Podcasts about coleridge

Frances Wilson has written biographies of Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, D.H. Lawrence, and, most recently, Muriel Spark. I thought Electric Spark was excellent. In my review, I wrote: “Wilson has done far more than string the facts together. She has created a strange and vivid portrait of one of the most curious of twentieth century novelists.” In this interview, we covered questions like why Thomas De Quincey is more widely read, why D.H. Lawrence's best books aren't his novels, Frances's conversion to spookiness, what she thinks about a whole range of modern biographers, literature and parasocial relationships, Elizabeth Bowen, George Meredith, and plenty about Muriel Spark.Here are two brief extracts. There is a full transcript below.Henry: De Quincey and Lawrence were the people you wrote about before Muriel Spark, and even though they seem like three very different people, but in their own way, they're all a little bit mad, aren't they?Frances: Yes, that is, I think, something that they have in common. It's something that I'm drawn to. I like writing about difficult people. I don't think I could write about anyone who wasn't difficult. I like difficult people in general. I like the fact that they pose a puzzle and they're hard to crack, and that their difficulty is laid out in their work and as a code. I like tackling really, really stubborn personalities as well. Yes, they were all a bit mad. The madness was what fuelled their journeys without doubt.Henry: This must make it very hard as a biographer. Is there always a code to be cracked, or are you sometimes dealing with someone who is slippery and protean and uncrackable?And.Henry: People listening will be able to tell that Spark is a very spooky person in several different ways. She had what I suppose we would call spiritual beliefs to do with ghosts and other sorts of things. You had a sort of conversion of your own while writing this book, didn't you?Frances: Yes, I did. [laughs] Every time I write a biography, I become very, very, very immersed in who I'm writing about. I learned this from Richard Holmes, who I see as a method biographer. He Footsteps his subjects. He becomes his subjects. I think I recognized when I first read Holmes's Coleridge, when I was a student, that this was how I also wanted to live. I wanted to live inside the minds of the people that I wrote about, because it was very preferable to live inside my own mind. Why not live inside the mind of someone really, really exciting, one with genius?What I felt with Spark wasn't so much that I was immersed by-- I wasn't immersed by her. I felt actually possessed by her. I think this is the Spark effect. I think a lot of her friends felt like this. I think that her lovers possibly felt like this. There is an extraordinary force to her character, which absolutely lives on, even though she's dead, but only recently dead. The conversion I felt, I think, was that I have always been a very enlightenment thinker, very rational, very scientific, very Freudian in my approach to-- I will acknowledge the unconscious but no more.By the time I finished with Spark, I'm pure woo-woo now.TranscriptHenry: Today, I am talking to Frances Wilson. Frances is a biographer. Her latest book, Electric Spark, is a biography of the novelist Muriel Spark, but she has also written about Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas De Quincey, DH Lawrence and others. Frances, welcome.Frances Wilson: Thank you so much for having me on.Henry: Why don't more people read Thomas De Quincey's work?Frances: [laughs] Oh, God. We're going right into the deep end.[laughter]Frances: I think because there's too much of it. When I chose to write about Thomas De Quincey, I just followed one thread in his writing because Thomas De Quincey was an addict. One of the things he was addicted to was writing. He wrote far, far, far too much. He was a professional hack. He was a transcendental hack, if you like, because all of his writing he did while on opium, which made the sentences too long and too high and very, very hard to read.When I wrote about him, I just followed his interest in murder. He was fascinated by murder as a fine art. The title of one of his best essays is On Murder as One of the Fine Arts. I was also interested in his relationship with Wordsworth. I twinned those together, which meant cutting out about 97% of the rest of his work. I think people do read his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. I think that's a cult text. It was the memoir, if you want to call it a memoir, that kick-started the whole pharmaceutical memoir business on drugs.It was also the first addict's memoir and the first recovery memoir, and I'd say also the first misery memoir. He's very much at the root of English literary culture. We're all De Quincey-an without knowing it, is my argument.Henry: Oh, no, I fully agree. That's what surprises me, that they don't read him more often.Frances: I know it's a shame, isn't it? Of all the Romantic Circle, he's the one who's the most exciting to read. Also, Lamb is wonderfully exciting to read as well, but Lamb's a tiny little bit more grounded than De Quincey, who was literally not grounded. He's floating in an opium haze above you.[laughter]Henry: What I liked about your book was the way you emphasized the book addiction, not just the opium addiction. It is shocking the way he piled up chests full of books and notebooks, and couldn't get into the room because there were too many books in there. He was [crosstalk].Frances: Yes. He had this in common with Muriel Spark. He was a hoarder, but in a much more chaotic way than Spark, because, as you say, he piled up rooms with papers and books until he couldn't get into the room, and so just rented another room. He was someone who had no money at all. The no money he had went on paying rent for rooms, storing what we would be giving to Oxfam, or putting in the recycling bin. Then he'd forget that he was paying rent on all these rooms filled with his mountains of paper. The man was chaos.Henry: What is D.H. Lawrence's best book?Frances: Oh, my argument about Lawrence is that we've gone very badly wrong in our reading of him, in seeing him primarily as a novelist and only secondarily as an essayist and critic and short story writer, and poet. This is because of F.R. Leavis writing that celebration of him called D.H. Lawrence: Novelist, because novels are not the best of Lawrence. I think the best of his novels is absolutely, without doubt, Sons and Lovers. I think we should put the novels in the margins and put in the centre, the poems, travel writing.Absolutely at the centre of the centre should be his studies in classic American literature. His criticism was- We still haven't come to terms with it. It was so good. We haven't heard all of Lawrence's various voices yet. When Lawrence was writing, contemporaries didn't think of Lawrence as a novelist at all. It was anyone's guess what he was going to come out with next. Sometimes it was a novel [laughs] and it was usually a rant about-- sometimes it was a prophecy. Posterity has not treated Lawrence well in any way, but I think where we've been most savage to him is in marginalizing his best writing.Henry: The short fiction is truly extraordinary.Frances: Isn't it?Henry: I always thought Lawrence was someone I didn't want to read, and then I read the short fiction, and I was just obsessed.Frances: It's because in the short fiction, he doesn't have time to go wrong. I think brevity was his perfect length. Give him too much space, and you know he's going to get on his soapbox and start ranting, start mansplaining. He was a terrible mansplainer. Mansplaining his versions of what had gone wrong in the world. It is like a drunk at the end of a too-long dinner party, and you really want to just bundle him out. Give him only a tiny bit of space, and he comes out with the perfection that is his writing.Henry: De Quincey and Lawrence were the people you wrote about before Muriel Spark, and even though they seem like three very different people, but in their own way, they're all a little bit mad, aren't they?Frances: Yes, that is, I think, something that they have in common. It's something that I'm drawn to. I like writing about difficult people. I don't think I could write about anyone who wasn't difficult. I like difficult people in general. I like the fact that they pose a puzzle and they're hard to crack, and that their difficulty is laid out in their work and as a code. I like tackling really, really stubborn personalities as well. Yes, they were all a bit mad. The madness was what fuelled their journeys without doubt.Henry: This must make it very hard as a biographer. Is there always a code to be cracked, or are you sometimes dealing with someone who is slippery and protean and uncrackable?Frances: I think that the way I approach biography is that there is a code to crack, but I'm not necessarily concerned with whether I crack it or not. I think it's just recognizing that there's a hell of a lot going on in the writing and that, in certain cases and not in every case at all, the best way of exploring the psyche of the writer and the complexity of the life is through the writing, which is a argument for psycho biography, which isn't something I necessarily would argue for, because it can be very, very crude.I think with the writers I choose, there is no option. Muriel Spark argued for this as well. She said in her own work as a biographer, which was really very, very strong. She was a biographer before she became a novelist. She thought hard about biography and absolutely in advance of anyone else who thought about biography, she said, "Of course, the only way we can approach the minds of writers is through their work, and the writer's life is encoded in the concerns of their work."When I was writing about Muriel Spark, I followed, as much as I could, to the letter, her own theories of biography, believing that that was part of the code that she left. She said very, very strong and very definitive things about what biography was about and how to write a biography. I tried to follow those rules.Henry: Can we play a little game where I say the names of some biographers and you tell me what you think of them?Frances: Oh my goodness. Okay.Henry: We're not trying to get you into trouble. We just want some quick opinions. A.N. Wilson.Frances: I think he's wonderful as a biographer. I think he's unzipped and he's enthusiastic and he's unpredictable and he's often off the rails. I think his Goethe biography-- Have you read the Goethe biography?Henry: Yes, I thought that was great.Frances: It's just great, isn't it? It's so exciting. I like the way that when he writes about someone, it's almost as if he's memorized the whole of their work.Henry: Yes.Frances: You don't imagine him sitting at a desk piled with books and having to score through his marginalia. It sits in his head, and he just pours it down on a page. I'm always excited by an A.N. Wilson biography. He is one of the few biographers who I would read regardless of who the subject was.Henry: Yes.Frances: I just want to read him.Henry: He does have good range.Frances: He absolutely does have good range.Henry: Selina Hastings.Frances: I was thinking about Selina Hastings this morning, funnily enough, because I had been talking to people over the weekend about her Sybil Bedford biography and why that hadn't lifted. She wrote a very excitingly good life of Nancy Mitford and then a very unexcitingly not good life of Sybil Bedford. I was interested in why the Sybil Bedford simply hadn't worked. I met people this weekend who were saying the same thing, that she was a very good biographer who had just failed [laughs] to give us anything about Sybil Bedford.I think what went wrong in that biography was that she just could not give us her opinions. It's as if she just withdrew from her subject as if she was writing a Wikipedia entry. There were no opinions at all. What the friends I was talking to said was that she just fell out with her subject during the book. That's what happened. She stopped being interested in her. She fell out with her and therefore couldn't be bothered. That's what went wrong.Henry: Interesting. I think her Evelyn Waugh biography is superb.Frances: Yes, I absolutely agree. She was on fire until this last one.Henry: That's one of the best books on Waugh, I think.Frances: Yes.Henry: Absolutely magical.Frances: I also remember, it's a very rare thing, of reading a review of it by Hilary Mantel saying that she had not read a biography that had been as good, ever, as Selina Hastings' on Evelyn Waugh. My goodness, that's high praise, isn't it?Henry: Yes, it is. It is. I'm always trying to push that book on people. Richard Holmes.Frances: He's my favourite. He's the reason that I'm a biographer at all. I think his Coleridge, especially the first volume of the two-volume Coleridge, is one of the great books. It left me breathless when I read it. It was devastating. I also think that his Johnson and Savage book is one of the great books. I love Footsteps as well, his account of the books he didn't write in Footsteps. I think he has a strange magic. When Muriel Spark talked about certain writers and critics having a sixth literary sense, which meant that they tuned into language and thought in a way that the rest of us don't, I think that Richard Holmes does have that. I think he absolutely has it in relation to Coleridge. I'm longing for his Tennyson to come out.Henry: Oh, I know. I know.Frances: Oh, I just can't wait. I'm holding off on reading Tennyson until I've got Holmes to help me read him. Yes, he is quite extraordinary.Henry: I would have given my finger to write the Johnson and Savage book.Frances: Yes, I know. I agree. How often do you return to it?Henry: Oh, all the time. All the time.Frances: Me too.Henry: Michael Holroyd.Frances: Oh, that's interesting, Michael Holroyd, because I think he's one of the great unreads. I think he's in this strange position of being known as a greatest living biographer, but nobody's read him on Augustus John. [laughs] I haven't read his biographies cover to cover because they're too long and it's not in my subject area, but I do look in them, and they're novelistic in their wit and complexity. His sentences are very, very, very entertaining, and there's a lot of freight in each paragraph. I hope that he keeps selling.I love his essays as well, and also, I think that he has been a wonderful ambassador for biography. He's very, very supportive of younger biographers, which not every biographer is, but I know he's been very supportive of younger biographers and is incredibly approachable.Henry: Let's do a few Muriel Spark questions. Why was the Book of Job so important to Muriel Spark?Frances: I think she liked it because it was rogue, because it was the only book of the Bible that wasn't based on any evidence, it wasn't based on any truth. It was a fictional book, and she liked fiction sitting in the middle of fact. That was one of her main things, as all Spark lovers know. She liked the fact that there was this work of pure imagination and extraordinarily powerful imagination sitting in the middle of the Old Testament, and also, she thought it was an absolutely magnificent poem.She saw herself primarily as a poet, and she responded to it as a poem, which, of course, it is. Also, she liked God in it. She described Him as the Incredible Hulk [laughs] and she liked His boastfulness. She enjoyed, as I do, difficult personalities, and she liked the fact that God had such an incredibly difficult personality. She liked the fact that God boasted and boasted and boasted, "I made this and I made that," to Job, but also I think she liked the fact that you hear God's voice.She was much more interested in voices than she was in faces. The fact that God's voice comes out of the burning bush, I think it was an image for her of early radio, this voice speaking, and she liked the fact that what the voice said was tricksy and touchy and impossibly arrogant. He gives Moses all these instructions to lead the Israelites, and Moses says, "But who shall I say sent me? Who are you?" He says, "I am who I am." [laughs] She thought that was completely wonderful. She quotes that all the time about herself. She says, "I know it's a bit large quoting God, but I am who I am." [laughs]Henry: That disembodied voice is very important to her fiction.Frances: Yes.Henry: It's the telephone in Memento Mori.Frances: Yes.Henry: Also, to some extent, tell me what you think of this, the narrator often acts like that.Frances: Like this disembodied voice?Henry: Yes, like you're supposed to feel like you're not quite sure who's telling you this or where you're being told it from. That's why it gets, like in The Ballad of Peckham Rye or something, very weird.Frances: Yes. I'm waiting for the PhD on Muriel Sparks' narrators. Maybe it's being done as we speak, but she's very, very interested in narrators and the difference between first-person and third-person. She was very keen on not having warm narrators, to put it mildly. She makes a strong argument throughout her work for the absence of the seductive narrative. Her narratives are, as we know, unbelievably seductive, but not because we are being flattered as readers and not because the narrator makes herself or himself pretty. The narrator says what they feel like saying, withholds most of what you would like them to say, plays with us, like in a Spark expression, describing her ideal narrator like a cat with a bird [laughs].Henry: I like that. Could she have been a novelist if she had not become a Catholic?Frances: No, she couldn't. The two things happened at the same time. I wonder, actually, whether she became a Catholic in order to become a novelist. It wasn't that becoming a novelist was an accidental effect of being a Catholic. The conversion was, I think, from being a biographer to a novelist rather than from being an Anglican to a Catholic. What happened is a tremendous interest. I think it's the most interesting moment in any life that I've ever written about is the moment of Sparks' conversion because it did break her life in two.She converted when she was in her mid-30s, and several things happened at once. She converted to Catholicism, she became a Catholic, she became a novelist, but she also had this breakdown. The breakdown was very much part of that conversion package. The breakdown was brought on, she says, by taking Dexys. There was slimming pills, amphetamines. She wanted to lose weight. She put on weight very easily, and her weight went up and down throughout her life.She wanted to take these diet pills, but I think she was also taking the pills because she needed to do all-nighters, because she never, ever, ever stopped working. She was addicted to writing, but also she was impoverished and she had to sell her work, and she worked all night. She was in a rush to get her writing done because she'd wasted so much of her life in her early 20s, in a bad marriage trapped in Africa. She needed to buy herself time. She was on these pills, which have terrible side effects, one of which is hallucinations.I think there were other reasons for her breakdown as well. She was very, very sensitive and I think psychologically fragile. Her mother lived in a state of mental fragility, too. She had a crash when she finished her book. She became depressed. Of course, a breakdown isn't the same as depression, but what happened to her in her breakdown was a paranoid attack rather than a breakdown. She didn't crack into nothing and then have to rebuild herself. She just became very paranoid. That paranoia was always there.Again, it's what's exciting about her writing. She was drawn to paranoia in other writers. She liked Cardinal Newman's paranoia. She liked Charlotte Brontë's paranoia, and she had paranoia. During her paranoid attack, she felt very, very interestingly, because nothing that happened in her life was not interesting, that T.S. Eliot was sending her coded messages. He was encoding these messages in his play, The Confidential Clerk, in the program notes to the play, but also in the blurbs he wrote for Faber and Faber, where he was an editor. These messages were very malign and they were encoded in anagrams.The word lived, for example, became devil. I wonder whether one of the things that happened during her breakdown wasn't that she discovered God, but that she met the devil. I don't think that that's unusual as a conversion experience. In fact, the only conversion experience she ever describes, you'll remember, is in The Girls of Slender Means, when she's describing Nicholas Farrington's conversion. That's the only conversion experience she ever describes. She says that his conversion is when he sees one of the girls leaving the burning building, holding a Schiaparelli dress. Suddenly, he's converted because he's seen a vision of evil.She says, "Conversion can be as a result of a recognition of evil, rather than a recognition of good." I think that what might have happened in this big cocktail of things that happened to her during her breakdown/conversion, is that a writer whom she had idolized, T.S. Eliot, who taught her everything that she needed to know about the impersonality of art. Her narrative coldness comes from Eliot, who thought that emotions had no place in art because they were messy, and art should be clean.I think a writer whom she had idolized, she suddenly felt was her enemy because she was converting from his church, because he was an Anglo-Catholic. He was a high Anglican, and she was leaving Anglo-Catholicism to go through the Rubicon, to cross the Rubicon into Catholicism. She felt very strongly that that is something he would not have approved of.Henry: She's also leaving poetry to become a prose writer.Frances: She was leaving his world of poetry. That's absolutely right.Henry: This is a very curious parallel because the same thing exactly happens to De Quincey with his worship of Wordsworth.Frances: You're right.Henry: They have the same obsessive mania. Then this, as you say, not quite a breakdown, but a kind of explosive mania in the break. De Quincey goes out and destroys that mossy hut or whatever it is in the orchard, doesn't he?Frances: Yes, that disgusting hut in the orchard. Yes, you're completely right. What fascinated me about De Quincey, and this was at the heart of the De Quincey book, was how he had been guided his whole life by Wordsworth. He discovered Wordsworth as a boy when he read We Are Seven, that very creepy poem about a little girl sitting on her sibling's grave, describing the sibling as still alive. For De Quincey, who had lost his very adored sister, he felt that Wordsworth had seen into his soul and that Wordsworth was his mentor and his lodestar.He worshipped Wordsworth as someone who understood him and stalked Wordsworth, pursued and stalked him. When he met him, what he discovered was a man without any redeeming qualities at all. He thought he was a dry monster, but it didn't stop him loving the work. In fact, he loved the work more and more. What threw De Quincey completely was that there was such a difference between Wordsworth, the man who had no genius, and Wordsworth, the poet who had nothing but.Eliot described it, the difference between the man who suffers and the mind which creates. What De Quincey was trying to deal with was the fact that he adulated the work, but was absolutely appalled by the man. Yes, you're right, this same experience happened to spark when she began to feel that T.S. Eliot, whom she had never met, was a malign person, but the work was still not only of immense importance to her, but the work had formed her.Henry: You see the Wasteland all over her own work and the shared Dante obsession.Frances: Yes.Henry: It's remarkably strong. She got to the point of thinking that T.S. Eliot was breaking into her house.Frances: Yes. As I said, she had this paranoid imagination, but also what fired her imagination and what repeated itself again and again in the imaginative scenarios that recur in her fiction and nonfiction is the idea of the intruder. It was the image of someone rifling around in cupboards, drawers, looking at manuscripts. This image, you first find it in a piece she wrote about finding herself completely coincidentally, staying the night during the war in the poet Louis MacNeice's house. She didn't know it was Louis MacNeice's house, but he was a poet who was very, very important to her.Spark's coming back from visiting her parents in Edinburgh in 1944. She gets talking to an au pair on the train. By the time they pull into Houston, there's an air raid, and the au pair says, "Come and spend the night at mine. My employers are away and they live nearby in St. John's Wood." Spark goes to this house and sees it's packed with books and papers, and she's fascinated by the quality of the material she finds there.She looks in all the books. She goes into the attic, and she looks at all the papers, and she asks the au pair whose house it is, and the au pair said, "Oh, he's a professor called Professor Louis MacNeice." Spark had just been reading Whitney. He's one of her favourite poets. She retells this story four times in four different forms, as non-fiction, as fiction, as a broadcast, as reflections, but the image that keeps coming back, what she can't get rid of, is the idea of herself as snooping around in this poet's study.She describes herself, in one of the versions, as trying to draw from his papers his power as a writer. She says she sniffs his pens, she puts her hands over his papers, telling herself, "I must become a writer. I must become a writer." Then she makes this weird anonymous phone call. She loved the phone because it was the most strange form of electrical device. She makes a weird anonymous phone call to an agent, saying, "I'm ringing from Louis MacNeice's house, would you like to see my manuscript?" She doesn't give her name, and the agent says yes.Now I don't believe this phone call took place. I think it's part of Sparks' imagination. This idea of someone snooping around in someone else's room was very, very powerful to her. Then she transposed it in her paranoid attack about T.S. Eliot. She transposed the image that Eliot was now in her house, but not going through her papers, but going through her food cupboards. [laughs] In her food cupboards, all she actually had was baked beans because she was a terrible cook. Part of her unwellness at that point was malnutrition. No, she thought that T.S. Eliot was spying on her. She was obsessed with spies. Spies, snoopers, blackmailers.Henry: T.S. Eliot is Stealing My Baked Beans would have been a very good title for a memoir.Frances: It actually would, wouldn't it?Henry: Yes, it'd be great.[laughter]Henry: People listening will be able to tell that Spark is a very spooky person in several different ways. She had what I suppose we would call spiritual beliefs to do with ghosts and other sorts of things. You had a sort of conversion of your own while writing this book, didn't you?Frances: Yes, I did. [laughs] Every time I write a biography, I become very, very, very immersed in who I'm writing about. I learned this from Richard Holmes, who I see as a method biographer. He Footsteps his subjects. He becomes his subjects. I think I recognized when I first read Holmes's Coleridge, when I was a student, that this was how I also wanted to live. I wanted to live inside the minds of the people that I wrote about, because it was very preferable to live inside my own mind. Why not live inside the mind of someone really, really exciting, one with genius?What I felt with Spark wasn't so much that I was immersed by-- I wasn't immersed by her. I felt actually possessed by her. I think this is the Spark effect. I think a lot of her friends felt like this. I think that her lovers possibly felt like this. There is an extraordinary force to her character, which absolutely lives on, even though she's dead, but only recently dead. The conversion I felt, I think, was that I have always been a very enlightenment thinker, very rational, very scientific, very Freudian in my approach to-- I will acknowledge the unconscious but no more.By the time I finished with Spark, I'm pure woo-woo now. Anything can happen. This is one of the reasons Spark was attracted to Catholicism because anything can happen, because it legitimizes the supernatural. I felt so strongly that the supernatural experiences that Spark had were real, that what Spark was describing as the spookiness of our own life were things that actually happened.One of the things I found very, very unsettling about her was that everything that happened to her, she had written about first. She didn't describe her experiences in retrospect. She described them as in foresight. For example, her first single authored published book, because she wrote for a while in collaboration with her lover, Derek Stanford, but her first single authored book was a biography of Mary Shelley.Henry: Great book.Frances: An absolutely wonderful book, which really should be better than any of the other Mary Shelley biographies. She completely got to Mary Shelley. Everything she described in Mary Shelley's life would then happen to Spark. For example, she described Mary Shelley as having her love letters sold. Her lover sold Mary Shelley's love letters, and Mary Shelley was then blackmailed by the person who bought them. This happened to Spark. She described Mary Shelley's closest friends all becoming incredibly jealous of her literary talent. This happened to Spark. She described trusting people who betrayed her. This happened to Spark.Spark was the first person to write about Frankenstein seriously, to treat Frankenstein as a masterpiece rather than as a one-off weird novel that is actually just the screenplay for a Hammer Horror film. This was 1951, remember. Everything she described in Frankenstein as its power is a hybrid text, described the powerful hybrid text that she would later write about. What fascinated her in Frankenstein was the relationship between the creator and the monster, and which one was the monster. This is exactly the story of her own life. I think where she is. She was really interested in art monsters and in the fact that the only powerful writers out there, the only writers who make a dent, are monsters.If you're not a monster, you're just not competing. I think Spark has always spoken about as having a monster-like quality. She says at the end of one of her short stories, Bang-bang You're Dead, "Am I an intellectual woman, or am I a monster?" It's the question that is frequently asked of Spark. I think she worked so hard to monsterize herself. Again, she learnt this from Elliot. She learnt her coldness from Elliot. She learnt indifference from Elliot. There's a very good letter where she's writing to a friend, Shirley Hazzard, in New York.It's after she discovers that her lover, Derek Stanford, has sold her love letters, 70 love letters, which describe two very, very painfully raw, very tender love letters. She describes to Shirley Hazzard this terrible betrayal. She says, "But, I'm over it. I'm over it now. Now I'm just going to be indifferent." She's telling herself to just be indifferent about this. You watch her tutoring herself into the indifference that she needed in order to become the artist that she knew she was.Henry: Is this why she's attracted to mediocrities, because she can possess them and monsterize them, and they're good feeding for her artistic programme?Frances: Her attraction to mediocrities is completely baffling, and it makes writing her biography, a comedy, because the men she was surrounded by were so speck-like. Saw themselves as so important, but were, in fact, so speck-like that you have to laugh, and it was one after another after another. I'd never come across, in my life, so many men I'd never heard of. This was the literary world that she was surrounded by. It's odd, I don't know whether, at the time, she knew how mediocre these mediocrities were.She certainly recognised it in her novels where they're all put together into one corporate personality called the pisseur de copie in A Far Cry from Kensington, where every single literary mediocrity is in that critic who she describes as pissing and vomiting out copy. With Derek Stanford, who was obviously no one's ever heard of now, because he wrote nothing that was memorable, he was her partner from the end of the 40s until-- They ceased their sexual relationship when she started to be interested in becoming a Catholic in 1953, but she was devoted to him up until 1958. She seemed to be completely incapable of recognising that she had the genius and he had none.Her letters to him deferred to him, all the time, as having literary powers that she hadn't got, as having insights that she hadn't got, he's better read than she was. She was such an amazingly good critic. Why could she not see when she looked at his baggy, bad prose that it wasn't good enough? She rated him so highly. When she was co-authoring books with him, which was how she started her literary career, they would occasionally write alternative sentences. Some of her sentences are always absolutely-- they're sharp, lean, sparkling, and witty, and his are way too long and really baggy and they don't say anything. Obviously, you can see that she's irritated by it.She still doesn't say, "Look, I'm going now." It was only when she became a novelist that she said, "I want my mind to myself." She puts, "I want my mind to myself." She didn't want to be in a double act with him. Doubles were important to her. She didn't want to be in a double act with him anymore. He obviously had bought into her adulation of him and hadn't recognised that she had this terrifying power as a writer. It was now his turn to have the breakdown. Spark had the mental breakdown in 1950, '45. When her first novel came out in 1957, it was Stanford who had the breakdown because he couldn't take on board who she was as a novelist.What he didn't know about her as a novelist was her comic sense, how that would fuel the fiction, but also, he didn't recognize because he reviewed her books badly. He didn't recognise that the woman who had been so tender, vulnerable, and loving with him could be this novelist who had nothing to say about tenderness or love. In his reviews, he says, "Why are her characters so cold?" because he thought that she should be writing from the core of her as a human being rather than the core of her as an intellect.Henry: What are her best novels?Frances: Every one I read, I think this has to be the best.[laughter]This is particularly the case in the early novels, where I'm dazzled by The Comforters and think there cannot have been a better first novel of the 20th century or even the 21st century so far. The Comforters. Then read Robinson, her second novel, and think, "Oh God, no, that is her best novel. Then Memento Mori, I think, "Actually, that must be the best novel of the 20th century." [laughs] Then you move on to The Ballad of Peckham Rye, I think, "No, that's even better."The novels landed. It's one of the strange things about her; it took her so long to become a novelist. When she had become one, the novels just landed. Once in one year, two novels landed. In 1959, she had, it was The Bachelors and The Ballad of Peckham Rye, both just completely extraordinary. The novels had been the storing up, and then they just fell on the page. They're different, but samey. They're samey in as much as they're very, very, very clever. They're clever about Catholicism, and they have the same narrative wit. My God, do the plots work in different ways. She was wonderful at plots. She was a great plotter. She liked plots in both senses of the world.She liked the idea of plotting against someone, also laying a plot. She was, at the same time, absolutely horrified by being caught inside someone's plot. That's what The Comforters is about, a young writer called Caroline Rose, who has a breakdown, it's a dramatisation of Sparks' own breakdown, who has a breakdown, and believes that she is caught inside someone else's story. She is a typewriter repeating all of her thoughts. Typewriter and a chorus repeating all of her thoughts.What people say about The Comforters is that Caroline Rose thought she is a heroine of a novel who finds herself trapped in a novel. Actually, if you read what Caroline Rose says in the novel, she doesn't think she's trapped in a novel; she thinks she's trapped in a biography. "There is a typewriter typing the story of our lives," she says to her boyfriend. "Of our lives." Muriel Sparks' first book was about being trapped in a biography, which is, of course, what she brought on herself when she decided to trap herself in a biography. [laughs]Henry: I think I would vote for Loitering with Intent, The Girls of Slender Means as my favourites. I can see that Memento Mori is a good book, but I don't love it, actually.Frances: Really? Interesting. Okay. I completely agree with you about-- I think Loitering with Intent is my overall favourite. Don't you find every time you read it, it's a different book? There are about 12 books I've discovered so far in that book. She loved books inside books, but every time I read it, I think, "Oh my God, it's changed shape again. It's a shape-shifting novel."Henry: We all now need the Frances Wilson essay about the 12 books inside Loitering with Intent.Frances: I know.[laughter]Henry: A few more general questions to close. Did Thomas De Quincey waste his talents?Frances: I wouldn't have said so. I think that's because every single day of his life, he was on opium.Henry: I think the argument is a combination of too much opium and also too much magazine work and not enough "real serious" philosophy, big poems, whatever.Frances: I think the best of his work went into Blackwood's, so the magazine work. When he was taken on by Blackwood's, the razor-sharp Edinburgh magazine, then the best of his work took place. I think that had he only written the murder essays, that would have been enough for me, On Murder as a Fine Art.That was enough. I don't need any more of De Quincey. I think Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is also enough in as much as it's the great memoir of addiction. We don't need any more memoirs of addiction, just read that. It's not just a memoir of being addicted to opium. It's about being addicted to what's what. It's about being a super fan and addicted to writing. He was addicted to everything. If he was in AA now, they'd say, apparently, there are 12 addictions, he had all of them. [laughs]Henry: Yes. People talk a lot about parasocial relationships online, where you read someone online or you follow them, and you have this strange idea in your head that you know them in some way, even though they're just this disembodied online person. You sometimes see people say, "Oh, we should understand this more." I think, "Well, read the history of literature, parasocial relationships everywhere."Frances: That's completely true. I hadn't heard that term before. The history of literature, a parasocial relationship. That's your next book.Henry: There we go. I think what I want from De Quincey is more about Shakespeare, because I think the Macbeth essay is superb.Frances: Absolutely brilliant. On Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.Henry: Yes, and then you think, "Wait, where's the rest of this book? There should be an essay about every play."Frances: That's an absolutely brilliant example of microhistory, isn't it? Just taking a moment in a play, just the knocking at the gate, the morning after the murders, and blowing that moment up, so it becomes the whole play. Oh, my God, it's good. You're right.Henry: It's so good. What is, I think, "important about it", is that in the 20th century, critics started saying or scholars started saying a lot, "We can't just look at the words on the page. We've got to think about the dramaturgy. We've got to really, really think about how it plays out." De Quincey was an absolute master of that. It's really brilliant.Frances: Yes.Henry: What's your favourite modern novel or novelist?Frances: Oh, Hilary Mantel, without doubt, I think. I think we were lucky enough to live alongside a great, great, great novelist. I think the Wolf Hall trilogy is absolutely the greatest piece of narrative fiction that's come out of the 21st century. I also love her. I love her work as an essayist. I love her. She's spooky like Spark. She was inspired.Henry: Yes, she is. Yes.Frances: She learnt a lot of her cunning from Spark, I think. She's written a very spooky memoir. In fact, the only women novelists who acknowledge Spark as their influencer are Ali Smith and Hilary Mantel, although you can see Spark in William Boyd all the time. I think we're pretty lucky to live alongside William Boyd as well. Looking for real, real greatness, I think there's no one to compare with Mantel. Do you agree?Henry: I don't like the third volume of the trilogy.Frances: Okay. Right.Henry: Yes, in general, I do agree. Yes. I think some people don't like historical fiction for a variety of reasons. It may take some time for her to get it. I think she's acknowledged as being really good. I don't know that she's yet acknowledged at the level that you're saying.Frances: Yes.Henry: I think that will take a little bit longer. Maybe as and when there's a biography that will help with that, which I'm sure there will be a biography.Frances: I think they need to wait. I do think it's important to wait for a reputation to settle before starting the biography. Her biography will be very interesting because she married the same man twice. Her growth as a novelist was so extraordinary. Spark, she spent time in Africa. She had this terrible, terrible illness. She knew something. I think what I love about Mantel is, as with Spark, she knew something. She knew something, and she didn't quite know what it was that she knew. She had to write because of this knowledge. When you read her, you know that she's on a different level of understanding.Henry: You specialise in slightly neglected figures of English literature. Who else among the canonical writers deserves a bit more attention?Frances: Oh, that's interesting. I love minor characters. I think Spark was very witty about describing herself as a minor novelist or a writer of minor novels when she was evidently major. She always saw the comedy in being a minor. All the minor writers interest me. Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green. No, they have heard Elizabeth Bowen has been treated well by Hermione Lee and Henry Green has been treated well by Jeremy Treglown.Why are they not up there yet? They're so much better than most of their contemporaries. I am mystified and fascinated by why it is that the most powerful writers tend to be kicked into the long grass. It's dazzling. When you read a Henry Green novel, you think, "But this is what it's all about. He's understood everything about what the novel can do. Why has no one heard of him?"Henry: I think Elizabeth Bowen's problem is that she's so concise, dense, and well-structured, and everything really plays its part in the pattern of the whole that it's not breezy reading.Frances: No, it's absolutely not.Henry: I think that probably holds her back in some way, even though when I have pushed it on people, most of the time they've said, "Gosh, she's a genius."Frances: Yes.Henry: It's not an easy genius. Whereas Dickens, the pages sort of fly along, something like that.Frances: Yes. One of the really interesting things about Spark is that she really, really is easy reading. At the same time, there's so much freight in those books. There's so much intellectual weight and so many games being played. There's so many books inside the books. Yet you can just read them for the pleasure. You can just read them for the plot. You can read one in an afternoon and think that you've been lost inside a book for 10 years. You don't get that from Elizabeth Bowen. That's true. The novels, you feel the weight, don't you?Henry: Yes.Frances: She's Jamesian. She's more Jamesian, I think, than Spark is.Henry: Something like A World of Love, it requires quite a lot of you.Frances: Yes, it does. Yes, it's not bedtime reading.Henry: No, exactly.Frances: Sitting up in a library.Henry: Yes. Now, you mentioned James. You're a Henry James expert.Frances: I did my PhD on Henry James.Henry: Yes. Will you ever write about him?Frances: I have, actually. Just a little plug. I've just done a selection of James's short stories, three volumes, which are coming out, I think, later this year for Riverrun with a separate introduction for each volume. I think that's all the writing I'm going to do on James. When I was an academic, I did some academic essays on him for collections and things. No, I've never felt, ever, ready to write on James because he's too complicated. I can only take tiny, tiny bits of James and home in on them.Henry: He's a great one for trying to crack the code.Frances: He really is. In fact, I was struck all the way through writing Electric Spark by James's understanding of the comedy of biography, which is described in the figure in the carpet. Remember that wonderful story where there's a writer called Verica who explains to a young critic that none of the critics have understood what his work's about. Everything that's written about him, it's fine, but it's absolutely missed his main point, his beautiful point. He said that in order to understand what the work's about, you have to look for The Figure in the Carpet. It's The Figure in the CarpetIt's the string on which my pearls are strung. A couple of critics become completely obsessed with looking for this Figure in the Carpet. Of course, Spark loved James's short stories. You feel James's short stories playing inside her own short stories. I think that one of the games she left for her biographers was the idea of The Figure in the Carpet. Go on, find it then. Find it. [laughs] The string on which my pearls are strung.Henry: Why did you leave academia? We should say that you did this before it became the thing that everyone's doing.Frances: Is everyone leaving now?Henry: A lot of people are leaving now.Frances: Oh, I didn't know. I was ahead of the curve. I left 20 years ago because I wasn't able to write the books I wanted to write. I left when I'd written two books as an academic. My first was Literary Seductions, and my second was a biography of a blackmailing courtesan called Harriet Wilson, and the book was called The Courtesan's Revenge. My department was sniffy about the books because they were published by Faber and not by OUP, and suggested that somehow I was lowering the tone of the department.This is what things were like 20 years ago. Then I got a contract to write The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, my third book, again with Faber. I didn't want to write the book with my head of department in the back of my mind saying, "Make this into an academic tome and put footnotes in." I decided then that I would leave, and I left very suddenly. Now, I said I'm leaving sort of now, and I've got books to write, and felt completely liberated. Then for The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, I decided not to have footnotes. It's the only book I've ever written without footnotes, simply as a celebration of no longer being in academia.Then the things I loved about being in academia, I loved teaching, and I loved being immersed in literature, but I really couldn't be around colleagues and couldn't be around the ridiculous rules of what was seen as okay. In fact, the university I left, then asked me to come back on a 0.5 basis when they realised that it was now fashionable to have someone who was a trade author. They asked me to come back, which I did not want to do. I wanted to spend days where I didn't see people rather than days where I had to talk to colleagues all the time. I think that academia is very unhappy. The department I was in was incredibly unhappy.Since then, I took up a job very briefly in another English department where I taught creative writing part-time. That was also incredibly unhappy. I don't know whether other French departments or engineering departments are happier places than English departments, but English departments are the most unhappy places I think I've ever seen.[laughter]Henry: What do you admire about the work of George Meredith?Frances: Oh, I love George Meredith. [laughs] Yes. I think Modern Love, his first novel, Modern Love, in a strange sonnet form, where it's not 14 lines, but 16 lines. By the time you get to the bottom two lines, the novel, the sonnet has become hysterical. Modern Love hasn't been properly recognised. It's an account of the breakdown of his marriage. His wife, who was the daughter of the romantic, minor novelist, Thomas Love Peacock. His wife had an affair with the artist who painted the famous Death of Chatterton. Meredith was the model for Chatterton, the dead poet in his purple silks, with his hand falling on the ground. There's a lot of mythology around Meredith.I think, as with Elizabeth Bowen and Henry Green, he's difficult. He's difficult. The other week, I tried to reread Diana of the Crossways, which was a really important novel, and I still love it. I really recognise that it's not an easy read. He doesn't try, in any way, to seduce his readers. They absolutely have to crawl inside each book to sit inside his mind and see the world as he's seeing it.Henry: Can you tell us what you will do next?Frances: At the moment, I'm testing some ideas out. I feel, at the end of every biography, you need a writer. You need to cleanse your palate. Otherwise, there's a danger of writing the same book again. I need this time, I think, to write about, to move century and move genders. I want to go back, I think, to the 19th century. I want to write about a male writer for a moment, and possibly not a novelist as well, because after being immersed in Muriel Sparks' novels, no other novel is going to seem good enough. I'm testing 19th-century men who didn't write novels, and it will probably be a minor character.Henry: Whatever it is, I look forward to reading it. Frances Wilson, thank you very much.Frances: Thank you so much, Henry. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

For the final time, Stickers N' Scuffs has its last recorded episode, and we brought in an amazing guest, Coleridge Phinnemore, to usher in our last episode of the first generation of SNS. Coleridge is one of the top talents in Sunset's Mini Stock division so we got chatting with him about how his season has gone so far! There's lot of good stuff to chat about in this one, including how he got into the racing community, his history with the Sutcliffes, his ride and more! Thank you to Sunset & Imagewraps.ca for partnering with us for this episode and Photography & Writing by Danielle McPherson for the thumbnail photos

White Out Coleridge & Parry School July 12th by Mastermind Master Studio

Grandpa Bill Asks:How often do you feel a pull between what your ❤️ truly wants and what your

In this episode of the Reformed Journal Podcast, the Poetry Edition, Rose Postma talks with Janet Ruth Heller about her poem “Annunication.” Heller is the president of the Michigan College English Association. She has a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. She is a past president of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. She has published three poetry books:  Exodus (WordTech Editions, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012), and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011); a scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama (University of Missouri Press, 1990); a middle-grade fiction chapter book for children, The Passover Surprise (Fictive Press, 2015, 2016); and a fiction picture book for children about bullying, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 6th edition 2018), that has won four national awards, including a Children's Choices award.

Federica Re"Lo spazio soprannaturale di Samuel Taylor Coleridge"CN Casa NuvolariOligo Editorewww.oligoeditore.itIn un contesto in cui gli studi in italiano su Coleridge sono piuttosto rari e di non semplice reperibilità, questa monografia vuole rendere accessibile un autore fondamentale per la letteratura anglosassone del XIX secolo. Attraverso i versi in lingua originale e in traduzione e grazie all'analisi della bibliografia inglese più accreditata, l'autrice si focalizza su tre opere, La ballata del vecchio marinaio, Christabel e Kubla Kahn, concentrandosi sul significato assunto dallo spazio e sulla capacita di Coleridge di evocare immagini e situazioni oniriche, allegoriche e visionarie, creando una soglia che dà fantasmaticamente e indubitabilmente accesso all'oltre."Il poema è come una grande vetrata di cattedrale, fiorita di colori perenni, e circonfusa di splendore ultraterreno".Mario PrazFederica Re è nata nel 1972 e vive a Rho, in provincia di Milano. Lavora in ambito editoriale e ha pubblicato sillogi poetiche con Albatros, Pulcinoelefante e Il Rio. Laureata in Lingue e Letterature Straniere, in questa monografia riprende e amplia i suoi studi universitari.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarewww.ilpostodelleparole.itDiventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.

Welcome back to our ongoing conversation on Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. This week we're discussing the book's genre-bending nature, Clarke's extremely allusive approach (from Coleridge to Lewis and others in between), whether the house of a dark place or a peaceful place, and much more. Happy listening! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit closereads.substack.com/subscribe

SheerLuxe Founder and CEO Georgie Coleridge Cole joins Tanya Rose to reveal her travel secrets this week.In this episode, Georgie shares her new love of sailing holidays, why she believes the English seaside is overrated and how a trip to Saudi Arabia sparked a new direction for her business.Plus, Georgie discusses her hatred of packing and tells the story of the time she got stranded in Mexico without her phone or any money…Don't forget to follow @travelsecretsthepodcast and remember, you can watch all of our episodes on YouTube.Places mentioned:Hong KongThe Peninsula, New YorkOne&Only Palmilla, MexicoCornwallRiyadh, Saudi ArabiaJeddah, Saudi ArabiaDoha, QatarDaphne's, LondonLangan's Brasserie, LondonSoho Mews HouseTrinity, LondonThe River Café, LondonLes Vallées, France Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, the Pugsters are excited to welcome poet, priest, and theologian Malcolm Guite to the show. Chris leads off the conversation with Mariner, Guite’s biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge which uniquely among studies of Coleridge brings out the importance of his return to Trinitarian Christianity to his life. The conversation uses Coleridge’s life and work as a jumping off point to move on to other topics, including Lewis’s concept of joy and the nature and importance of imagination. It’s a fascinating discussion with a fascinating individual, and we think you’ll find it as stimulating as we did. Follow Malcolm Guite on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MalcolmGuitespell Support the Pugcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thetheologypugcast?fbclid=IwAR17UHhfzjphO52C_kkZfursA_C784t0ldFix0wyB4fd-YOJpmOQ3dyqGf8

This week, the Pugsters are excited to welcome poet, priest, and theologian Malcolm Guite to the show. Chris leads off the conversation with Mariner, Guite's biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge which uniquely among studies of Coleridge brings out the importance of his return to Trinitarian Christianity to his life. The conversation uses Coleridge's life and work as a jumping off point to move on to other topics, including Lewis's concept of joy and the nature and importance of imagination. It's a fascinating discussion with a fascinating individual, and we think you'll find it as stimulating as we did.Follow Malcolm Guite on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MalcolmGuitespellSupport the Pugcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thetheologypugcast?fbclid=IwAR17UHhfzjphO52C_kkZfursA_C784t0ldFix0wyB4fd-YOJpmOQ3dyqGf8

This week, the Pugsters are excited to welcome poet, priest, and theologian Malcolm Guite to the show. Chris leads off the conversation with Mariner, Guite’s biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge which uniquely among studies of Coleridge brings out the importance of his return to Trinitarian Christianity to his life. The conversation uses Coleridge’s life and work as a jumping off point to move on to other topics, including Lewis’s concept of joy and the nature and importance of imagination. It’s a fascinating discussion with a fascinating individual, and we think you’ll find it as stimulating as we did. Follow Malcolm Guite on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MalcolmGuitespell Support the Pugcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thetheologypugcast?fbclid=IwAR17UHhfzjphO52C_kkZfursA_C784t0ldFix0wyB4fd-YOJpmOQ3dyqGf8

This week, the Pugsters are excited to welcome poet, priest, and theologian Malcolm Guite to the show. Chris leads off the conversation with Mariner, Guite’s biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge which uniquely among studies of Coleridge brings out the importance of his return to Trinitarian Christianity to his life. The conversation uses Coleridge’s life and work as a jumping off point to move on to other topics, including Lewis’s concept of joy and the nature and importance of imagination. It’s a fascinating discussion with a fascinating individual, and we think you’ll find it as stimulating as we did. Follow Malcolm Guite on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MalcolmGuitespell Support the Pugcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thetheologypugcast?fbclid=IwAR17UHhfzjphO52C_kkZfursA_C784t0ldFix0wyB4fd-YOJpmOQ3dyqGf8

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#4138 91.23% 398 left): Apr. 13, 2025: Much have I travelled in the realms of gold (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4137 91.20% 399 left): Apr. 12, 2025: For the blue sky bends over all (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4136 (91.18% 400 left): Apr. 11, 2025: No doubt she hath a vision sweet (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4135 (91.16% 401 left): Apr. 10, 2025: beauteous in a wilderness (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4134 (91.14% 402 left): Apr. 9, 2025: And oft the while she seems to smile (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4133 (91.12% 403 left): Apr. 8, 2025: Large tears that leave the lashes bright (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4132 (91.09% 404 left): Apr. 7, 2025: Close o'ver her eyes and tears she sheds (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4131 (91.07% 405 left): Apr. 6, 2025: Gathers herself from out her trance (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4130 (91.05% 406 left): Apr. 4, 2025: Have been the lovely lady's prison (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4129 (91.03% 407 left): Apr. 4, 2025: Seems to slumber still and mild (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4128(91.01% 408 left): Apr. 3, 2025: It was a lovely sight to see (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

While you can count on one hand the poems Coleridge contributed to Lyrical Ballads, they are some of the most memorable in the collection. Today's poem uses an abstract description to conjure a very concrete social evil–the state of British prisons at the end of the long 18th century. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

#4127(90.98% 409 left): Apr. 2, 2025: And both blue eyes more bright than clear (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4126(90.96% 410 left): Apr. 1, 2025: Kneeling in the moonlight to make her gentle vows (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

We begin a week of selections from Lyrical Ballads with today's nostalgic and pastoral poem, “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798.” Happy reading!Jonathan Kerr of the Wordsworth Trust writes about the revolutionary context of the Lyrical Ballads and the revolutionary nature of the project itself:“Wordsworth and Coleridge's first major literary undertaking and a pioneering work of English Romanticism – came into being at a tumultuous moment in England's history…Not since the English Revolution had the country faced such alarming upheaval and discord within its borders.On first glance it might not seem like the little collection authored by Wordsworth and Coleridge has much to do with this heady and factional atmosphere. Lyrical Ballads came about in the spring and summer of 1798, when the Coleridge and Wordsworth families lived as neighbours in the secluded village of Holford, Somerset. Wordsworth and Coleridge had only known one another a short time, but they became quick friends and mutually-admiring colleagues. The small village provided both poets with a break from the spirited goings-on of cities like London and Bristol, which could often be dangerous places for young men with unorthodox opinions. Coleridge and Wordsworth, both committed reformers through the early years of the French Revolution, knew this is as well as anybody, and their retreat into the country was motivated as much by concerns for their personal security as anything else.…Whether or not Wordsworth and Coleridge continued to sympathize with the revolution abroad, there can be little doubt that with Lyrical Ballads the two were committed to one kind of revolution at least, a revolution in the sphere of poetry and art. Lyrical Ballads is among other things an attempt to purify poetry of the cold conventions which had come to dominate the literary scene, at least according to both poets; in place of this, Wordsworth and Coleridge wanted to bring poetry back to what is most common and recognizable, and also most important, within our emotional, social, and imaginative lives. If this doesn't seem like such an extraordinary undertaking today, this might owe to the remarkable success of Wordsworth and Coleridge's quiet revolution on the literary front.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

#4125(90.94% 411 left): Mar. 31, 2025: To shield her and shelter her from the damp air (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

Saint Augustine taught that human beings are driving by their desires, so we must strive to have the right desires. Using C.S. Lewis, Augustine and a great poem by Coleridge, Dr. Jim Keck will call for us to desire the most noble things in life.

#4124(90.92% 412 left): Mar. 30, 2025: And found'st a bright lady surpassingly fair (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4123(90.90% 413 left): Mar. 29, 2025: And in her arms the maid she took (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4122 (90.87% 414 left): Mar. 28, 2025: And eyes the maid and seeks delay (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

[This episode originally ran on July 18, 2016. It is presented here without commercial interruption.] In 1797, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge took two grains of opium and fell into a stupor. When he awoke, he had in his head the remnants of a marvelous dream, a vivid train of images of the Chinese emperor Kubla Khan and his summer palace, Xanadu. The vision transformed itself into lines of poetry, but as he started writing, he was interrupted by a Person from Porlock, who arrived at Coleridge's cottage on business and stayed for an hour. when Coleridge returned to his work, the vision had been lost, and the fragmentary nature of the poem Kubla Khan has haunted its admirers ever since. The resentment has centered around the bumbling Person from Porlock, whose visit remains shrouded in mystery. The scholar Jonathan Livingston Lowes put it bluntly: “If there is any man in the history of literature who should be hanged, drawn, and quartered,” he wrote, “it is the man on business from Porlock.” Who was this Person from Porlock, and why was he knocking on the door of Coleridge's cottage? How did Coleridge handle the interruption, and what did it mean for him and his art? And finally, what might we take from this vivid legend today? Music Credits: “Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the Free Music Archive / CC by SA). “Piano Between” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#4121 (90.85% 415 left): Mar. 27, 2025: Her silken robe and inner vest (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4119 (90.78% 418 left): Mar. 25, 2025: So many fhoughts moved to and fro (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4120 (90.83% 416 left): Mar. 26, 2025: And slowly rolled her eyes around (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4118 (90.78% 418 left): Mar. 23, 2025: And lay down in her loveliness (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4117 (90.76% 419 left): Mar. 23, 2025: Fair maiden, to requite you well (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

chairhouse music strategy 2021年12月23日 19:07 #4116 (90.74% 420 left): Mar. 22 2025: The lofty lady stood upright (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4115 (90.72% 421 left): Mar. 21 2025: Like a lady of a far countree (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4114 (90.70% 422 left): Mar. 20 2025: Again the wild-flower wine she drank (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4113 (90.67% 423 left): Mar. 19 2025: Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4112 (90.65% 424 left): Mar. 18 2025: and raised to heaven her eyes so blue (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4111 (90.63% 425 left): Mar. 17 2025: For a lady's chamber meet (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

#4110 (90.61% 426 left): Mar. 16 2025: Carved with figures strange and sweet (E.H.Coleridge from Sep. 2, 2024) Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : ) Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536: This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece. ######## Latest Album: 29th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ######## "shin Clair De Lune" - the 29th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves The best song in the last few years, Shin Clair De Lune, was born, so I named the album after it. The opening song is that song. youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds https://youtu.be/_KoD3Urfn38?si=WP2OCvwwVeLYyfnU Album Download: iTune https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0IesFKVy7eEyvrfn90AW8b?si=_-BDNh2JQ3yUSQyOpSUSFQ appleMusic https://music.apple.com/jp/album/shin-clair-de-lune/1796986397 amazonMusic https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DXKJ5655?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Af4hYEidL5bbME7ncUiUORjxE all music streaming services: https://linkco.re/mF4G0R43?lang=en

What if the deepest truth of reality lies not in substances or isolated things, but in the pure relationality that connects everything? John Vervaeke is joined by renowned scholar Douglas Hedley to explore James Filler's groundbreaking work "Heidegger, Neoplatonism, and the History of Being." John and Douglas examine the profound implications of viewing ultimate reality as fundamentally relational rather than substantial, uncovering significant convergences between Heidegger's later thought and the ancient Neoplatonic tradition. The dialogue goes into how Neoplatonic metaphysics offers potent solutions to the philosophical dilemmas posed by modernity and postmodernity, and why the notion of strong transcendence is essential yet challenging in contemporary thought. Douglas enriches the discourse with reflections on imagination, symbolism, and theological significance within the Neoplatonic heritage. Douglas Hedley is Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge University. He was educated at Keble College, Oxford and at the University of Munich, and has previously taught at Nottingham University. He is the Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism and co-chair of the Platonism and Neoplatonism section of the American Academy of Religion. Dr Hedley's work centers on concepts of imagination, violence, and the sublime, and he has published widely, from early modern philosophy—particularly the Cambridge Platonists—to Coleridge. He is the Principal Investigator for the AHRC grant on The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment: Texts, Debates, and Reception (1650-1730), and is co-editor of the Series Studies in Philosophical Theology. Connect with a community dedicated to self-discovery and purpose, and gain deeper insights by joining our Patreon.   Notes:  (0:00) Introduction to the Lectern (01:30) Douglas Headley's Background and Interests (03:30) Overview of James Filler's Argument (05:30) Critique of Substance Ontology (9:00) Neoplatonism and the Trinity (9:30) Lectern Dialogues: Philosophical Connections: Relational Ontology and the Modern Crisis (10:30) Heidegger's Misreading of Plato (16:30) Heidegger's Theological Influences (26:00) Modernity, Postmodernity, and Transcendence (34:30) Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Neoplatonism (36:15) Pushback on the Trinity Concept (40:00) Greek and Russian Orthodox Traditions (43:00) Western Theology and Neoplatonism (49:30) Dialogical Model of the Self (55:00) Christian Neoplatonism and Love (59:30) Embodiment and Transcendence (01:04:30) Final Thoughts and Parting Words   ---  Connect with a community dedicated to self-discovery and purpose, and gain deeper insights by joining our Patreon. The Vervaeke Foundation is committed to advancing the scientific pursuit of wisdom and creating a significant impact on the world. Become a part of our mission.   Join Awaken to Meaning to explore practices that enhance your virtues and foster deeper connections with reality and relationships.   John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon     Ideas, People, and Works Mentioned in this Episode Substance Ontology vs. Relational Ontology Heidegger's Relationship to Neoplatonism James Filler's Philosophical Contribution The Trinity as Relational Symbolism Mysticism and Theology Embodiment and the Contemporary Crisis of Meaning James Filler Plotinus Iamblichus St. Augustine Marius Victorinus Jonathan Pageau "The Iconic Imagination" by Douglas Hedley "Participation in the Divine" "Process and Reality" by Alfred North Whitehead "Symposium" by Plato

Aftermath. Claire Redmond and Coleridge visit the Holborn station crime scene.This episode also features a last update on the U&F TV series. 

This episode looks at the early days of Christmas trees, the origin of glass ornaments, and the practice of mounting lit candles on trees before electric bulbs were invented. Research: · “36 Perish as Party Guests Stampede to Flee Flames.” The Minneapolis Star. Dec 25, 1924. https://www.newspapers.com/image/178762039/ · “Accident From a Christmas Tree.” The Morning Post. Jan 11, 1850. https://www.newspapers.com/image/402121758/?match=1&terms=%22christmas%20tree%22%20Victoria · Barnes, Allison. “The First Christmas Tree. History Today. December 12, 2006. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/first-christmas-tree · Brittain, J. E. "John R. Crouse and the Society for Electrical Development [Scanning the Past]." Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 86, no. 12, pp. 2475-2477, Dec. 1998. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/735455 · Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Woolworth Co.." Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Nov. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/money/Woolworth-Co · “A Christmas tree candle set fire … “ The Jersey City News. Jan. 9, 1892. https://www.newspapers.com/image/856106974/?match=1&terms=christmas%20tree%20candles%20fire · Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, and Ernest Hartley Coleridge, ed. “LETTERS OFSAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.” London. William Heinemann. 1895. Accessed online: https://gutenberg.org/files/44553/44553-h/44553-h.htm · Flander, Judith. “Christmas: A Biography.” Thomas Dunne Books. 2017. · Foyle, Jonathan. “The Business of Baubles – and the Town That Invented Them.” Financial Times. Dec. 19, 2014. https://www.ft.com/content/ce33a468-812a-11e4-b956-00144feabdc0 · “Glass Christmas Ornaments.” The German Way. https://www.german-way.com/history-and-culture/holidays-and-celebrations/christmas/glass-christmas-ornaments/ · Loud, Nicholas. “The History of Christmas Decorations in America.” Saturday Evening Post. December 2020. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2020/12/the-history-of-christmas-decorations-in-america/ · Lorch, Mark. “The Forgotten Scientist Who Made Modern Christmas Ornaments Possible.” Fast Company. Dec. 21, 2021. https://www.fastcompany.com/90707875/the-forgotten-scientist-who-made-modern-christmas-ornaments-possible · Malanowski, Jamie. “Untangling the History of Christmas Lights.” Smithsonian. December 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/untangling-history-christmas-lights-180961140/ · “No Christmas Tree Fires Are Reported Here.” Alton Evening Telegraph. Dec. 28. 1921. https://www.newspapers.com/image/19919324/?match=1&terms=christmas%20tree%20candles%20fire · “A few years ago the caution …” Daily Plainsman. Dec. 12, 1929. https://www.newspapers.com/image/23432095/?match=1&terms=christmas%20tree%20candles%20fire · “Christmas Tree Candles – Fire.” The Courier-Journal of Louisville. Jan. 05, 1909. https://www.newspapers.com/image/119330231/?match=1&terms=christmas%20tree%20candles%20fire · “The Christmas Tree at Windsor Castle.” The Morning Post. Dec. 28, 1848. https://www.newspapers.com/image/402196932/?match=1&terms=%22christmas%20tree%22%20Victoria · “Feiker Takes Commerce Post.” New York Times. July 2, 1931. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/07/02/113339929.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 · “German Hospital, Dalston.” The Morning Post. Jan. 1, 1848. https://www.newspapers.com/image/402129709/?match=1&terms=%22christmas%20tree%22%20Victoria · Prior, Dr. M. Faye. “Trimming the Tree – Glass and metal Christmas tree decorations.” York Museum Trust. https://www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/blog/trimming-the-tree-glass-and-metal-christmas-tree-decorations/ · Roberts, Sam. “Si Spiegel, War Hero Who Modernized Christmas Trees, Dies at 99.” New York Times. Feb. 11, 2024. · Scinto, Madeleine. “Americans Are Spending A Whopping $6 Billion On Christmas Decorations This Year.” Business Insider. Dec. 7, 2011. https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-are-spending-a-record-6-billion-on-christmas-decorations-2011-12 · Shapiro, Laurie Gwen. “He Bombed the Nazis, Outwitted the Soviets and Modernized Christmas.” New York Times. Dec. 17, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/nyregion/bomber-pilot-christmas-trees.html · Tikkanen, Amy. "How Did the Tradition of Christmas Trees Start? ". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Dec. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/story/how-did-the-tradition-of-christmas-trees-start · Waxman, Olivia B. “How Christmas Trees Became a Holiday Tradition.” TIME. Dec. 21, 2020. https://time.com/5736523/history-of-christmas-trees/ · Waxman, Olivia B. “The Electricity Lobby Was Behind the First National Christmas Tree Lighting.” TIME. Dec. 1, 2016. https://time.com/4580764/national-christmas-tree-lighting-history-origins/ · Waxman, Olivia B. “This Was the First Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.” TIME. Nov. 30, 2016. https://time.com/4578685/first-rockefeller-center-christmas-tree-lighting/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet George Herbert (1593-1633) who, according to the French philosopher Simone Weil, wrote ‘the most beautiful poem in the world'. Herbert gave his poems on his relationship with God to a friend, to be published after his death if they offered comfort to any 'dejected pour soul' but otherwise be burned. They became so popular across the range of Christians in the 17th Century that they were printed several times, somehow uniting those who disliked each other but found a common admiration for Herbert; Charles I read them before his execution, as did his enemies. Herbert also wrote poems prolifically and brilliantly in Latin and these he shared during his lifetime both when he worked as orator at Cambridge University and as a parish priest in Bemerton near Salisbury. He went on to influence poets from Coleridge to Heaney and, in parish churches today, congregations regularly sing his poems set to music as hymns. WithHelen Wilcox Professor Emerita of English Literature at Bangor UniversityVictoria Moul Formerly Professor of Early Modern Latin and English at UCLAndSimon Jackson Director of Music and Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Amy Charles, A Life of George Herbert (Cornell University Press, 1977)Thomas M. Corns, The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry: Donne to Marvell (Cambridge University Press, 1993) John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (Penguin, 2014)George Herbert (eds. John Drury and Victoria Moul), The Complete Poetry (Penguin, 2015)George Herbert (ed. Helen Wilcox), The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 2007)Simon Jackson, George Herbert and Early Modern Musical Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Gary Kuchar, George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)Cristina Malcolmson, George Herbert: A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)Victoria Moul, A Literary History of Latin and English Poetry: Bilingual Literary Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Joseph H. Summers, George Herbert: His Religion and Art (first published by Chatto and Windus, 1954; Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, New York, 1981)Helen Vendler, The Poetry of George Herbert (Harvard University Press, 1975)James Boyd White, This Book of Starres: Learning to Read George Herbert (University of Michigan Press, 1995)Helen Wilcox (ed.), George Herbert. 100 Poems (Cambridge University Press, 2021) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production