocki and Isak Dinesen (the pseudonym of Karen Blixen). Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (1805) is a complex sequence of tales within tales, written from the point of view of the early 19th century but describing events in Spain in the 18th century. It’s a powerful commentary on the preoccupations of the Enlightenment and the repression of historical guilt. In Seven Gothic Tales (1934), Dinesen confronts some of the most unsettling aspect of sexual guilt and desire with psychological astuteness. Adam and Marina discuss the ways in which, in both works, the gothic was able to explore areas of human experience that other genres struggled to accommodate. 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/applecrff In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff Read more in the LRB: On Potocki: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n02/p.n.-furbank/nesting-time⁠ On 'Out of Africa': ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n12/d.a.n.-jones/the-old-feudalist⁠ On Denisen's letters: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v04/n10/errol-trzebinski/perfect-bliss-and-perfect-despair Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Conversations in Philosophy: 'Schopenhauer as Educator' by Friedrich Nietzsche 29:41

20 days ago29:41

29:41

For Nietzsche, Schopenhauer’s genius lay not in his ideas but in his heroic indifference, a thinker whose value to the world is as a liberator rather than a teacher, who shows us what philosophy is really for: to forget what we already know. ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’ was written in 1874, when Nietzsche was 30, and was published in a collection with three other essays – on Wagner, David Strauss and the use of history – that has come to be titled Untimely Meditations. In this episode Jonathan and James consider the essays together and their powerful attack on the ethos of the age, railing against the greed and power of the state, fake art, overweening science, the triviality of universities and, perhaps above all, the deification of success. 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/applecrcip In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip Read more in the LRB: David Hoy on Nietzsche's life: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v09/n01/david-hoy/different-stories⁠ J.P. Stern on 'Unmodern Observations' (or 'Untimely Meditations'): ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n16/j.p.-stern/impatience⁠ Jenny Diski on Elisabeth Nietzsche: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v25/n18/jenny-diski/it-wasn-t-him-it-was-her⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Novel Approaches: ‘North and South’ by Elizabeth Gaskell 25:04

28 days ago25:04

25:04

In North and South (1855), Margaret Hale is uprooted from her sleepy New Forest town and must adapt to life in the industrial north. Through her relationships with mill workers and a slow-burn romance with the self-made capitalist John Thornton, she is forced to reassess her assumptions about justice and propriety. At the heart of the novel are a series of righteous rebels: striking workers, mutinous naval officers and religious dissenters. Dinah Birch joins Clare Bucknell to discuss Gaskell’s rich study of obedience and authority. They explore the Unitarian undercurrent in her work, her eye for domestic and industrial detail, and how her subtle handling of perspective serves her great theme: mutual understanding. 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/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Read more in the LRB: Dinah Birch: The Unwritten Fiction of Dead Brothers https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n19/dinah-birch/the-unwritten-fiction-of-dead-brothers Rosemarie Bodenheimer: Secret-keeping https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n16/rosemarie-bodenheimer/secret-keeping John Bayley: Mrs G https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n05/john-bayley/mrs-g Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Love and Death: Self-Elegies by Plath, Larkin, Hardy and more 14:05

5 weeks ago14:05

14:05

Philip Larkin was terrified of death from an early age; Thomas Hardy contemplated what the neighbours would say after he had gone; and Sylvia Plath imagined her own death in vivid and controversial ways. The genre of self-elegy, in which poets have reflected on their own passing, is a small but eloquent one in the history of English poetry. In this episode, Seamus and Mark consider some of its most striking examples, including Chidiock Tichborne’s laconic lament on the night of his execution in 1586, Jonathan Swift’s breezy anticipation of his posthumous reception, and the more comfortless efforts of 20th-century poets confronting godless extinction. 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/applecrld In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Read more in the LRB: Jacqueline Rose on Plath: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n16/jacqueline-rose/this-is-not-a-biography⁠ David Runciman on Larkin and his father: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n03/david-runciman/a-funny-feeling⁠ John Bayley on Larkin ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n08/john-bayley/the-last-romantic⁠ Matthew Bevis on Hardy: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n19/matthew-bevis/i-prefer-my-mare Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Fiction and the Fantastic: Stories by Franz Kafka 16:06

6 weeks ago16:06

16:06

In the stories of Franz Kafka we find the fantastical wearing the most ordinary, realist dress. Though haunted by abjection and failure, Kafka has come to embody the power and potential of literary imagination in the 20th century as it confronts the nightmares of modernity. In this episode, Marina Warner is joined by Adam Thirlwell to discuss the ways in which Kafka extended the realist tradition of the European novel by drawing on ‘simple forms’ – proverbs, wisdom literature and animal fables – to push the boundaries of what literature could explore, with reference to stories including ‘The Judgment’, ‘In the Penal Colony’ and ‘A Report to the Academy’. 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/applecrff In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff Further reading in the LRB : Franz Kafka (trans. Michael Hofmann): Unknown Laws https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n14/franz-kafka/short-cuts Rivka Galchen: What Kind of Funny is He? https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n23/rivka-galchen/what-kind-of-funny-is-he Judith Butler: Who Owns Kafka? https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n05/judith-butler/who-owns-kafka J.P. Stern: Bad Faith https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n13/j.p.-stern/bad-faith Next episode: Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found at Saragossa and stories by Isak Dinesen. Get the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Conversations in Philosophy: 'My Station and Its Duties' by F.H. Bradley 14:44

7 weeks ago14:44

14:44

T.S. Eliot claimed that he learned his prose style from reading F.H. Bradley, and the poet wrote his PhD on the English philosopher at Harvard. Bradley’s life was remarkably unremarkable, as he spent his entire career as a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, where his only obligation was not to get married. Yet in over fifty years of slow, meticulous writing he articulated a series of unusual and arresting ideas that attacked Kantian and utilitarian notions of duty and morality. In this episode, Jonathan and James look at Bradley’s polemic against John Stuart Mill, ‘My Station and Its Duties’, and other essays in Ethical Studies, which challenge the idea of morality as a product of calm reasoning arrived at by mature, rational minds. For Bradley, morality is a characteristic of communities, determined by people’s differing needs at various stages in their lives, and the universal need for self-realisation can only be achieved through those communities. 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/applecrcip In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip Read more in the LRB: Frank Kermode on Eliot and Bradley: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n17/frank-kermode/feast-of-st-thomas Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Novel Approaches: 'Vanity Fair' by William Makepeace Thackeray 32:52

8 weeks ago32:52

32:52

Thackeray's comic masterpiece, Vanity Fair, is a Victorian novel looking back to Regency England as an object both of satire and nostalgia. Thackeray’s disdain for the Regency is present throughout the book, not least in the proliferation of hapless characters called George, yet he also draws heavily on his childhood experiences to unfold a complex story of fractured families, bad marriages and the tyranny of debt. In this episode, Colin Burrow and Rosemary Hill join Tom to discuss Thackeray’s use of clothes, curry and the rapidly changing topography of London to construct a turbulent society full of peril and opportunity for his heroine, Becky Sharp, and consider why the Battle of Waterloo was such a recurrent preoccupation in literature of the period. 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/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Read more in the LRB: John Sutherland on Thackeray: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n02/john-sutherland/wife-overboard Rosemary Hill on 'Frock Consciousness': https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n02/rosemary-hill/frock-consciousness Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Love and Death: Elegies for Poets by Berryman, Lowell and Bishop 12:11

9 weeks ago12:11

12:11

The confessional poets of the mid-20th century considered themselves a ‘doomed’ generation, with a cohesive identity and destiny. Their intertwining personal lives were laid bare in their work, and Robert Lowell, John Berryman and Elizabeth Bishop returned repeatedly to the elegy to commemorate old friends and settle old scores.In this episode, Mark and Seamus turn to elegies for poets by poets, tracing the intricate connections between them. Lowell, Berryman and Bishop’s work was offset by a deep commitment to the literary tradition, and Mark and Seamus identify their shared influences and anxieties. 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/applecrld In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Find further reading in the LRB: Mark Ford: No One Else Can Take a Bath for You https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n07/mark-ford/no-one-else-can-take-a-bath-for-you Karl Miller: Some Names for Robert Lowell https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n09/karl-miller/some-names-for-robert-lowell Nicholas Everett: Two Americas and a Scotland https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n18/nicholas-everett/two-americas-and-a-scotland Helen Vendler: The Numinous Moose https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n05/helen-vendler/the-numinous-moose Get the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist Next episode: Self-elegies by Hardy, Larkin and Plath. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll 15:41

10 weeks ago15:41

15:41

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are strange books, a testament to their author’s defiant unconventionality. Through them, Lewis Carroll transformed popular culture, our everyday idioms and our ideas of childhood and the fantastic, and they remain enormously popular. Anna Della Subin joins Marina Warner to explore the many puzzles of the Alice books. They discuss the way Carroll illuminates other questions raised in this series: of dream states, the nature of consciousness, the transformative power of language and the arbitrariness of authority. 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/applecrff In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff Further reading in the LRB: Marina Warner: You Must Not Ask https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v18/n01/marina-warner/you-must-not-ask Dinah Birch: Never Seen A Violet https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n17/dinah-birch/never-seen-a-violet Marina Warner: Doubly Damned https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n03/marina-warner/doubly-damned Get the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist Next episode: The stories of Franz Kafka, with Adam Thirlwell. 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: 'Autobiography' by John Stuart Mill 14:13

11 weeks ago14:13

14:13

Mill’s 'Autobiography' was considered too shocking to publish while he was alive. Behind his musings on many of the philosophical and political preoccupations of his time lie the confessions of a deeply repressed man who knows that he’s deeply repressed, coming to terms with the uncompromising educational experiment his father subjected him to as a child – described by Isaiah Berlin as ‘an appalling success’. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss Mill’s startlingly honest account of this experience and the breakdown that ensued in his 20s, and the boldness of his life and thought from his views on socialism and the rights of women to his unwavering devotion to his wife, Harriet Taylor, the co-author of 'On Liberty' and other works. 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/applecrcip In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip Further reading in the LRB: Sissela Bok on Mill's 'Autobiography': https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n06/sissela-bok/his-father-s-children Alasdair MacIntyre: Mill's Forgotten Victory https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n20/alasdair-macintyre/john-stuart-mill-s-forgotten-victory Panbkaj Mishra: Bland Fanatics https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n23/pankaj-mishra/bland-fanatics Next Episode F.H. Bradley's 'My Station and Its Duties' can be found online here: https://archive.org/details/ethicalstudies0000brad/page/160/mode/2up Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Novel Approaches: ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë 26:38

12 weeks ago26:38

26:38

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/applecrna In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna Read more in the LRB: David Trotter: Heathcliff Redounding https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n09/david-trotter/heathcliff-redounding John Bayley: Kitchen Devil https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n24/john-bayley/kitchen-devil Alice Spawls: If It Weren’t for Charlotte https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n22/alice-spawls/if-it-weren-t-for-charlotte Patricia Lockwood: What a Bear Wants https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n16/patricia-lockwood/pull-off-my-head Get 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 15:21

13 weeks ago15:21

15:21

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/applecrld In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Further reading in the LRB: John Mullan: Unpranked Lyre https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n24/john-mullan/unpranked-lyre Tony Harrison: ‘V.’ https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n01/tony-harrison/v Get the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist Read the texts online: https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/sorw https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/elcc https://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems/odfc Next episode: Mid-20th century elegies: Berryman, 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 15:35

14 weeks ago15:35

15:35

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/applecrff In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff Further reading in the LRB : Salman Rushdie: Calvino https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n17/salman-rushdie/calvino James Butler: Infinite Artichoke https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n12/james-butler/infinite-artichoke Jonathan Coe: Calvinoism https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n06/jonathan-coe/calvinoism Next 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 15:10

15 weeks ago15:10