Podcasts about Intimations

In this episode, James Marriott and I discuss who we think are the best twenty English poets. This is not the best poets who wrote in English, but the best British poets (though James snuck Sylvia Plath onto his list…). We did it like that to make it easier, not least so we could base a lot of our discussion on extracts in The Oxford Book of English Verse (Ricks edition). Most of what we read out is from there. We read Wordsworth, Keats, Hardy, Milton, and Pope. We both love Pope! (He should be regarded as one of the very best English poets, like Milton.) There are also readings of Herrick, Bronte, Cowper, and MacNiece. I plan to record the whole of ‘The Eve of St. Agnes' at some point soon.Here are our lists and below is the transcript (which may have more errors than usual, sorry!)HOGod Tier* Shakespeare“if not first, in the very first line”* Chaucer* Spenser* Milton* Wordsworth* Eliot—argue for Pope here, not usually includedSecond Tier* Donne* Herbert* Keats* Dryden* Gawain poet* Tom O'Bedlam poetThird Tier* Yeats* Tennyson* Hopkins* Coleridge* Auden* Shelley* MarvellJMShakespeareTier* ShakespeareTier 1* Chaucer* Milton* WordsworthTier 2* Donne* Eliot* Keats* Tennyson* Spencer* Marvell* PopeTier 3* Yeats* Hopkins* Blake* Coleridge* Auden* Shelley* Thomas Hardy* Larkin* PlathHenry: Today I'm talking to James Marriott, Times columnist, and more importantly, the writer of the Substack Cultural Capital. And we are going to argue about who are the best poets in the English language. James, welcome.James: Thanks very much for having me. I feel I should preface my appearance so that I don't bring your podcast and disrepute saying that I'm maybe here less as an expert of poetry and more as somebody who's willing to have strong and potentially species opinions. I'm more of a lover of poetry than I would claim to be any kind of academic expert, just in case anybody thinks that I'm trying to produce any definitive answer to the question that we're tackling.Henry: Yeah, no, I mean that's the same for me. We're not professors, we're just very opinionated boys. So we have lists.James: We do.Henry: And we're going to debate our lists, but what we do agree is that if we're having a top 20 English poets, Shakespeare is automatically in the God Tier and there's nothing to discuss.James: Yeah, he's in a category of his own. I think the way of, because I guess the plan we've gone for is to rather than to rank them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 into sort of, what is it, three or four broad categories that we're competing over.Henry: Yes, yes. TiersJames: I think is a more kind of reasonable way to approach it rather than trying to argue exactly why it should be one place above Shelly or I don't know, whatever.Henry: It's also just an excuse to talk about poets.James: Yes.Henry: Good. So then we have a sort of top tier, if not the first, in the very first line as it were, and you've got different people. To me, you've got Chaucer, Milton, and Wordsworth. I would also add Spenser and T.S. Eliot. So what's your problem with Spenser?James: Well, my problem is ignorance in that it's a while since I've read the Fairy Queen, which I did at university. Partly is just that looking back through it now and from what I remember of university, I mean it is not so much that I have anything against Spenser. It's quite how much I have in favour of Milton and Wordsworth and Chaucer, and I'm totally willing to be argued against on this, but I just can't think that Spenser is in quite the same league as lovely as many passages of the Fairy Queen are.Henry: So my case for Spenser is firstly, if you go through something like the Oxford Book of English Verse or some other comparable anthology, he's getting a similar page count to Shakespeare and Milton, he is important in that way. Second, it's not just the fairy queen, there's the Shepherd's Calendar, the sonnets, the wedding poems, and they're all highly accomplished. The Shepherd's Calendar particularly is really, really brilliant work. I think I enjoyed that more as an undergraduate, actually, much as I love the Fairy Queen. And the third thing is that the Fairy Queen is a very, very great epic. I mean, it's a tremendous accomplishment. There were lots of other epics knocking around in the 16th century that nobody wants to read now or I mean, obviously specialists want to read, but if we could persuade a few more people, a few more ordinary readers to pick up the fairy queen, they would love it.James: Yes, and I was rereading before he came on air, the Bower of Bliss episode, which I think is from the second book, which is just a beautifully lush passage, passage of writing. It was really, I mean, you can see why Keats was so much influenced by it. The point about Spenser's breadth is an interesting one because Milton is in my top category below Shakespeare, but I think I'm placing him there pretty much only on the basis of Paradise Lost. I think if we didn't have Paradise Lost, Milton may not even be in this competition at all for me, very little. I know. I don't know if this is a heresy, I've got much less time for Milton's minor works. There's Samuel Johnson pretty much summed up my feelings on Lycidas when he said there was nothing new. Whatever images it can supply are long ago, exhausted, and I do feel there's a certain sort of dryness to Milton's minor stuff. I mean, I can find things like Il Penseroso and L'Allegro pretty enough, but I mean, I think really the central achievement is Paradise Lost, whereas Spenser might be in contention, as you say, from if you didn't have the Fairy Queen, you've got Shepherd's Calendar, and all this other sort of other stuff, but Paradise Lost is just so massive for me.Henry: But if someone just tomorrow came out and said, oh, we found a whole book of minor poetry by Virgil and it's all pretty average, you wouldn't say, oh, well Virgil's less of a great poet.James: No, absolutely, and that's why I've stuck Milton right at the top. It's just sort of interesting how unbelievably good Paradise Lost is and how, in my opinion, how much less inspiring the stuff that comes after it is Samson Agonistes and Paradise Regained I really much pleasure out of at all and how, I mean the early I think slightly dry Milton is unbelievably accomplished, but Samuel Johnson seems to say in that quote is a very accomplished use of ancient slightly worn out tropes, and he's of putting together these old ideas in a brilliant manner and he has this sort of, I mean I guess he's one of your late bloomers. I can't quite remember how old he is when he publishes Paradise Lost.Henry: Oh, he is. Oh, writing it in his fifties. Yeah.James: Yeah, this just extraordinary thing that's totally unlike anything else in English literature and of all the poems that we're going to talk about, I think is the one that has probably given me most pleasure in my life and the one that I probably return to most often if not to read all the way through then to just go over my favourite bits and pieces of it.Henry: A lot of people will think Milton is heavy and full of weird references to the ancient world and learned and biblical and not very readable for want of a better word. Can you talk us out of that? To be one of the great poets, they do have to have some readability, right?James: Yeah, I think so, and it's certainly how I felt. I mean I think it's not a trivial objection to have to Milton. It's certainly how I found him. He was my special author paper at university and I totally didn't get on with him. There was something about his massive brilliance that I felt. I remember feeling like trying to write about Paradise Lost was trying to kind of scratch a huge block of marble with your nails. There's no way to get a handle on it. I just couldn't work out what to get ahold of, and it's only I think later in adulthood maybe reading him under a little less pressure that I've come to really love him. I mean, the thing I would always say to people to look out for in Milton, but it's his most immediate pleasure and the thing that still is what sends shivers done my spine about him is the kind of cosmic scale of Paradise Lost, and it's almost got this sort of sci-fi massiveness to it. One of my very favourite passages, which I may inflict on you, we did agree that we could inflict poetry on one another.Henry: Please, pleaseJames: It's a detail from the first book of Paradise Lost. Milton's talking about Satan's architect in hell Mulciber, and this is a little explanation of who or part of his explanation of who Mulciber is, and he says, Nor was his name unheard or unadoredIn ancient Greece; and in Ausonian landMen called him Mulciber; and how he fellFrom Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry JoveSheer o'er the crystal battlements: from mornTo noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,A summer's day, and with the setting sunDropt from the zenith, like a falling star,On Lemnos, th' Aegaean isle. Thus they relate,ErringI just think it's the sort of total massiveness of that universe that “from the zenith to like a falling star”. I just can't think of any other poet in English or that I've ever read in any language, frankly, even in translation, who has that sort of scale about it, and I think that's what can most give immediate pleasure. The other thing I love about that passage is this is part of the kind of grandeur of Milton is that you get this extraordinary passage about an angel falling from heaven down to th' Aegean Isle who's then going to go to hell and the little parenthetic remark at the end, the perm just rolls on, thus they relate erring and paradise lost is such this massive grand thing that it can contain this enormous cosmic tragedy as a kind of little parenthetical thing. I also think the crystal battlements are lovely, so wonderful kind of sci-fi detail.Henry: Yes, I think that's right, and I think it's under appreciated that Milton was a hugely important influence on Charles Darwin who was a bit like you always rereading it when he was young, especially on the beagle voyage. He took it with him and quotes it in his letters sometimes, and it is not insignificant the way that paradise loss affects him in terms of when he writes his own epic thinking at this level, thinking at this scale, thinking at the level of the whole universe, how does the whole thing fit together? What's the order behind the little movements of everything? So Milton's reach I think is actually quite far into the culture even beyond the poets.James: That's fascinating. Do you have a particular favourite bit of Paradise Lost?Henry: I do, but I don't have it with me because I disorganised and couldn't find my copy.James: That's fair.Henry: What I want to do is to read one of the sonnets because I do think he's a very, very good sonnet writer, even if I'm going to let the Lycidas thing go, because I'm not going to publicly argue against Samuel Johnson.When I consider how my light is spent,Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,And that one Talent which is death to hideLodged with me useless, though my Soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest he returning chide;“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”I fondly ask. But patience, to preventThat murmur, soon replies, “God doth not needEither man's work or his own gifts; who bestBear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His stateIs Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speedAnd post o'er Land and Ocean without rest:They also serve who only stand and wait.”I think that's great.James: Yeah. Okay. It is good.Henry: Yeah. I think the minor poems are very uneven, but there are lots of gems.James: Yeah, I mean he is a genius. It would be very weird if all the minor poems were s**t, which is not really what I'm trying… I guess I have a sort of slightly austere category too. I just do Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth, but we are agreed on Wordsworth, aren't we? That he belongs here.Henry: So my feeling is that the story of English poetry is something like Chaucer Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, T.S. Eliot create a kind of spine. These are the great innovators. They're writing the major works, they're the most influential. All the cliches are true. Chaucer invented iambic pentameter. Shakespeare didn't single handedly invent modern English, but he did more than all the rest of them put together. Milton is the English Homer. Wordsworth is the English Homer, but of the speech of the ordinary man. All these old things, these are all true and these are all colossal achievements and I don't really feel that we should be picking between them. I think Spenser wrote an epic that stands alongside the works of Shakespeare and Milton in words with T.S. Eliot whose poetry, frankly I do not love in the way that I love some of the other great English writers cannot be denied his position as one of the great inventors.James: Yeah, I completely agree. It's funny, I think, I mean I really do love T.S. Eliot. Someone else had spent a lot of time rereading. I'm not quite sure why he hasn't gone into quite my top category, but I think I had this—Henry: Is it because he didn't like Milton and you're not having it?James: Maybe that's part of it. I think my thought something went more along the lines of if I cut, I don't quite feel like I'm going to put John Donne in the same league as Milton, but then it seems weird to put Eliot above Donne and then I don't know that, I mean there's not a very particularly fleshed out thought, but on Wordsworth, why is Wordsworth there for you? What do you think, what do you think are the perms that make the argument for Wordsworth having his place at the very top?Henry: Well, I think the Lyrical Ballads, Poems in Two Volumes and the Prelude are all of it, aren't they? I'm not a lover of the rest, and I think the preface to the Lyrical Ballads is one of the great works of literary criticism, which is another coin in his jar if you like, but in a funny way, he's much more revolutionary than T.S. Eliot. We think of modernism as the great revolution and the great sort of bringing of all the newness, but modernism relies on Wordsworth so much, relies on the idea that tradition can be subsumed into ordinary voice, ordinary speech, the passage in the Wasteland where he has all of them talking in the bar. Closing time please, closing time please. You can't have that without Wordsworth and—James: I think I completely agree with what you're saying.Henry: Yeah, so I think that's for me is the basis of it that he might be the great innovator of English poetry.James: Yeah, I think you're right because I've got, I mean again, waiting someone out of my depth here, but I can't think of anybody else who had sort of specifically and perhaps even ideologically set out to write a kind of high poetry that sounded like ordinary speech, I guess. I mean, Wordsworth again is somebody who I didn't particularly like at university and I think it's precisely about plainness that can make him initially off-putting. There's a Matthew Arnold quote where he says of Wordsworth something like He has no style. Henry: Such a Matthew Arnold thing to say.James: I mean think it's the beginning of an appreciation, but there's a real blankness to words with I think again can almost mislead you into thinking there's nothing there when you first encounter him. But yeah, I think for me, Tintern Abbey is maybe the best poem in the English language.Henry: Tintern Abbey is great. The Intimations of Immortality Ode is superb. Again, I don't have it with me, but the Poems in Two Volumes. There are so many wonderful things in there. I had a real, when I was an undergraduate, I had read some Wordsworth, but I hadn't really read a lot and I thought of I as you do as the daffodils poet, and so I read Lyrical Ballads and Poems in Two Volumes, and I had one of these electrical conversion moments like, oh, the daffodils, that is nothing. The worst possible thing for Wordsworth is that he's remembered as this daffodils poet. When you read the Intimations of Immortality, do you just think of all the things he could have been remembered for? It's diminishing.James: It's so easy to get into him wrong because the other slightly wrong way in is through, I mean maybe this is a prejudice that isn't widely shared, but the stuff that I've never particularly managed to really enjoy is all the slightly worthy stuff about beggars and deformed people and maimed soldiers. Wandering around on roads in the lake district has always been less appealing to me, and that was maybe why I didn't totally get on with 'em at first, and I mean, there's some bad words with poetry. I was looking up the infamous lines from the form that were mocked even at the time where you know the lines that go, You see a little muddy pond Of water never dry. I've measured it from side to side, 'Tis three feet long and two feet wide, and the sort of plainness condescend into banality at Wordsworth's worst moments, which come more frequently later in his career.Henry: Yes, yes. I'm going to read a little bit of the Intimations ode because I want to share some of this so-called plainness at its best. This is the third section. They're all very short Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,And while the young lambs boundAs to the tabor's sound,To me alone there came a thought of grief:A timely utterance gave that thought relief,And I again am strong:The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,And all the earth is gay;Land and seaGive themselves up to jollity,And with the heart of MayDoth every Beast keep holiday;—Thou Child of Joy,Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy.And I think it's unthinkable that someone would write like this today. It would be cringe, but we're going to have a new sincerity. It's coming. It's in some ways it's already here and I think Wordsworth will maybe get a different sort of attention when that happens because that's a really high level of writing to be able to do that without it descending into what you just read. In the late Wordsworth there's a lot of that really bad stuff.James: Yeah, I mean the fact that he wrote some of that bad stuff I guess is a sign of quite how carefully the early stuff is treading that knife edge of tripping into banality. Can I read you my favourite bit of Tintern Abbey?Henry: Oh yes. That is one of the great poems.James: Yeah, I just think one of mean I, the most profound poem ever, probably for me. So this is him looking out over the landscape of Tinton Abbey. I mean these are unbelievably famous lines, so I'm sure everybody listening will know them, but they are so good And I have feltA presence that disturbs me with the joyOf elevated thoughts; a sense sublimeOf something far more deeply interfused,Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean and the living air,And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:A motion and a spirit, that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thought,And rolls through all things. Therefore am I stillA lover of the meadows and the woodsAnd mountains; and of all that we beholdFrom this green earth; of all the mighty worldOf eye, and ear,—both what they half create,And what perceive; well pleased to recogniseIn nature and the language of the senseThe anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soulOf all my moral being.I mean in a poem, it's just that is mind blowingly good to me?Henry: Yeah. I'm going to look up another section from the Prelude, which used to be in the Oxford Book, but it isn't in the Ricks edition and I don't really know whyJames: He doesn't have much of the Prelude does he?Henry: I don't think he has any…James: Yeah.Henry: So this is from an early section when the young Wordsworth is a young boy and he's going off, I think he's sneaking out at night to row on the lake as you do when you with Wordsworth, and the initial description is of a mountain. She was an elfin pinnace; lustilyI dipped my oars into the silent lake,And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boatWent heaving through the water like a swan;When, from behind that craggy steep till thenThe horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,As if with voluntary power instinct,Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,And growing still in stature the grim shapeTowered up between me and the stars, and still,For so it seemed, with purpose of its ownAnd measured motion like a living thing,Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,And through the silent water stole my wayBack to the covert of the willow tree;It's so much like that in Wordsworth. It's just,James: Yeah, I mean, yeah, the Prelude is full of things like that. I think that is probably one of the best moments, possibly the best moments of the prelude. But yeah, I mean it's just total genius isn't it?Henry: I think he's very, very important and yeah, much more important than T.S. Eliot who is, I put him in the same category, but I can see why you didn't.James: You do have a little note saying Pope, question mark or something I think, don't you, in the document.Henry: So the six I gave as the spine of English literature and everything, that's an uncontroversial view. I think Pope should be one of those people. I think we should see Pope as being on a level with Milton and Wordsworth, and I think he's got a very mixed reputation, but I think he was just as inventive, just as important. I think you are a Pope fan, just as clever, just as moving, and it baffles me that he's not more commonly regarded as part of this great spine running through the history of English literature and between Milton and Wordsworth. If you don't have Pope, I think it's a missing link if you like.James: I mean, I wouldn't maybe go as far as you, I love Pope. Pope was really the first perch I ever loved. I remember finding a little volume of Pope in a box of books. My school library was chucking out, and that was the first book of poetry I read and took seriously. I guess he sort of suffers by the fact that we are seeing all of this through the lens of the romantics. All our taste about Shakespeare and Milton and Spenser has been formed by the romantics and hope's way of writing the Satires. This sort of society poetry I think is just totally doesn't conform to our idea of what poetry should be doing or what poetry is. Is there absolutely or virtually nobody reads Dryden nowadays. It's just not what we think poetry is for that whole Augustine 18th century idea that poetry is for writing epistles to people to explain philosophical concepts to them or to diss your enemies and rivals or to write a kind of Duncia explaining why everyone you know is a moron. That's just really, I guess Byron is the last major, is the only of figure who is in that tradition who would be a popular figure nowadays with things like English bards and scotch reviewers. But that whole idea of poetry I think was really alien to us. And I mean I'm probably formed by that prejudice because I really do love Pope, but I don't love him as much as the other people we've discussed.Henry: I think part of his problem is that he's clever and rational and we want our poems always to be about moods, which may be, I think why George Herbert, who we've both got reasonably high is also quite underrated. He's very clever. He's always think George Herbert's always thinking, and when someone like Shakespeare or Milton is thinking, they do it in such a way that you might not notice and that you might just carry on with the story. And if you do see that they're thinking you can enjoy that as well. Whereas Pope is just explicitly always thinking and maybe lecturing, hectoring, being very grand with you and as you say, calling you an idiot. But there are so many excellent bits of Pope and I just think technically he can sustain a thought or an argument over half a dozen or a dozen lines and keep the rhyme scheme moving and it's never forced, and he never has to do that thing where he puts the words in a stupid order just to make the rhyme work. He's got such an elegance and a balance of composition, which again, as you say, we live under romantic ideals, not classical ones. But that doesn't mean we should be blind to the level of his accomplishment, which is really, really very high. I mean, Samuel Johnson basically thought that Alexander Pope had finished English poetry. We have the end of history. He had the end of English poetry. Pope, he's brought us to the mightiest of the heroic couplers and he's done it. It's all over.James: The other thing about Pope that I think makes us underrate him is that he's very charming. And I think charm is a quality we're not big on is that sort of, but I think some of Pope's charm is so moving. One of my favourite poems of his is, do you know the Epistle to Miss Blount on going into the country? The poem to the young girl who's been having a fashionable season in London then is sent to the boring countryside to stay with an aunt. And it's this, it's not like a romantic love poem, it's not distraught or hectic. It's just a sort of wonderful act of sympathy with this potentially slightly airheaded young girl who's been sent to the countryside, which you'd rather go to operas and plays and flirt with people. And there's a real sort of delicate in it that isn't overblown and isn't dramatic, but is extremely charming. And I think that's again, another quality that perhaps we're prone not to totally appreciate in the 21st century. It's almost the kind of highest form of politeness and sympathyHenry: And the prevailing quality in Pope is wit: “True wit is nature to advantage dressed/ What often was thought, but ne'er so well expressed”. And I think wit can be quite alienating for an audience because it is a kind of superior form of literary art. This is why people don't read as much Swift as he deserves because he's so witty and so scornful that a lot of people will read him and think, well, I don't like you.James: And that point about what oft was thought and ne'er so well expressed again, is a very classical idea. The poet who puts not quite conventional wisdom, but something that's been thought before in the best possible words, really suffers with the romantic idea of originality. The poet has to say something utterly new. Whereas for Pope, the sort of ideas that he express, some of the philosophical ideas are not as profound in original perhaps as words with, but he's very elegant proponent of them.Henry: And we love b******g people in our culture, and I feel like the Dunciad should be more popular because it is just, I can't remember who said this, but someone said it's probably the most under appreciated great poem in English, and that's got to be true. It's full of absolute zingers. There's one moment where he's described the whole crowd of them or all these poets who he considers to be deeply inferior, and it turns out he was right because no one reads them anymore. And you need footnotes to know who they are. I mean, no one cares. And he says, “equal your merits, equal is your din”. This kind of abuse is a really high art, and we ought to love that. We love that on Twitter. And I think things like the Rape of the Lock also could be more popular.James: I love the Rape of the Lock . I mean, I think anybody is not reading Pope and is looking for a way in, I think the Rape of the Lock is the way in, isn't it? Because it's just such a charming, lovely, funny poem.Henry: It is. And probably it suffers because the whole idea of mock heroic now is lost to us. But it's a bit like it's the literary equivalent of people writing a sort of mini epic about someone like Elon Musk or some other very prominent figure in the culture and using lots of heroic imagery from the great epics of Homer and Virgil and from the Bible and all these things, but putting them into a very diminished state. So instead of being grand, it becomes comic. It's like turning a God into a cartoon. And Pope is easily the best writer that we have for that kind of thing. Dryden, but he's the genius on it.James: Yeah, no, he totally is. I guess it's another reason he's under appreciated is that our culture is just much less worshipful of epic than the 18th century culture was. The 18th century was obsessed with trying to write epics and trying to imitate epics. I mean, I think to a lot of Pope's contemporaries, the achievement they might've been expecting people to talk about in 300 years time would be his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey and the other stuff might've seen more minor in comparison, whereas it's the mock epic that we're remembering him for, which again is perhaps another symptom of our sort of post romantic perspective.Henry: I think this is why Spenser suffers as well, because everything in Spenser is magical. The knights are fairies, not the little fairies that live in buttercups, but big human sized fairies or even bigger than that. And there are magical women and saucers and the whole thing is a sort of hodgepodge of romance and fairy tale and legend and all this stuff. And it's often said, oh, he was old fashioned in his own time. But those things still had a lot of currency in the 16th century. And a lot of those things are in Shakespeare, for example.But to us, that's like a fantasy novel. Now, I love fantasy and I read fantasy, and I think some of it's a very high accomplishment, but to a lot of people, fantasy just means kind of trash. Why am I going to read something with fairies and a wizard? And I think a lot of people just see Spenser and they're like, what is this? This is so weird. They don't realise how Protestant they're being, but they're like, this is so weird.James: And Pope has a little, I mean, the Rape of the Lock even has a little of the same because the rape of the lock has this attendant army of good spirits called selfs and evil spirits called gnomes. I mean, I find that just totally funny and charming. I really love it.Henry: I'm going to read, there's an extract from the Rape of the Lock in the Oxford Book, and I'm going to read a few lines to give people an idea of how he can be at once mocking something but also quite charming about it. It's quite a difficult line to draw. The Rape of the Lock is all about a scandalous incident where a young man took a lock of a lady's hair. Rape doesn't mean what we think it means. It means an offence. And so because he stole a lock of her hair, it'd become obviously this huge problem and everyone's in a flurry. And to sort of calm everyone down, Pope took it so seriously that he made it into a tremendous joke. So here he is describing the sort of dressing table if you like.And now, unveil'd, the Toilet stands display'd,Each silver Vase in mystic order laid.First, rob'd in white, the Nymph intent adores,With head uncover'd, the Cosmetic pow'rs.A heav'nly image in the glass appears,To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;Th' inferior Priestess, at her altar's side,Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride.What a way to describe someone putting on their makeup. It's fantastic.James: It's funny. I can continue that because the little passage of Pope I picked to read begins exactly where yours ended. It only gets better as it goes on, I think. So after trembling begins the sacred rites of pride, Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and hereThe various off'rings of the world appear;From each she nicely culls with curious toil,And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring spoil.This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.The Tortoise here and Elephant unite,Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the white.Here files of pins extend their shining rows,Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.It's just so lovely. I love a thing about the tortoise and the elephant unite because you've got a tortoise shell and an ivory comb. And the stuff about India's glowing gems and Arabia breathing from yonder box, I mean that's a, realistic is not quite the word, but that's a reference to Milton because Milton is continually having all the stones of Arabia and India's pearls and things all screwed through paradise lost. Yeah, it's just so lovely, isn't it?Henry: And for someone who's so classical and composed and elegant, there's something very Dickensian about things like the toilet, the tortoise and the elephant here unite, transform to combs. There's something a little bit surreal and the puffs, powders, patches, bibles, it has that sort of slightly hectic, frantic,James: That's sort of Victorian materialism, wealth of material objects,Henry: But also that famous thing that was said of Dickens, that the people are furniture and the furniture's like people. He can bring to life all the little bits and bobs of the ordinary day and turn it into something not quite ridiculous, not quite charming.James: And there is a kind of charm in the fact that it wasn't the sort of thing that poets would necessarily expect to pay attention to the 18th century. I don't think the sort of powders and ointments on a woman's dressing table. And there's something very sort of charming in his condescension to notice or what might've once seemed his condescension to notice those things, to find a new thing to take seriously, which is what poetry or not quite to take seriously, but to pay attention to, which I guess is one of the things that great perch should always be doing.Henry: When Swift, who was Pope's great friend, wrote about this, he wrote a poem called A Beautiful Young Lady Going to Bed, which is not as good, and I would love to claim Swift on our list, but I really can't.James: It's quite a horrible perm as well, that one, isn't it?Henry: It is. But it shows you how other people would treat the idea of the woman in front of her toilet, her mirror. And Swift uses an opportunity, as he said, to “lash the vice” because he hated all this adornment and what he would think of as the fakery of a woman painting herself. And so he talks about Corina pride of Drury Lane, which is obviously an ironic reference to her being a Lady of the Night, coming back and there's no drunken rake with her. Returning at the midnight hour;Four stories climbing to her bow'r;Then, seated on a three-legged chair,Takes off her artificial hair:Now, picking out a crystal eye,She wipes it clean, and lays it by.Her eye-brows from a mouse's hide,Stuck on with art on either side,Pulls off with care, and first displays 'em,Then in a play-book smoothly lays 'em.Now dexterously her plumpers draws,That serve to fill her hollow jaws.And it goes on like this. I mean, line after this is sort of raw doll quality to it, Pope, I think in contrast, it only illuminates him more to see where others are taking this kind of crude, very, very funny and witty, but very crude approach. He's able to really have the classical art of balance.James: Yes. And it's precisely his charm that he can mock it and sympathise and love it at the same time, which I think is just a more sort of complex suite of poetic emotions to have about that thing.Henry: So we want more people to read Pope and to love Pope.James: Yes. Even if I'm not letting him into my top.Henry: You are locking him out of the garden. Now, for the second tier, I want to argue for two anonymous poets. One of the things we did when we were talking about this was we asked chatGPT to see if it could give us a good answer. And if you use o1 or o1 Pro, it gives you a pretty good answer as to who the best poets in English are. But it has to be told that it's forgotten about the anonymous poets. And then it says, oh, that was stupid. There are quite a lot of good anonymous poets in English, but I suspect a lot of us, a lot of non artificial intelligence when thinking about this question overlook the anonymous poets. But I would think the Gawain poet and the Tom O' Bedlam poet deserve to be in here. I don't know what you think about that.James: I'm not competent to provide an opinion. I'm purely here to be educated on the subject of these anonymous poets. Henry: The Gawain poet, he's a mediaeval, assume it's a he, a mediaeval writer, obviously may well not be a man, a mediaeval writer. And he wrote Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, which is, if you haven't read it, you should really read it in translation first, I think because it's written at the same time as Chaucer. But Chaucer was written in a kind of London dialect, which is what became the English we speak. And so you can read quite a lot of Chaucer and the words look pretty similar and sometimes you need the footnotes, but when you read Gawain and The Green Knight, it's in a Northwestern dialect, which very much did not become modern day English. And so it's a bit more baffling, but it is a poem of tremendous imaginative power and weirdness. It's a very compelling story. We have a children's version here written by Selena Hastings who's a very accomplished biographer. And every now and then my son remembers it and he just reads it again and again and again. It's one of the best tales of King Arthur in his knights. And there's a wonderful book by John Burrow. It's a very short book, but that is such a loving piece of criticism that explicates the way in which that poem promotes virtue and all the nightly goodness that you would expect, but also is a very strange and unreal piece of work. And I think it has all the qualities of great poetry, but because it's written in this weird dialect, I remember as an undergraduate thinking, why is this so bloody difficult to read? But it is just marvellous. And I see people on Twitter, the few people who've read it, they read it again and they just say, God, it's so good. And I think there was a film of it a couple of years ago, but we will gloss lightly over that and not encourage you to do the film instead of the book.James: Yeah, you're now triggering a memory that I was at least set to read and perhaps did at least read part of Gawain and the Green Knight at University, but has not stuck to any brain cells at all.Henry: Well, you must try it again and tell me what you think. I mean, I find it easily to be one of the best poems in English.James: Yeah, no, I should. I had a little Chaucer kick recently actually, so maybe I'm prepared to rediscover mediaeval per after years of neglect since my degree,Henry: And it's quite short, which I always think is worth knowing. And then the Tom Bedlam is an anonymous poem from I think the 17th century, and it's one of the mad songs, so it's a bit like the Fool from King Lear. And again, it is a very mysterious, very strange and weird piece of work. Try and find it in and read the first few lines. And I think because it's anonymous, it's got slightly less of a reputation because it can't get picked up with some big name, but it is full of tremendous power. And again, I think it would be sad if it wasn't more well known.From the hag and hungry goblinThat into rags would rend ye,The spirit that stands by the naked manIn the Book of Moons defend ye,That of your five sound sensesYou never be forsaken,Nor wander from your selves with TomAbroad to beg your bacon,While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,Feeding, drink, or clothing;Come dame or maid, be not afraid,Poor Tom will injure nothing.Anyway, so you get the sense of it and it's got many stanzas and it's full of this kind of energy and it's again, very accomplished. It can carry the thought across these long lines and these long stanzas.James: When was it written? I'm aware of only if there's a name in the back of my mind.Henry: Oh, it's from the 17th century. So it's not from such a different time as King Lear, but it's written in the voice of a madman. And again, you think of that as the sort of thing a romantic poet would do. And it's strange to find it almost strange to find it displaced. There were these other mad songs. But I think because it's anonymous, it gets less well known, it gets less attention. It's not part of a bigger body of work, but it's absolutely, I think it's wonderful.James: I shall read it.Henry: So who have you got? Who else? Who are you putting in instead of these two?James: Hang on. So we're down to tier two now.Henry: Tier two.James: Yeah. So my tier two is: Donne, Elliot, Keats, Tennyson. I've put Spenser in tier two, Marvell and Pope, who we've already discussed. I mean, I think Eliot, we've talked about, I mean Donne just speaks for himself and there's probably a case that some people would make to bump him up a tier. Henry: Anybody can read that case in Katherine Rudell's book. We don't need to…James: Yes, exactly. If anybody's punching perhaps in tier two, it's Tennyson who I wasn't totally sure belonged there. Putting Tenon in the same tier as Donne and Spenser and Keets. I wonder if that's a little ambitious. I think that might raise eyebrows because there is a school of thought, which I'm not totally unsympathetic to this. What's the Auden quote about Tennyson? I really like it. I expressed very harshly, but I sort of get what he means. Auden said that Tennyson “had the finest ear perhaps of any English poet who was also undoubtedly the stupidest. There was little that he didn't know. There was little else that he did.” Which is far too harsh. But I mentioned to you earlier that I think was earlier this year, a friend and I had a project where we were going to memorise a perva week was a plan. We ended up basically getting, I think three quarters of the way through.And if there's a criticism of Tennyson that you could make, it's that the word music and the sheer lushness of phrases sometimes becomes its own momentum. And you can end up with these extremely lovely but sometimes slightly empty beautiful phrases, which is what I ended up feeling about Tithonus. And I sort of slightly felt I was memorising this unbelievably beautiful but ever so slightly hollow thing. And that was slightly why the project fell apart, I should say. Of course, they absolutely love Tennyson. He's one of my all time favourite poets, which is why my personal favouritism has bumped him up into that category. But I can see there's a case, and I think to a lot of people, he's just the kind of Victorian establishment gloom man, which is totally unfair, but there's not no case against Tennyson.Henry: Yeah, the common thing is that he has no ideas. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm also, I'm not sure how desperately important it is. It should be possible to be a great poet without ideas being at the centre of your work. If you accept the idea that the essence of poetry is invention, i.e. to say old things in a fantastically new way, then I think he qualifies very well as a great poet.James: Yes..Henry: Well, very well. I think Auden said what he said because he was anxious that it was true of himself.James: Yeah, I mean there's a strong argument that Auden had far too many ideas and the sorts of mad schemes and fantastical theories about history that Auden spent his spare time chasing after is certainly a kind of argument that poets maybe shouldn't have as many ideas, although it's just reading. Seamus Perry's got a very good little book on Tennyson, and the opening chapter is all about arguments about people who have tended to dislike Tennyson. And there are all kinds of embarrassing anecdotes about the elderly Tennyson trying to sort of go around dinner parties saying profound and sage-like things and totally putting his foot in it and saying things are completely banal. I should have made a note that this was sort of slightly, again, intensifying my alarm about is there occasionally a tinsely hollowness about Tennyson. I'm now being way too harsh about one of my favourite poets—Henry: I think it depends what you mean by ideas. He is more than just a poet of moods. He gives great expression, deep and strongly felt expression to a whole way of being and a whole way of conceiving of things. And it really was a huge part of why people became interested in the middle ages in the 19th century. I think there's Walter Scott and there's Tennyson who are really leading that work, and that became a dominant cultural force and it became something that meant a lot to people. And whether or not, I don't know whether it's the sort of idea that we're talking about, but I think that sort of thing, I think that qualifies as having ideas and think again, I think he's one of the best writers about the Arthurian legend. Now that work doesn't get into the Oxford Book of English Verse, maybe that's fair. But I think it was very important and I love it. I love it. And I find Tennyson easy to memorise, which is another point in his favour.James: Yeah.Henry: I'm going to read a little bit of Ulysses, which everyone knows the last five or six lines of that poem because it gets put into James Bond films and other such things. I'm going to read it from a little bit from earlier on. I am become a name;For always roaming with a hungry heartMuch have I seen and known; cities of menAnd manners, climates, councils, governments,Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move.I think that's amazing. And he can do that. He can do lots and lots and lots of that.James: Yeah, he really can. It's stunning. “Far on the ringing planes of windy Troy” is such an unbelievably evocative phrase.Henry: And that's what I mean. He's got this ability to bring back a sort of a whole mood of history. It's not just personal mood poetry. He can take you into these places and that is in the space of a line. In the space of a line. I think Matthew Arnold said of the last bit of what I just read is that he had this ability in Ulysses to make the lines seem very long and slow and to give them this kind of epic quality that far goes far beyond the actual length of that poem. Ulysses feels like this huge poem that's capturing so much of Homer and it's a few dozen lines.James: Yeah, no, I completely agree. Can I read a little bit of slightly more domestic Tennyson, from In Memoriam, I think his best poem and one of my all time favourite poems and it's got, there are many sort of famous lines on grief and things, but there's little sort of passage of natural description I think quite near the beginning that I've always really loved and I've always just thought was a stunning piece of poetry in terms of its sound and the way that the sound has patented and an unbelievably attentive description natural world, which is kind of the reason that even though I think Keats is a better poet, I do prefer reading Tennyson to Keats, so this is from the beginning of In Memoriam. Calm is the morn without a sound,Calm as to suit a calmer grief,And only thro' the faded leafThe chesnut pattering to the ground:Calm and deep peace on this high wold,And on these dews that drench the furze,And all the silvery gossamersThat twinkle into green and gold:Calm and still light on yon great plainThat sweeps with all its autumn bowers,And crowded farms and lessening towers,To mingle with the bounding main:And I just think that's an amazing piece of writing that takes you from that very close up image that it begins with of the “chestnut patterning to the ground” through the faded leaves of the tree, which is again, a really attentive little bit of natural description. I think anyone can picture the way that a chestnut might fall through the leaves of a chestnut tree, and it's just an amazing thing to notice. And I think the chestnut pattern to the ground does all the kind of wonderful, slightly onomatopoeic, Tennyson stuff so well, but by the end, you're kind of looking out over the English countryside, you've seen dew on the firs, and then you're just looking out across the plane to the sea, and it's this sort of, I just think it's one of those bits of poetry that anybody who stood in a slightly wet and romantic day in the English countryside knows exactly the feeling that he's evoking. And I mean there's no bit of—all of In Memoriam is pretty much that good. That's not a particularly celebrated passage I don't think. It's just wonderful everywhere.Henry: Yes. In Memoriam a bit like the Dunciad—under appreciated relative to its huge merits.James: Yeah, I think it sounds, I mean guess by the end of his life, Tennyson had that reputation as the establishment sage of Victorian England, queen of Victoria's favourite poet, which is a pretty off-putting reputation for to have. And I think In Memoriam is supposed to be this slightly cobwebby, musty masterpiece of Victorian grief. But there was just so much, I mean, gorgeous, beautiful sensuous poetry in it.Henry: Yeah, lots of very intense feelings. No, I agree. I have Tennyson my third tier because I had to have the Gawain poet, but I agree that he's very, very great.James: Yeah, I think the case for third tier is I'm very open to that case for the reasons that I said.Henry: Keats, we both have Keats much higher than Shelly. I think Byron's not on anyone's list because who cares about Byron. Overrated, badly behaved. Terrible jokes. Terrible jokes.James: I think people often think Byron's a better pert without having read an awful lot of the poetry of Byron. But I think anybody who's tried to wade through long swathes of Don Juan or—Henry: My God,James: Childe Harold, has amazing, amazing, beautiful moments. But yeah, there's an awful lot of stuff that you don't enjoy. I think.Henry: So to make the case for Keats, I want to talk about The Eve of St. Agnes, which I don't know about you, but I love The Eve of St. Agnes. I go back to it all the time. I find it absolutely electric.James: I'm going to say that Keats is a poet, which is kind of weird for somebody is sent to us and obviously beautiful as Keats. I sort of feel like I admire more than I love. I get why he's brilliant. It's very hard not to see why he's brilliant, but he's someone I would very rarely sit down and read for fun and somebody got an awful lot of feeling or excitement out of, but that's clearly a me problem, not a Keats problem.Henry: When I was a teenager, I knew so much Keats by heart. I knew the whole of the Ode to a Nightingale. I mean, I was absolutely steeped in it morning, noon and night. I couldn't get over it. And now I don't know if I could get back to that point. He was a very young poet and he writes in a very young way. But I'm going to read—The Eve of St. Agnes is great. It's a narrative poem, which I think is a good way to get into this stuff because the story is fantastic. And he had read Spenser, he was part of this kind of the beginning of this mediaeval revival. And he's very interested in going back to those old images, those old stories. And this is the bit, I think everything we're reading is from the Oxford Book of English Verse, so that if people at home want to read along they can.This is when the heroine of the poem is Madeline is making her escape basically. And I think this is very, very exciting. Her falt'ring hand upon the balustrade,Old Angela was feeling for the stair,When Madeline, St. Agnes' charmed maid,Rose, like a mission'd spirit, unaware:With silver taper's light, and pious care,She turn'd, and down the aged gossip ledTo a safe level matting. Now prepare,Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray'd and fled.Out went the taper as she hurried in;Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:She clos'd the door, she panted, all akinTo spirits of the air, and visions wide:No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!But to her heart, her heart was voluble,Paining with eloquence her balmy side;As though a tongueless nightingale should swellHer throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,All garlanded with carven imag'riesOf fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,And diamonded with panes of quaint device,Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.I mean, so much atmosphere, so much tension, so many wonderful images just coming one after the other. The rapidity of it, the tumbling nature of it. And people often quote the Ode to autumn, which has a lot of that.James: I have to say, I found that totally enchanting. And perhaps my problem is that I need you to read it all to me. You can make an audio book that I can listen to.Henry: I honestly, I actually might read the whole of the E and put it out as audio on Substack becauseJames: I would actually listen to that.Henry: I love it so much. And I feel like it gets, when we talk about Keats, we talk about, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer and Bright Star and La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and these are great, great poems and they're poems that we do at school Ode to a Nightingale because I think The Great Gatsby has a big debt to Ode to a Nightingale, doesn't it? And obviously everyone quotes the Ode to Autumn. I mean, as far as I can tell, the 1st of October every year is the whole world sharing the first stands of the Ode to Autumn.James: Yeah. He may be one of the people who suffers from over familiarity perhaps. And I think also because it sounds so much what poetry is supposed to sound like, because so much of our idea of poetry derives from Keats. Maybe that's something I've slightly need to get past a little bit.Henry: But if you can get into the complete works, there are many, the bit I just read is I think quite representative.James: I loved it. I thought it was completely beautiful and I would never have thought to ever, I probably can't have read that poem for years. I wouldn't have thought to read it. Since university, I don't thinkHenry: He's one of those people. All of my copies of him are sort of frayed and the spines are breaking, but the book is wearing out. I should just commit it to memory and be done. But somehow I love going back to it. So Keats is very high in my estimation, and we've both put him higher than Shelly and Coleridge.James: Yeah.Henry: Tell me why. Because those would typically, I think, be considered the superior poets.James: Do you think Shelly? I think Keats would be considered the superior poetHenry: To Shelly?James: Certainly, yes. I think to Shelly and Coleridge, that's where current fashion would place them. I mean, I have to say Coleridge is one of my all time favourite poets. In terms of people who had just every so often think, I'd love to read a poem, I'd love to read Frost at Midnight. I'd love to read the Aeolian Harp. I'd love to read This Lime Tree Bower, My Prison. I'd love to read Kubla Khan. Outside Milton, Coleridge is probably the person that I read most, but I think, I guess there's a case that Coleridge's output is pretty slight. What his reputation rest on is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, the conversation poems, which a lot of people think are kind of plagiarised Wordsworth, at least in their style and tone, and then maybe not much else. Does anybody particularly read Cristabel and get much out of it nowadays? Dejection an Ode people like: it's never done an awful lot for me, so I sort of, in my personal Pantheon Coleridge is at the top and he's such an immensely sympathetic personality as well and such a curious person. But I think he's a little slight, and there's probably nothing in Coleridge that can match that gorgeous passage of Keats that you read. I think.Henry: Yeah, that's probably true. He's got more ideas, I guess. I don't think it matters that he's slight. Robert Frost said something about his ambition had been to lodge five or six poems in the English language, and if he'd done that, he would've achieved greatness. And obviously Frost very much did do that and is probably the most quotable and well-known poet. But I think Coleridge easily meets those criteria with the poems you described. And if all we had was the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I would think it to be like Tom O' Bedlam, like the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, one of those great, great, great poems that on its own terms, deserves to be on this list.James: Yeah, and I guess another point in his favour is a great poet is they're all pretty unalike. I think if given Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a conversation poem and Kubla Khan and said, guess whether these are three separate poets or the same guy, you would say, oh, there's a totally different poems. They're three different people. One's a kind of creepy gothic horror ballad. Another one is a philosophical reflection. Another is the sort of Mad Opium dream. I mean, Kubla Khan is just without a doubt, one of the top handful of purposes in English language, I think.Henry: Oh yeah, yeah. And it has that quality of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard that so many of the lines are so quotable in the sense that they could be, in the case of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, a lot of novels did get their titles from it. I think it was James Lees Milne. Every volume of his diaries, which there are obviously quite a few, had its title from Kubla Khan. Ancient as the Hills and so on. It's one of those poems. It just provides us with so much wonderful language in the space of what a page.James: Sort of goes all over the place. Romantic chasms, Abyssinian made with dulcimer, icy pleasure dome with caves of ice. It just such a—it's so mysterious. I mean, there's nothing else remotely like it at all in English literature that I can think of, and its kind strangeness and virtuosity. I really love that poem.Henry: Now, should we say a word for Shelly? Because everyone knows Ozymandias, which is one of those internet poems that goes around a lot, but I don't know how well known the rest of his body of work is beyond that. I fell in love with him when I read a very short lyric called “To—” Music, when soft voices die,Vibrates in the memory—Odours, when sweet violets sicken,Live within the sense they quicken.Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,Love itself shall slumber on.I found that to be one of those poems that was once read and immediately memorised. But he has this very, again, broad body of work. He can write about philosophical ideas, he can write about moods, he can write narrative. He wrote Julian and Maddalo, which is a dialogue poem about visiting a madman and taking sympathy with him and asking the question, who's really mad here? Very Swiftian question. He can write about the sublime in Mont Blanc. I mean, he has got huge intellectual power along with the beauty. He's what people want Tennyson to be, I guess.James: Yeah. Or what people think Byron might be. I think Shelly is great. I don't quite get that Byron is so much more famous. Shelly has just a dramatic and, well, maybe not quite just as, but an incredibly dramatic and exciting life to go along with it,Henry: I think some of the short lyrics from Byron have got much more purchase in day-to-day life, like She Walks in Beauty.James: Yeah. I think you have to maybe get Shelly a little more length, don't you? I mean, even there's something like Ode to the West Wind is you have to take the whole thing to love it, perhaps.Henry: Yes. And again, I think he's a bit like George Herbert. He's always thinking you really have to pay attention and think with him. Whereas Byron has got lots of lines you can copy out and give to a girl that you like on the bus or something.James: Yes. No, that's true.Henry: I don't mean that in quite as rude a way as it sounds. I do think that's a good thing. But Shelly's, I think, much more of a thinker, and I agree with you Childe Harold and so forth. It's all crashing bore. I might to try it again, but awful.James: I don't want move past Coledridge without inflicting little Coledridge on you. Can I?Henry: Oh, yes. No, sorry. We didn't read Coledridge, right?James: Are just, I mean, what to read from Coledridge? I mean, I could read the whole of Kubla Khan, but that would be maybe a bit boring. I mean, again, these are pretty famous and obvious lines from Frost at Midnight, which is Coledridge sitting up late at night in his cottage with his baby in its cradle, and he sort of addressing it and thinking about it. And I just think these lines are so, well, everything we've said about Coledridge, philosophical, thoughtful, beautiful, in a sort of totally knockout, undeniable way. So it goes, he's talking to his young son, I think. My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heartWith tender gladness, thus to look at thee,And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,And in far other scenes! For I was rearedIn the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breezeBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the cragsOf ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,Which image in their bulk both lakes and shoresAnd mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hearThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligibleOf that eternal language, which thy GodUtters, who from eternity doth teachHimself in all, and all things in himself.Which is just—what aren't those lines of poetry doing? And with such kind of confidence, the way you get from talking to your baby and its cradle about what kind of upbringing you hope it will have to those flashes of, I mean quite Wordsworthian beauty, and then the sort of philosophical tone at the end. It's just such a stunning, lovely poem. Yeah, I love it.Henry: Now we both got Yeats and Hopkins. And Hopkins I think is really, really a tremendous poet, but neither of us has put Browning, which a lot of other people maybe would. Can we have a go at Browning for a minute? Can we leave him in shreds? James: Oh God. I mean, you're going to be a better advocate of Browning than I am. I've never—Henry: Don't advocate for him. No, no, no.James: We we're sticking him out.Henry: We're sticking him.James: I wonder if I even feel qualified to do that. I mean, I read quite a bit of Browning at university, found it hard to get on with sometimes. I think I found a little affected and pretentious about him and a little kind of needlessly difficult in a sort of off-puttingly Victorian way. But then I was reading, I reviewed a couple of years ago, John Carey has an excellent introduction to English poetry. I think it's called A Little History of Poetry in which he described Browning's incredibly long poem, The Ring in the Book as one of the all time wonders of verbal art. This thing is, I think it's like 700 or 800 pages long poem in the Penguin edition, which has always given me pause for thought and made me think that I've dismissed Browning out of hand because if John Carey's telling me that, then I must be wrong.But I think I have had very little pleasure out of Browning, and I mean by the end of the 19th century, there was a bit of a sort of Victorian cult of Browning, which I think was influential. And people liked him because he was a living celebrity who'd been anointed as a great poet, and people liked to go and worship at his feet and stuff. I do kind of wonder whether he's lasted, I don't think many people read him for pleasure, and I wonder if that maybe tells its own story. What's your case against Browning?Henry: No, much the same. I think he's very accomplished and very, he probably, he deserves a place on the list, but I can't enjoy him and I don't really know why. But to me, he's very clever and very good, but as you say, a bit dull.James: Yeah, I totally agree. I'm willing. It must be our failing, I'm sure. Yeah, no, I'm sure. I'm willing to believe they're all, if this podcast is listened to by scholars of Victorian poetry, they're cringing and holding their head in their hands at this—Henry: They've turned off already. Well, if you read The Ring and the Book, you can come back on and tell us about it.James: Oh God, yeah. I mean, in about 20 years time.Henry: I think we both have Auden, but you said something you said, “does Auden have an edge of fraudulence?”James: Yeah, I mean, again, I feel like I'm being really rude about a lot of poets that I really love. I don't really know why doesn't think, realising that people consider to be a little bit weak makes you appreciate their best stuff even more I guess. I mean, it's hard to make that argument without reading a bit of Auden. I wonder what bit gets it across. I haven't gotten any ready. What would you say about Auden?Henry: I love Auden. I think he was the best poet of the 20th century maybe. I mean, I have to sort of begrudgingly accept T.S. Eliot beside, I think he can do everything from, he can do songs, light lyrics, comic verse, he can do occasional poetry, obituaries. He was a political poet. He wrote in every form, I think almost literally that might be true. Every type of stanza, different lines. He was just structurally remarkable. I suspect he'll end up a bit like Pope once the culture has tur

It's a new year and a new episode. Join Kate and Laura as they consider reading intentions for the year ahead, and try to set some realistic goals. Will 2025 be the year Kate gets into poetry? Will it be the year Laura weans herself off romance novels? And as always, they're thinking of book club reads to come. Meanwhile Phil sets a goal for himself in 2025 that might surprise you. Books mentioned  4,000 Weeks and Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman  Rejection by Tony Tulithamutte Bliss Montage by Ling Ma The George Smiley novels by John le Carre Karla's Choice by Nick Harkaway  My Struggle, Karl Ove Knausgard The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan Assembly and Universality by Natasha Brown Also a Poet and Crush by Ada Calhoun Our Country Friends and Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart Intimacies and Audition by Katie Kitamura Robert Caro's Fifth Lyndon Johnson book Polostan by Neal Stephenson Finance for the People by Paca Leon Essays of E. B. White The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna The Husbands by Holly Gramazio  All That Glitters by Orlando Whitfield Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs Intermezzo by Sally Rooney The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk My Friends by Hisham Matar  The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel The Gifts of Reading, Robert Macfarlane (ed) Untitled Memoir from Nicola Sturgeon Katabasis by R. F. Kuang Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind trilogy) Book Lovers by Emily Henry Living and Death and Intimations by Zadie Smith Notes If you're looking for inspiration in your reading life over the coming year why not subscribe to The Book Club Review Patreon. In addition to the various special episodes you'll find on there, you'll get The Book Club Review Weekend, my weeky-ish bonus episode just for Patrons, featuring Laura's reading updates and regular chats with friends of the pod. Laura and I have cooked up a new feature, called One Book Wonder, that allows us to talk about those books that slip through the cracks between regular episodes. Listen in for our thoughts on Good Material by Dolly Alderton.  You get all that at the entry level, but at the higher tier you can also join the podcast book club and come and talk books with me in person at the end of every month over zoom, or listen back anytime if you can't make the live session. In January we're reading the novel that appeared on many a best-of-the-year list, Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, In February we're we're reading All The Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley, a museum guard's quest to find solace and meaning in art, and in March it's short stories with Hateship, Friendship, Loveship, Courtship, Marriage by Alice Munroe. But will they make for good book club reads? Join me and the book clubbers over on Patreon and find out. Join our bookish community, get brilliant book recommendations and get the warm glow from knowing that you're supporting me in making the show. Head to Patreon.com/thebookclubreview and sign up today. Otherwise come and find me anytime on Instagram @bookclubreviewpodcast or check out our website, thebookclubreview.co.uk. But for now, thanks for listening and happy book clubbing.    

This episode is the first of a short series exploring How to Read Simone Weil. The author of Gravity and Grace, The Need for Roots, and Waiting for God—among many other essays, letters, and notes, Weil has been an inspiration to philosophers, poets, priests, and politicians for the last century—almost all of it after her untimely death. She understood, perhaps more than many other armchair philosophers from the same period, the risk of philosophy—the demands it made on a human life.In this series, we'll feature three guests who look at this magnificent and mysterious thinker in interesting and refreshing, and theologically and morally challenging ways.We'll look at Simone Weil the Mystic, Simone Weil the Activist, Simone Weil the Existentialist.First we'll be hearing from Eric Springsted, a co-founder of the American Weil Society and its long-time president—who wrote Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings and Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century.In this conversation, Eric O. Springsted and Evan Rosa discuss Simone Weil's personal biography, intellectual life, and the nature of her spiritual and religious and moral ideas; pursuing philosophy as a way of life; her encounter with Christ, affliction, and mystery; her views on attention and prayer; her concept of the void, and the call to self-emptying; and much more.About Simone WeilSimone Weil (1909–1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. She's the author of Gravity and Grace, The Need for Roots, and Waiting for God—among many other essays, letters, and notes.About Eric O. SpringstedEric O. Springsted is the co-founder of the American Weil Society and served as its president for thirty-three years. After a career as a teacher, scholar, and pastor, he is retired and lives in Santa Fe, NM. He is the author and editor of a dozen previous books, including Simone Weil: Late Philosophical Writings and Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century.Show NotesEric O. Springsted's Simone Weil for the Twenty-First CenturyHow to get hooked on Simone Weil“All poets are exiles.”Andre WeilEmile ChartierTaking ideas seriously enough to impact your lifeWeil's critique of Marxism: “Reflections on the Cause of Liberty and Social Oppression”:  ”an attempt to try and figure out how there can be freedom and dignity in human labor and action”“Unfortunately she found affliction.”Ludwig Wittgenstein: “Philosophy is a matter of working on yourself.”Philosophy “isn't simply objective. It's a matter of personal morality as well.””Not only is the unexamined life not worth living, but virtue and intellect go hand in hand. Yeah. You don't have one without the other.”An experiment in how work and labor is doneThe demeaning and inherently degrading nature of factory workChristianity as “the religion of slaves.”Christianity can't take away suffering; but it can take away the meaninglessness.George Herbert: “Love bade me welcome / But my soul drew back guilty of dust and sin”Weil's vision/visit of Christ during Holy Week in Solemn, France: “It was like the smile on a beloved face.”The role of mysteryWeil's definition of mystery:  ”What she felt mystery was, and she gets a definition of it, it's when two necessary lines of thought cross and are irreconcilable, yet if you suppress one of them, somehow light is lost.”Her point is that whatever good comes out of this personal contact with Christ, does not erase the evil of the suffering.What is “involvement in contradiction”“She thought contradiction was an inescapable mark of truth.”Contradictions that shed light on life.Why mysticism is important for Weil: “The universe cannot be put into a box with techniques or tricks or our own scientific methods or philosophical methods. … Mystery instills humility and it takes the question of the knowing ego out of the picture. … And it challenges modern society to resist the idea that faith could be reduced to a dogmatic system.”“Faith is not a matter of the intellect.”“Intellect is not the highest faculty. Love is.”“The Right Use of School Studies”“Muscular effort of attention”She wanted to convert her Dominican priest friend into the universality of grace—that Plato was a pre-Chrisitan.” (e.g., her essay, “ Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks”)“Grace is universal.”How school studies contribute to the love of GodPrayer as attentionWeil on Attention: “Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object. It means holding in our minds within the reach of this thought, but on the lower level and not in contact with it. The diverse knowledge we have acquired. Which we are forced to make use of. Above all our thought should be empty waiting, not seeking anything but ready to receive in its naked truth. The object that is to penetrate it.”Not “detached,” but “available and ready for use”Making space for the afflicted other by “attending” to themLove that isn't compensatory“The void as a space where love can go”What is prayer for Simone Weil?Prayer as listening all night long“Voiding oneself of secondary desires and letting oneself be spoken to.”Is Simone Weil “ a self-abnegating, melancholy revolutionary” (Leon Trotsky)Humility in Simone Weil“The Terrible Prayer”Was Simone Weil anorexic?Refusing comfort on the grounds of solidaritySelf-emptying and graceAccepting the entire creation as God's willSimone Weil on patience and waiting“With time, attention blooms into waiting.”“She's resistant to the Church, but drawing from Christ's self-emptying.”God's withdrawal from the world (which is not deism)“A sacramental view of the world”“ The very creation of the world is by this withdrawal and simultaneous crucifixion of the sun in time and space.”(Obsessive) pursuit of purity in morals and thoughtIris Murdoch's The Nice and the Good“Nothing productive needs to come from this effort.”“ She put her finger on what's really the heart of Christian spirituality. … We live by the Word … by our being open to listening to the Word and having that transformed into God's word.”Production NotesThis podcast featured Eric O. SpringstedEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Emily Brookfield, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, & Kacie BarrettA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Gregg Hurwitz, the New York Times bestselling author of the Orphan X series and a storyteller whose work spans many mediums and genres, in conversation with Stephen Blackwood, the founding president of Ralston College, and with students enrolled in the inaugural year of the College's MA in the Humanities program. In this live event—recorded on [date] at Ralston College—Hurwitz discusses the concrete details of his own writing practice and explains how his training in literature and psychology have informed his craft. He reflects on how storytelling helps us to understand the self and on the real-world value of learning to speak with honesty and authenticity.    Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode:    Sigmund Freud Carl Jung Joseph Campbell  Gregg Hurwitz, You're Next The Sixth Sense (film)  Romanticism  William Wordsworth, “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience Transcendentalism  Kurt Vonnegut James Joyce, “The Dead”; Ulyssess  F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night William Faulkner, Light in August; As I Lay Dying; The Sound and the Fury Raymond Chandler Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment  Edgar Allan Poe,  “The Tell-Tale Heart”  Albert Camus, The Stranger  James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice Carl Rogers  Lord Byron  Batman (comic series) Punisher (comic series)  Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen Pablo Picasso  Joan Didion  The Book of Henry (film)  Alan Moore   

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 732, my conversation with author Alexandra Kleeman. The episode first aired on October 13, 2021. Kleeman is the author of the novel Something New Under the Sun (Hogarth Press). Her other books include the story collection Intimations and the debutnovel You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Conjunctions, and Guernica, among other publications, and her other writing has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Tin House, n+1, and The Guardian. Her work has received fellowships and support from Bread Loaf, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. She is the winner of the Berlin Prize and the Bard Fiction Prize, and was a Rome Prize Literature Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She lives in Staten Island and teaches at the New School. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram  TikTok Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch. 2 Hidden Forces Within, pp. 47-48 This episode is also available as a blog post at https://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com/2024/04/09/the-limiting-and-diluting-effect-of-the-external-instruments-on-the-intimations-of-the-soul/ YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/@santoshkrinsky871 More information about Sri Aurobindo can be found at http://www.aurobindo.net The US editions and links to e-book editions of Sri Aurobindo's writings can be found at http://www.lotuspress.com 

On Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded Podcast. Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, by H A Ironside The Gospel of Mark is the briefest of the four Gospels. The traditional view, which holds that the apostle Peter dictated this record and that Mark was only an amanuensis, has been proven erroneous. Equally incorrect are other theories: the Gospel of Mark was written first and Matthew and Luke copied some material from it; or there was an original record, a common source, that all the Evangelists used. All these opinions are mostly the inventions of men who disbelieve the inspiration of the chosen instruments of God in giving a fourfold picture of His blessed Son on earth. An unswerving faith in the inspiration of the four Evangelists solves all the supposed difficulties and discrepancies of which we hear so much in our days. Inspiration makes error impossible. Mark was not an apostle. Two apostles were chosen to write Gospel records: Matthew and John. The other two writers, Mark and Luke, did not belong to the twelve. Mark's and John's Gospels give us the chronological account, while Matthew and Luke were led by the Holy Spirit not to pen the events chronologically, but to arrange them in such a way as to bring out the distinctive features of their respective Gospels. Links ⁠⁠https://www.hiawathabible.org/youtube-playlist-index-page⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.hiawathabible.org/matthew-henrys-main-page⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZlTAw2GgUjPN0dV0lqNVSnXOUgqqV9qY⁠ You will find the text on my blog at ⁠⁠https://wordpress.com/home/downtoearthbutheavenlyminded.wordpress.com⁠

We're back with Season 6 of Best Friend Therapy and we are overjoyed to be in your ears again!In fact we're feeling so damn positive about life right now, we thought we'd kick off with a conversation about whether positivity can ever be negative... or even toxic?There's nothing wrong with looking on the bright side of life, or tackling challenges with optimism and a positive mental attitude. But we wonder whether there is a role for taking our time to get there in certain situations, to feel heard first (by ourselves and others) and to feel validated in the truth of what is, even when it's not as we would wish. And whether we can trip ourselves up with the pressures to be positive and feel like we're failing, when really what we're acknowledging is the complicated, nuanced, conflicted reality of life. To quote our very own Elizabeth Day, “life is texture” and striving to be overly positive, at the cost of authenticity, can make us more fearful of the darker feelings that are an inevitable part of the human condition.Elizabeth introduces us to the view of Zadie Smith that tells us our pain can run in parallel to others' experiences and Emma questions whether this season of Married at First Sight sees its participants setting themselves up to fail with their "good vibes only". Never let it be said that we don't draw on a diverse range of sources in our research for BFT.We hope our conversation puts a smile on your face but, if it doesn't, cheer up, it might never happen!---Elizabeth quotes Zadie Smith's "Intimations": https://www.waterstones.com/book/intimations/zadie-smith/9780241492383---Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.---Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayEmma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrellBest Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

Novelist Zadie Smith is one of the most acclaimed and beloved writers of her generation. Editor David Remnick has called her “a blessing not merely to The New Yorker but to language itself.” Author George Saunders has praised Smith's work for its “heart and moral ambition.” I, too, think she's quite good. And so today we're joined by Smith to discuss her prescient historical novel The Fraud (8:20), her instinctive writing process (14:06), and the role of projection in her work (20:30). Then, Zadie reflects on her upbringing in North West London (24:12), the art that influenced her growing up (27:15), and the media circus that followed the publication of her debut novel, White Teeth (33:45). On the back-half, we discuss her desire to frequently reinvent herself as an artist as a writer (41:55), why she prioritized pleasure after her book On Beauty (45:17), the nuanced politics of her work (49:04), her evolving relationship to humanism (48:15), a striking passage from Intimations (54:00), and what she sees in this next generation of novelists (1:04:45). This conversation was recorded at Spotify Studios.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bonnitta Roy and I explore the meaning of complexification and the evolutionary narrative. After some introductory context on Bonnie's prior engagement in the "scene" of integrative metatheory, we find our way to the topic of teleology (i.e., the apparent goal-directedness of nature). From there Bonnie outlines some of the pivotal mutations in the evolutionary narrative that have increased organism's capacity for abstraction. We discuss whether the directionality of these processes is captured in models of hierarchical complexity, or if other sorts of maps are needed to appreciate the evolution of mind. 0:00 Introduction 1:37 Bonnie's Background in Integrative Metatheory 12:30 On Integral vs. Metamodern: Problems with Stage Theories 17:53 On (Apparent) Teleology 21:00 The Story of Pivotal Mutations Up the Evolutionary Stack 31:22 Teleology* towards Increasing Causal Power 41:09 Getting Beyond Thoughts: Pure Abstractions vs. Categorical Abstractions 45:30 Information and Pure Abstractions: Direct Perception of the Causal Manifold 49:55 Is Increasing Hierarchical Complexity Getting Closer to the Causal Manifold? 1:03:27 Complexification as Recursively Finding New Vantage Points 1:12:38 Increasing Degrees of Freedom without Increasing Complexity? 1:15:22 Intimations and Afterthoughts: Directions for Further Discussion

We are starting series 10 with a bang. Described as the “voice of the 21st Century” by the Sunday Times, the multi award winning author Zadie Smith is back with a brand new novel, ‘The Fraud'. Zadie's first historical novel, the book is inspired by a legal trial dividing Victorian Britain looking at truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain. It's a great excuse to get Zadie back on Changes to talk about her biggest life changes and the changes she'd like to see. Zadie Smith became famous and hugely praised aged 24 for her debut novel ‘White Teeth'. She is also the author of ‘The Autograph Man', ‘On Beauty', ‘NW' and ‘Swing Time', among others. Two years ago, Zadie appeared on Changes in lockdown, around the release of her collection of short stories ‘Intimations'. Then, she talked about the major changes from the pandemic and moving from New York to London during that time. In this episode, we go back to the start as she shares personal stories from her time at school and University, talks openly about her childhood and family, what freedom means and looks at the reasoning and history behind her incredible new novel ‘The Fraud'.As with her writing, Zadie has an encapsulating and wise way of speaking that you can't help feeling reassured by. She is a voice of reason and makes you look at life in a whole new way. ‘The Fraud' is out on Thursday 7th September. You can pre order / buy the book here:https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308246/the-fraud-by-smith-zadie/9780241336991Changes is a deaf friendly podcast, transcripts can be accessed here: https://www.anniemacmanus.com/changesVOTE FOR CHANGES!If you love the podcast, please vote for Changes in the British Podcast Awards here:https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1E7: In this summery laughter-filled July episode, Minnesotan songsmith and writer Siri Undlin (also known as Humbird) and I alternate chatting and laughing. We discuss pulling all nighters while reading, gruesome fairytales, children who are more emotional evolved than adults, and a question from a letter-writer who is dealing with the tension of wanting to support a friend in need while still upholding their personal boundaries.References• “Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space” by Amanda Leduc• Geoguessr, the game• “Intimations” by Zadie SmithDo you have a predicament? Submit it to the show!For a full-spectrum advice experience listen to the accompanying DB: S1E7 Playlist, hand-selected songs to pertain to this letter writer's predicament!If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a member of my Patreon page to gain access to the special extended version of our conversation! In addition to extended episodes of each episode, other member perks include a monthly playlist to accompany each episode's theme, access to a monthly songwriter accountability community zoom, and exclusive demos of my original music! To learn more visit www.patreon.com/sadiebgz

"The narrative that old books are worthless is designed to keep you from discovering that they are not." Spencer Klavan, author of How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises discusses the West: why it's so important to preserve it, how its greatest ideas can still help us today, and the limits of science in addressing modern problems. Spencer Klavan received his PhD in Classics from Oxford and is Associate Editor of the Claremont Review of Books and Features Editor at the American Mind. His book, How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises  His podcast, Young Heretics  "Hey hey ho ho Western Civ has got to go"  Spencer on C.S. Lewis's science fiction novel "That Hideous Strength  More on Plato's Timaeus  More on Lucretius, a prominent Epicurean philosopher More on Stoicism  C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image  Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood  Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

This week, Sarah and Cyrus tackle a subject that is a particular passion of one of them: the character type of Brave Little Girls. Sarah posits a working definition of what this phrase might mean, and gushes over fictions weird little girls who are asked to do too much and who rise to the occasion. Cyrus wonders if anyone had a normal childhood or what a thing might mean. We also talk about Misha Collins and some big questions about gender. (Those are two separate topics, we promise.) Our patreon! Pretty sparse right now but we have big yet achievable dreams for it. Media discussedThe Tiffany Aching Series by Terry PratchettSpirited Away (2001)Over the Garden Wall (2014)The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. TolkienCoraline by Neil Gaiman Abarat by Clive Barker The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis Macbeth (for some reason) by William ShakespeareThe poems of William Wordsworth, specifically "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"

"The narrative that old books are worthless is designed to keep you from discovering that they are not." Spencer Klavan, author of How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises discusses the West: why it's so important to preserve it, how its greatest ideas can still help us today, and the limits of science in addressing modern problems. Spencer Klavan received his PhD in Classics from Oxford and is Associate Editor of the Claremont Review of Books and Features Editor at the American Mind. His book, How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises  His podcast, Young Heretics  "Hey hey ho ho Western Civ has got to go"  Spencer on C.S. Lewis's science fiction novel "That Hideous Strength  More on Plato's Timaeus  More on Lucretius, a prominent Epicurean philosopher More on Stoicism  C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image  Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood  Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

"The narrative that old books are worthless is designed to keep you from discovering that they are not." Spencer Klavan, author of "How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises" discusses the West: why it's so important to preserve it, how its greatest ideas can still help us today, and the limits of science in addressing modern problems. Spencer Klavan received his PhD in Classics from Oxford and is Associate Editor of the Claremont Review of Books and Features Editor at the American Mind.  His book, How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises, https://www.regnery.com/9781684513451/how-to-save-the-west/  Dr. Klavan's podcast, Young Heretics, https://youngheretics.com/  "Hey hey ho ho Western Civ has got to go," https://intellectualtakeout.org/2019/06/hey-hey-ho-ho-western-civ-has-got-to-go/ Spencer on C.S. Lewis's science fiction novel "That Hideous Strength,"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdutZEHonLc  More on Plato's Timaeus, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-timaeus/#:~:text=In%20the%20Timaeus%20Plato%20presents,%2C%20purposive%2C%20and%20beneficent%20agency.  More on Lucretius, a prominent Epicurean philosopher: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lucretius/  More on Stoicism, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/  C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image, https://portalconservador.com/livros/C-S-Lewis-The-Discarded-Image.pdf  Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood 

It has become commonplace that democracy in the United States faces an existential threat. This belief has gained popular currency in the wake of Donald Trump's presidency, nourished by his conduct in office, the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and continuing efforts to subvert the electoral process. Whether this is true only time will tell. But a common narrative among scholars of American government holds that representative democracy is failing more systematically than the Trump phenomenon suggests. In this program, Charles Beitz, professor of politics at Princeton University, and Martin Gilens, professor of public policy at UCLA, address how to diagnose the problem of whether or not our system of government is failing. Series: "Tanner Lectures on Human Values" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 38272]

It has become commonplace that democracy in the United States faces an existential threat. This belief has gained popular currency in the wake of Donald Trump's presidency, nourished by his conduct in office, the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and continuing efforts to subvert the electoral process. Whether this is true only time will tell. But a common narrative among scholars of American government holds that representative democracy is failing more systematically than the Trump phenomenon suggests. In this program, Charles Beitz, professor of politics at Princeton University, and Martin Gilens, professor of public policy at UCLA, address how to diagnose the problem of whether or not our system of government is failing. Series: "Tanner Lectures on Human Values" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 38272]

Welcome back to Book Chat, a new monthly books podcast brought to you by novelist Bobby Palmer and journalist Pandora Sykes, which does what it says on the tin: we each bring one book, and we chat. Our one rule? The books have to be more than 2 years old. NB: this is a meaty book chat, not a book review show, so if you have not yet read the books, there will be spoilers.For our second episode, Pandora brings White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000) and Bobby, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (2016, trans. 2019). Both books were huge bestsellers and launched each woman as a "literary sensation". We discuss this tag as well as the books themselves: our favourite bits, how they've aged, and what we'd change.Other books/ articles mentioned:Vesper Flights by Helen MacdonaldDarling by India KnightOn Beauty, NW, Intimations, Swing Time and Grand Union by Zadie SmithLife Ceremony and Earthlings by Sayaka MurataThe Interestings by Meg WolitzerWhite Teeth seemed fresh and optimistic in 2000 - how does it read now? by Sam Jordison for The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/jul/14/white-teeth-2000-how-does-it-read-now-zadie-smithGeneration Why? by Zadie Smith for The New York Review of Books https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/11/25/generation-why/In Defence of Fiction, by Zadie Smith for The New York Review of Books https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/zadie-smith-in-defense-of-fiction/Zadie Smith interview: On Shame, Rage and Writing, for the Louisiana channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LREBOwjrrwFor Japanese novelist Sayaka Murata, odd is the new normal, by Motoko Rich for The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/books/japanese-novelist-sayaka-murata-convenience-store-woman.htmlThe future of sex lives in us all, by Sayaka Murata for The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/future-sex-society.htmlA Home at the End of the World by Michael CunninghamDarling by India KnightVesper Flights by Helen MacdonaldThe Interestings by Meg WolitzerThe Corrections by Jonathan FranzenCollected Works by Lydia SandgrenOpen Water by Caleb Azumah NelsonWhite Noise by Don DeLilloMy Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa MoshfeghLuster by Raven LeilaniThe Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey EugenidesGirl, Interrupted by Susanna KaysenOn Beauty, NW, Intimations, Swing Time and Grand Union by Zadie SmithEarthlings and Life Ceremony by Sayaka MurataYou can get in touch bookchatpod@gmail.com.Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Morgan returns for his third appearance on Infinite Loops with Jim, Infinite Loops' own Ed William and special guest Brett Andersen, an evolutionary psychology PhD student at the University of New Mexico. We discuss the implications of the ideas presented in Brett's fantastic essay ‘Intimations of a New Worldview', whether the rise of anti-heroes is a challenge to Campbell's Hero's Journey, the influence of conscious vs unconscious design, and much more. Important Links: Intimations of a New Worldview Brett's Substack Brett's Twitter Tom's blog Tom's Twitter Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Show Notes: Objective vs subjective morality Complexity as a precondition Biological complexification Complexification and social selection Relevance realisation Jordan Peterson's ‘Maps of Meaning' and the metamyth The optimal path and the process of creation The cognitive purpose of supernatural beliefs Mapping a response to the meaning crisis Quantum entanglement and consciousness Practical implications of Brett's theory Cultural evolution Conscious vs unconscious design There is an underlying flow of things Breaking Bad and the Hero's Journey Slack vs tension MUCH more! Books Mentioned: Meaning in Life and Why It Matters; by Susan Wolf The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity; by Bobby Azarian The Life of the Cosmos; by Lee Smolin Evolution's Arrow: the direction of evolution and the future of humanity; by John Stewart Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny; by Robert Wright The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature; by Geoffrey Miller Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief; by Jordan Peterson Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis; by John Vervaeke Principia Mathematica; by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World; by Iain McGilchrist The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous; by The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism; by Howard Bloom Life Finds A Way: What Evolution Teaches Us About Creativity; by Andreas Wagner Tao Te Ching; by Laozing

Lexman Artificial discusses Sertac Karaman's book Deacons For Dells and how the book provides a deeper look into the intricacies and responsibilities of deaconship.

The Okanagan Valley of BC, Canada is well known for its fruit orchards, vineyards, idyllic scenery, and pristine lakes, but it is also … I wasn't expecting this … the epicenter of the concept of everything CLASSIC ROCK! Yes, you heard it here!! Husband and wife team Kevin and Jill Fai are the expert Artists of Music and Painters of Sound who join us today and share freely the journey and passion behind their mission: Moving Lines Band. They are here to Bring It Back! Intimations of the classic 80's Rock vibe live on coupled with fresh new poetic overtones and a home-recorded, mixed, mastered and managed studio sound. You need to hear how this entrepreneurial couple wrote and continue to write their own story. They never give up, never stop learning, they trust the process of self-initiative and they never stop moving!Kevin's Favourite album: Master of Puppets by MetallicaJill's Favourite album: Amanda Marshall by Amanda MarshallWebsite: https://www.movinglines.caFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/movinglinesbandInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/movinglinesbandLinktr.ee: Moving Lines BandContact: movinglinesband@gmail.comConnect: https://movinglines.bandcamp.com

This week we revisit highlights from two impactful episodes, the incredible author Zadie Smith and Jhemar Jonas who's brother Michael was fatally stabbed to death.Since the night of his brother's death, when Jhemar was 16, Jhemar has been trying to change the world advocating for youth-led solutions to violence and knife crime. He has mentored students and provided consultancy for City Hall, the Metropolitan police and Google about youth culture and violence prevention. He's also a rapper who goes by the name of Rippa. The episode is one of Annie's favourites to date, an essential listen for an insight into the problem of knife crime in London. Here, we revisit that fateful night he lost his brother, as well as how Jhemar's own mentor has changed his life. Highly celebrated, bestselling and award winning author Zadie Smith spoke to us about New York and coming home. In her early days she wrote about her experiences as a young black woman growing up in London and changed the landscape in the publishing world. She spoke to Annie during lockdown when she had just written six personal, powerful and reflective essays called Intimations exploring ideas and questions around the new reality during the pandemic and the things it made her reflect on including socialism and the dangers of individualism. Zadie had just moved back from New York to her home city of London, when Trump was still President, and spoke about that change, the events of 2020 and the differences between the two cities.Listen to the full episodes here:Jhemar Jonashttps://podfollow.com/changeswithanniemacmanus/episode/374003823e75775dd520a560e71f7e88c7b1b8fc/viewZadie Smith https://podfollow.com/changeswithanniemacmanus/episode/04620326c73bb820b8cc28750958f7811ee42d59/view Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's podcast I share one of the first religious/mystical experiences I had during a rock bottom moment in my life. I discuss how this experience shattered my ego defenses and allowed a connection to something greater than myself and the inflated ego structure I had at that time. I circle around Jung's theory of the Self and what that is in comparison to the Ego. Enjoy the show! Be sure to rate, review, and share the show with those who you feel like would enjoy the show! Thanks for listening! To join my free community, head to https://dr-danielle-mcginnis.mn.co/share/ To follow me on social media, head to @drdaniellemcginnis To find my website, head to www.drdaniellemcginnis.com

Dull account of one woman's day or rich and resonant masterpiece? Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf has divided readers since it was published and continues to spark debate today. In London, one day in June, 1923, society hostess Clarissa Dalloway sets out to buy flowers for a party she is giving that evening. Returning home later she is visited by an old friend, Peter Walsh, who rekindles memories and feelings from her youth. Meanwhile making his own path through London traumatised soldier, Septimus Smith, is finding everyday life a torment and his young Italian wife cannot help him. Although they never meet, the two stories interweave as Woolf captures her characters and London on the page. Join Kate and special guest, prolific reader and Instagram book reviewer  Charles Pignal as they dive into Dalloway and debate the results. Could Woolf have used a few less semi-colons? Can Kate talk about the book without weeping? If you haven't read it, should you read it? Listen in for the answers to all these questions plus some great follow-on recommendations from Charles and from Kate and Laura picking up on the London theme. Whether you're wondering what to read next for book club or just want some good additions to your own reading pile we have the book for you. Book list The Annotated Mrs Dalloway, with notes by Merve Emre In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman The Waves by Virginia Woolf Young Eliot and Eliot After the Waste Land by Robert Crawford Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel White Teeth and Intimations by Zadie Smith Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson On Golden Hill and Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks Queenie by Candice Carty Williams. Have thoughts on this episode, or a book to recommend? Go to the episode page on our website where you'll find full show notes for all the books discussed, a transcript and a comments forum. Comments go straight to our inboxes so get in touch, we love to hear from you. You can also keep in touch between episodes on Instagram @BookClubReview podcast, or Twitter @bookclubrvwpod or drop us a line at thebookclubreview@gmail.com.

We joined novelist Aimee Bender for a phone call that turned into a backyard conversation over Zoom. You're going to hear the sound of California birds (and possibly the odd car) as we unpack the beautiful mundane — truly a joyful conversation, especially if you're a writer (or interested in the process of writing). We touch on using writing to capture the manifold reflections of reality, the strange in the mundane, knowing your own quirky brain, finding relief in failure, and letting go to experience amazing surprise and wonder in our lives.Aimee Bender is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her surreal stories and characters. Her first book was The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, a collection of short stories chosen as a New York Times notable book of 1998. Other notable publications since are her novel An Invisible Sign of My Own, which was named as a Los Angeles Times pick of the year, a collection of short stories, Willful Creatures, and the novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Her most recent novel, The Butterfly Lampshade, was published in 2020. She lives and teaches in LA.Links:Fictionz, the podcast that did enacted episodes of Aimee's stories Off and Call My NameAimee Bender on Writing Without a Plan, Aimee's piece for Lit Hub that Nat mentions Intimations, Zadie Smith's book of essays Aimee mentionsTake a look at Aimee's website to see all of her writing in one place, and follow her on TwitterWe love hearing from our listeners! Leave us a voice message, write to the show email, or send us a DM on any of our socials.If our conversations support you in your own reframing practice, please consider a donation on our Patreon — where you can also hear bonus episodes. Subscribe to the Reframeables Newsletter. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram too.We love hearing from our listeners! Leave us a voice message, write to the show email, or send us a DM on any of our socials.If our conversations support you in your own reframing practice, please consider a donation on our Patreon, where you can also hear bonus episodes, or tipping us on Ko-fi. Subscribe to the Reframeables Newsletter. Follow us on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube too.

Thankfully, the father-knows-best paternal let me decide for you attitude of the worst of physicians – with their inability to listen or be questioned– remains in decline.  It is essential to step up into being your own best advocate. Get educated about whatever mortality reminder is currently in your face, and seek assistance from those you trust.

Life is full of huge thresholds to be crossed, with all the attendant trauma and joy. I am in the midst of shifting from living with family to living alone for the first time in my life really. My living space has always included a place for my kids to be, but now that will no longer be true for the foreseeable future. More to come on that... Meanwhile, here's the account of the birth of Patty's twins. I was there. It was an exciting threshold to cross and would prove to open up a whole new world for all of us. I have a Patreon page! Please check it out. If you make a small pledge you'll get to see photos and clips from my journals and hear a bit more about some of the stories. This is a fun way that I can share visuals with you. Check it out HERE. Or at patreon.com/dianathebard If you want to hear more on any particular subject, or if you want to ask a question or simply connect, you can find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/dianathebard or email me at bardofhudson@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Throughout my life I have received loving reminders that I am known and loved by the Knower of All Things. I'm sure you have, too. It took me getting sober at 40 to realize it, though.

Poem

Fr. Bill and William James author Paul S. continue their discussion. Pauls' chapter on the 4th and 5th Steps is titled: Releasing a Dam of Tears and Finding Tender Mercy. The discussion centers around the “sick soul” diving deep into its sense of “rottenness” to discover a soul that was already there and just waiting for us to set free. Show Notes: Paul's book titled “We Agnostics: William James…” is available here: https://rb.gy/rpvnlr The original Varieties of Religious Experience is available free as a pdf: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/621 An excellent biography of William James is by Robert D. Richardson. His section covering James' delivery of the lectures that formed the book VRE is helpful in putting James' work in clear context. It's available here: https://rb.gy/khpbf5 Paul referenced Viktor Frankl's book: Man's Search for Meaning. Available as pdf: https://rb.gy/1byuop Here's the passage Fr. Bill referenced from Wordsworth's poem, Intimations of Immortality: Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; (lines 58–70) Fr. Bill referenced Jung's Answer to Job. Click here: https://rb.gy/desvhq For a brilliant analysis of Jung's Answer to Job: Edward Edinger's Transformation of the God Image: https://www.amazon.com/Transformation-God-Image-Elucidation-Jungs-Answer/dp/0919123554/ To contact Paul S. please write to me at TwoWayPrayer@gmail.com and I'll pass your message along to him. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/fatherbillw/support

This episode of the It's A Mimic! podcast looks at the pages of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft to see what new bardic colleges there are for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.  It's not all slinging lute at sexy dragons, though, as the panel of Dungeon Masters sifts through the Optional Class Features in Tasha's, and the additional Bard Spells that you might not know about. Cold Open 0:00 Intro 0:59 Bard Overview 8:28 Commercial Break 20:22 College of Creation 21:15 College of Spirits 42:43 Social Media Info 1:00:07 Character Builds 1:00:19 Outro 1:10:43 Post-Credit 1:11:44 Bloopers 1:14:25 DON'T FORGET TO LIKE & SUBSCRIBE! Available On: https://www.itsamimic.com iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/its-a-mimic/id1450770037 Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/3Y19VxSxLKyfg0gY0yUeU1 Podbean at https://itsamimic.podbean.com/  YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzQmvEufzxPHWrFSZbB8uuw Social: Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/itsamimic/ Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/itsamimic/?hl=en Reddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/ItsaMimic/ Email at info@itsamimic.com Dungeon Master:  Terry Williams Host 2:  Dan O'Coin Host 3:  Kyle McQuaid Written by:  Terry Williams and Adam Nason Director:  Terry Williams and Adam Nason Audio Editor:  Adam Nason Video Editor:  Adam Nason Produced by:  Adam Nason Executive Producers:  Dan O'Coin and Adam Nason Intro/Outro Music by:  Cory Wiebe Logo by:  Katie Skidmore at https://www.instagram.com/clementineartportraits/ Current Gear: Microphone (USA) - https://amzn.to/2WWuCsz  Microphone (CAN) - https://amzn.to/2WTZ69G This post or video may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission for purchases made through our links. This episode is meant to be used as an inspirational supplement for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition and tabletop roleplaying games in general.  It's A Mimic! does not own the rights to any Wizards of the Coasts products. Artwork included in this episode's visualizations is published and/or owned by Wizards of the Coast.

What does the career of an Islamic and Indian arts expert look like? How do we get to it? Also, what should you buy in the upcoming auction of Millon et Associés? In the second episode of the Art Informant, Isabelle Imbert sits with Anne-Sophie Joncoux-Pilorget, head of the Oriental Art and Orientalism department of the Parisian auction house Millon & Associés to answer all these questions.  Mentioned in the Episode and Further Links  Millon & Associés 8th December auction catalogueIbn Kammuna, Refinement and Commentary on Suhrawardi's Intimations, €30.000-50.000Qur'an, Safavid Iran, 16th c., €20.000-30.000Two birds on a rose, signed Abdullah Bukhari, Ottoman Turkey, 18th c., €5.000-6.000Talismanic shirt, Ottoman Turkey, 18th c., €8.000-12.000 Portrait of a ruler, India, c. 1800, €600-800A page from the royal Padshanama, sold December 2019, €702.000The painting Anne-Sophie would love to acquireFollow the Art Informant on InstagramFollow Anne-Sophie Joncoux-Pilorget on InstagramFollow Millon & Associés on Instagram 

Alexandra Kleeman is the author of Intimations, a short story collection, and the novel You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Conjunctions, and Guernica, among other publications, and her other writing has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Tin House, n+1, and The Guardian. Her work has received fellowships and support from Bread Loaf, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. She is the winner of the Berlin Prize and the Bard Fiction Prize, and was a Rome Prize Literature Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She lives in Staten Island and teaches at the New School. About Something New Under the Sun: NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE • A novelist discovers the dark side of Hollywood and reckons with ambition, corruption, and connectedness in the age of environmental collapse and ecological awakening—a darkly unsettling near-future novel for readers of Don DeLillo and Ottessa Moshfegh ONE OF SUMMER'S BEST BOOKS: The Wall Street Journal • Time • Vulture • Parade • LitHub • Vanity Fair • Vogue • Refinery29 • Esquire “A darkly satirical reflection of ecological reality.”—Time “Genius.”—Los Angeles Times “Wildly entertaining and beautifully written.”—LitHub East Coast novelist Patrick Hamlin has come to Hollywood with simple goals in mind: overseeing the production of a film adaptation of one of his books, preventing starlet Cassidy Carter's disruptive behavior from derailing said production, and turning this last-ditch effort at career resuscitation into the sort of success that will dazzle his wife and daughter back home. But California is not as he imagined: Drought, wildfire, and corporate corruption are omnipresent, and the company behind a mysterious new brand of synthetic water seems to be at the root of it all. Patrick partners with Cassidy—after having been her reluctant chauffeur for weeks—and the two of them investigate the sun-scorched city's darker crevices, where they discover that catastrophe resembles order until the last possible second. In this often-witty and all-too-timely story, Alexandra Kleeman grapples with the corruption of our environment in the age of alternative facts. Something New Under the Sun is a meticulous and deeply felt accounting of our very human anxieties, liabilities, dependencies, and, ultimately, responsibility to truth.

Why do some people get excited about very ordinary things? How can I be excited about my very ordinary life? Recently I stumbled across this guy who really likes cars. His name is Doug DeMuro and he has 4 million YouTube subscribers, but that hasn't stopped him from creating videos in his t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers with basic camera skills and no scripting whatsoever. But he really likes cars and his enthusiasm is contagious. Doug's enthusiasm got me thinking about the intersection between creativity, joyfulness, and intelligence. So if you're into conversations about Cognitive Science, cars, and marshmallow-eating chipmunks then there's something in this episode for you.As mentioned in the episode:Doug DeMuro's review: "The Mitsubishi Pajero Mini Is a Very Tiny, Cute Off-Roader"Intimations of Creativity with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman on the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast (Season 4, Episode 31)"How to Find Joy in the Everyday" with Ingrid Fetell Lee

In this episode we explore William Wordsworths beautiful poem, ‘Intimations of Immortality.'

Written Summaries: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/aMGL0-S4E31-Intimations-of-Creativity-Dr-Scott-BarryOther podcast summaries if you're on Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/5-min-summariesOr in other apps: search 'podcast summaries'.Original episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000525901340

Written Summaries: https://www.owltail.com/summaries/aMGL0-S4E31-Intimations-of-Creativity-Dr-Scott-BarryOther podcast summaries if you're on Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/5-min-summariesOr in other apps: search 'podcast summaries'.Original episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000525901340

This episode was recorded on April 13th, 2021On this Season 4, Episode 31 of the Jordan Peterson Podcast, Jordan is joined by Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman. Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist exploring the limits of human potential. He hosts the very popular podcast 'The Psychology Podcast'. He is an author, editor, and co-editor of nine books including his newest 'Transcend: The New Science of Self Actualization'.Dr. Kaufman and Jordan discussed cognitive science, behavioral study, and Humanism. They also touched on many points including IQ. tests, personality traits, aggression in hierarchy, dating intelligence, self-actualization, long-form media, and much more.Find more Scott Kaufman on his website https://scottbarrykaufman.com/, in his books, and on his podcast show The Psychology PodcastThe Jordan B. Peterson Podcast can be found at https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

★ Support the show by becoming a patron: https://www.patreon.com/atpercussion ★ Follow us on:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/atperc Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atpercussion/ PodBean: https://atpercussion.podbean.com/ Hosts: Casey Cangelosi, Ben Charles, and Ksenija Komljenović, Karli Viña Intro music by Reese Maultsby - reesemaultsby.com Recommended reading: Allen recommends Zadie Smith's Intimations as a poignant, relevant reflection on these times. Watch here  Listen below  0:11 intro 7:04 Welcome Allen Otte! 9:48 Blackearth Percussion Group record stories 14:46 Founding of Blackearth Percussion Group 23:47 Lion's roar and Mauricio Kagel's Dressur 27:17 Taking the work seriously 29:44 More about Dressur 38:51 Hurdles in getting started with a chamber group 47:27 Christopher Deane and Facebook question from Brady Spitz: How do you cultivate creativity in your students, not just percussive skills, but artistry independent of instrument? 55:12 “The good old days of new music” 1:01:38 Karli topic: protest music 1:12:40 The Innocents project with John Lane 1:18:48 Allen performs Mark Saya's piece The Simurgh from From the Book of Imaginary Beings

We dive straight into a hilarious clip from Aisling Bea's This Way Up, followed by the guiltiest of pleasures, Outlander, and a debate about its portrayal of sexual violence. Rhiannon discusses the documentary Rising Phoenix, which looks at the history of the Paralympics and the empowering beauty of high level sports. In Alex's reading of Zadie Smith's Intimations, we talk about carving meaning out of time, particularly during lockdown where we have so much of it. We finish by nattering about Vaginismus and the nuances of female health, as well as the data biases against women and People of Colour, specifically in the medical sphere. Find a transcript of this podcast in our linktree on our instagram. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - thegrandthunk@gmail.com. See below for a full list of what we discuss: This Way Up Outlander His Dark Materials Rising Phoenix directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, on Netflix. Intimations by Zadie Smith Skin a Cat by Isley Lynn Invisible Women: Exposing Data Biases in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom by Sylvia Plath

Staggering to the end of 2020, Crabb and Sales's attention spans are so completely shot that they can't retain anything they've seen or read. Still, Annabel loved The Crown, especially the standout performance by Gillian Anderson's jaw; and Leigh has finally got onto Cheer. Theatre is back! And the next instalment of (CLANG!) Garner's memoirs is out. They're both looking forward to reading the book by total legend Nat's What I Reckon.  (1.00) The Crown Season 4 | Netflix | Trailer (8.50) Road Kill | iView (9.20) Cobra Kai | Netflix | Trailer (11.00) Weeds | Stan (11.40) Cook Yourself - A Ratbag's Rules for Life by Nats What I Reckon (14.40) Intimations by Zadie Smith (18.00) Cheer | Netflix | Trailer (19.00) Pippen at the Lyric Theatre (20.00) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Sydney Theatre Company  (29.00) One Day I'll Remember This by Helen Garner (30.00) The Yellow Notebook by Helen Garner (30.30) Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (31.20) Powerful Princesses - 10 Untold Stories of History's Boldest Heroines by Angela Buckingham, Yvonne Gilbert (Illustrator) This episode is presented by Nomadland. Chat 10 Looks 3 is produced by DM Podcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The trailer for season 4 of The Crown is out and we are absolutely frothing for it. A new Crocs x Bieber collab has the internet ablaze again, and while younger folks have been behind the plastic clog for a while now, it feels as though the multi-generational tipping point is here. Meanwhile Rihanna has drawn attention to male body image with her brilliant inclusion of 2XL model Steven G in her latest undies campaign, while Billie Eilish's appearance is being dissected once again (she's having none of it). Scat talk makes a welcome appearance (for Zan) with news of an updated toilet for women in space, only 50 odd years since space flight began. And Stevie Nicks has jumped on board the TikTok meme train, but at what price? Meanwhile Myf has been digging into a Zadie Smith audiobook very much for the times, while Zan is banging on about the 4 Corners & Hack investigation into Tinder.     Show notes: The Crown season 4 trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hJ5CwsphdQ&ab_channel=NetflixUK%26Ireland Crocs bounce back as ‘comfy' becomes the new norm: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/oct/14/crocs-bounce-back-as-comfy-becomes-new-norm It's time to reconsider Crocs with these fire collabs: https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/best-crocs-buy-online/ Stevie Nicks posts her TikTok meme: https://www.vulture.com/2020/10/watch-stevie-nicks-dreams-tiktok.html How Rihanna made plus-size men the next big thing: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/oct/11/how-rihanna-savage-x-fenty-made-plus-size-men-the-next-big-thing Billie Eilish: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/billie-eilish-photo-body-image-weight NASA finally made a toilet for women: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/10/space-toilet-nasa-women/616686/ Zadie Smith's Intimations: https://www.penguin.com.au/books/intimations-9780241492383 4 Corners & Hack on Tinder: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-12/tinder-dating-app-helps-sexual-predators-hide-four-corners/12722732?nw=0 Email us: bangon.podcast@abc.net.au   Bang On is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the land where we live, work, and learn.

God Our Refuge | Luke 13:1-9https://brookline.mosaicboston.comThere were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?' 8 And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. 9 Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'” - Luke 13:1-9Audio Transcript:This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Hello. Welcome to our online service. Thankfully the state of Massachusetts considers clergy and pastoral ministry an essential line of work and we're thankful for that. We agree. If you are tuning in and you're not part of Mosaic, welcome. If you are a part of Mosaic, a few words here about the state of the church. First of all, we love you and we miss you and we were praying for you, our whole staff is praying for you. In this age of social distancing, we actually haven't been distancing ourselves socially, but physically and socially.And as a community, we're actually more united than ever and particularly with our community groups. We've actually had more people attend our virtual or remote community groups than ever before. So if you are not part of our community group, we'd welcome you to join. You can do that by signing up online or on the app. A word to our medical professionals in the community and beyond, we love you and we're thinking of you and we're praying for you. We're supporting you through prayer.If there's anything else we can help with, we thank you for your tireless sacrificial work and just know that we do honor you. You guys are heroes and we're thankful for your work on the front lines. A word to the families in this crazy time. I feel your pain. My wife and I, we have four kids and they're out of school, at least until May 4th, according to governor Baker. This is a time where on a daily basis, you can add a rhythm in your life where you spiritually seek the Lord together, add a rhythm of family devotions, family worship, reading scripture together, praying and this is a time to build unity in the family.Husbands and wives and couples, this is a time where you can work on your friendship, work on your relationship, and seek the Lord together, present to him together. For the single people, reach out to one another. This is a time where community and friendship is more important than ever. And strengthen yourself in the Lord. Proverbs 24:10 says, in the day of adversity, if your strength fails, how little is it? And we have a source of eternal strength, God our savior. And scripture says, be strengthened in the Lord, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.We're thankful for this church. In a time like this, church is more important than ever. And we realize how important membership is, how important it is to be united to the body. If we can't do it physically, we do do it spiritually and virtually. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly father, we pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to be poured out on our church, on ourselves, on our city, on our state, and on our country. Lord, we pray in this time of pandemic, in this time of suffering, this time of crisis that you draw many to yourself.I pray that you will reawaken many to the realities of eternity. I pray, Lord, that you also send along with spiritual healing, physical healing upon those who are suffering. Send a physical healing upon our land. This is a time for us to be united. I pray that you heal any kind of partisan divide. Lord, I pray that you help us use this opportunity to pursue you and a loving relationship with you and pursue one another, in kindness and gentleness and friendship and civility and humanity.Lord, we pray for our political leaders. I pray that you send them wisdom, supernatural wisdom. We pray for the leaders of Brookline and we pray for the leaders of Boston. Mayor Marty Walsh. We pray for our governor, governor Baker. I pray that you send him supernatural wisdom. We pray for congress and our senators. I pray that you bless each one of them and I pray that you draw them to yourself and use them powerfully for your ends. And we do pray for vice president Mike Pence and Donald Trump, I pray, Lord, that you bless them, that you give them divine wisdom, that you guide them and that you use them for your purposes.And we pray for the world. Lord, in this time of crisis, I pray that you pour out miraculous, supernatural healing and spiritual great awakening. Lord, I pray that you bless our time in the holy scriptures, whoever's listening online, Lord, I pray that you bless them, that you speak to them, that you reveal yourself to each person in a way that they've never known you before. I pray, bless our time in the holy scriptures, and we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.So we're in a series that we're calling God Our refuge, and we are pursuing God and running to the Lord as our strength, as our help in this present time of need. We are living in a day and age where it's unprecedented. That's the word that's been used and we've known in this world that there are tragedies both public and private. But what this pandemic has done, and this is the reason why it's so unprecedented is because it is both public and private. All of us are afflicted and each of us is afflicted. All of us are suffering and each of us is suffering to some extent.What this pandemic has also revealed to us is how fragile we are, how frail we are. It's revealed to us that we are mortal in a way that perhaps we haven't been as keenly aware of. It's as if death has been thrust right before us and we're faced with our mortality. We can't ignore death on a daily basis. And we've also had to face the truth that we can't save ourselves. The natural predisposition or the wiring of our heart is to be our self saviors, to seek self salvation, to be our own Lords and our own saviors, to justify ourselves.And we realize that we can't save ourselves and that we are helpless. And it's natural in a time like this to ask why? Why is all this happening? Why the suffering, why this crisis? If God is good and God is all powerful, then why are so many good people suffering? Why are we suffering? Why would God allow this? Well, how does God respond to this question? How would Jesus Christ respond to this question? Jesus, how are we to understand the situation that we're in, this historical moment, this tragedy, this disaster that's massive in a global scale? God, speak to us.And the Lord has a word to us from Luke 13:1 through 9 today. It's a heavy word, but it's an important word. Jesus is both a truth teller and a grace giver and we need both. Would you look at the texts with me? This is Luke chapter 13 verses one through nine, the words of Jesus Christ, the words of the Holy Spirit. There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No. I tell you.But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who live in Jerusalem? No. I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." And he told this parable, a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, "Look, for three years now I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?"And he answered him, "Sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down." This is the of God's holy and they're infallible, authoritative word. May it write these eternal truths upon our hearts. The title of the sermon is God Our refuge, and I have one big point and that point is repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.As we seek answers from God. God, why are you allowing this? And as we turn to the scriptures, it seems as if Christ's words aren't what we're looking for. Jesus, this isn't very nice. It's almost like it's not comforting. It's not what we want, but it's exactly what we need to hear. We need to hear the physical disasters that we are facing are nothing compared to the spiritual disasters that are looming. And in this context, Jesus, in chapter 12 right before this text, he's talking to a huge crowd of people and he says to them that you can discern the weather, but you are oblivious to the signs of the times, namely in their context that the Messiah has come and the Messiah has come to bring good news.In our times this text is relevant because there are signs that the Lord is showing through this pandemic. He's communicating something to us. This is a sign from God. Look at Luke 12:54 through 56, he said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the West, you say at once, 'A shower's coming.' And so it happens. And when you see the South wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat,' and it happens. You hypocrites. You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"He says you can read the weather, but you're oblivious to the storm clouds that are gathering, the storm clouds of judgment. The next illustration that he shows at the end of Luke 12 is he talks about this man who is being dragged to court and he's facing a losing lawsuit and he does everything he possibly can to settle before he goes to court, before it's too late. Luke 12:57, and why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way lest he drag you to the judge and the judge hand you over to the officer and the officer put you in prison. And I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.This is what Jesus Christ is saying, that we owe in infinite debt to a holy God. We are sinners. We are debtors, and it's smart to do everything you possibly can to settle your accounts with God, to declare spiritual bankruptcy, "Lord, I need you. Lord, I need grace. Lord, I am a debtor, I am a sinner," and cast yourself on God's mercy. Perhaps an objection is rising in your heart. Well, I can't believe in a God who judges or I can't believe in a God who has wrath. The God of just retribution. I just can't believe that.My question is, really? The principle of judgment and the principle of just retribution is written on our hearts. It's deep within our souls, it's built into us and it's woven into the universe. And if we're honest, we can't even conceive a world, a universe apart from judgment, without judgment. We judge all the time. You've been judging all week and these past weeks. You judge politicians that you haven't done enough. You judge politicians that you're doing too much, judging the media that you're fear-mongering and judging other parts of the media that that, "No, you don't understand the severity of this."We judge people who are profiteering off of people's pain. People who are buying up hand sanitizer, marking it up ridiculously. We're judging people who don't take social distancing seriously. We judge politicians who profit and sell off their stocks months before this happens because they saw this coming. We judge people all the time. We judge people who deserve punishment for their crimes and we say things like, "Well, they had it coming to them." Or, "What goes around comes around," or, "They got what they deserve," or, "He has no one to blame, she has no one to blame but him or herself." We judge.And a world without just retribution, a world without judgment is a world that is obscene. It would be ultimate obscenity if people lived any way that they want sinned and hurt other people incessantly and have the same fate as those who are righteous. It's impossible to conceive of a future where Adolf Hitler and Maximilian Kolbe meet the same fate eternally speaking. Maximilian Kolbe was a priest in the Auschwitz and he surrendered his life for that of another man who was married and had children. He said, "Let me take this person's place," and Kolbe died.Without judgment, no one deserves anything, no one receives anything. Because to deserve punishment, there must be such a thing as punishment. And why does everyone get to judge except for God? We believe in justice and judgment because this principle has been so fixed in our hearts by God in whose image we are created. Where did the idea of judgment, the expectation, the practice itself, where did it come from if not from God himself? And Jesus is saying, "We need to wake up from our indifference to God, our indifference to eternal judgment."Because all around us today, now, this week, these past few weeks, there's intimations of judgment. There's an anticipation of judgment, there's premonitions, foreboding, ominous signs that justice is coming. Why would we ever suppose that a world so full of catastrophe isn't preparing us for the greatest catastrophe? We all believe in heaven, virtually every single person does because we see signs of paradise all around us. We know we are made for happiness and joy and beauty and goodness and friendship. When life is good, all we can think of is this lasting, never ending.Our experience of life and the goodness, the truth, the beauty of life, it prepares us for heaven. Heaven is the inevitable culmination of everything that is good in life. And likewise, hell is the consummation of everything that is painful, of everything that is evil, bad in life: alienation, misery, hatred, disappointment, regret, moral failure and darkness. As much of heaven as there is in the world, there is as much of hell. Heaven is right here with us. Intimations of it, premonitions, foretaste of it. Well, hell is also. Already so much of it is here.The worm that does not die, the fire that is not quenched, the outer darkness so thick that you can cut it with a knife. The world is chock full of wailing and gnashing of teeth today like perhaps never before. How can you argue that there is no hell when there's so much of it here today? And don't get caught up in the metaphors that scripture uses? The fire metaphor isn't the searing of flesh, it's searing regret. Gnashing of teeth and wailing is dwelling on wasted life. And darkness, it's alienation from God, alienation from others. That's eternal quarantine and darkness. All you have is the past.We'd rather not talk about this, but Jesus talks about this in particular when people were most sensitive because he wants to circumnavigate their self justification and speak truth to their hearts through their conscience. In hell people will spend eternity asking, "How did I get myself here? Why didn't I listen? How did I not see this coming?" That's why in the midst of tragedy, Jesus speaks truth, uncomfortable truth, but necessary truth. Look at Luke 13:1, there were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.So they come to Jesus on the same occasion where he's telling them, "You don't see the signs of judgment coming." And they tell him the story, "No, we do see," and they talk about this horrific situation where Pilate who was afraid of crowds sent troops in to Jerusalem and they slaughter people who are actually worshiping God. So much so and it's so gruesome that their blood flow together. The detail that's given to us in the text is that their blood was mingled together with that of their sacrifices grisly.And Jesus uses this current moment. When people are all ears, he speaks to their hearts and he uses the massacre in Jerusalem and then brings in a catastrophe in Samaria, in verses two and three, to reinforce this point, makes the first point of verse two and three and then reinforces this point in verse four and five. The first massacre in Jerusalem was the atrocity, the public catastrophe in Samaria in verse four and five. Look at verse two and three. He answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."And it doesn't stop there. He's like, "No, it gets worse. Let me show you another case." Case in point, verse four, "Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No. I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." And Jesus is correcting false theology, false presupposition of his audience, one of which we might struggle with as well. The smugly thought that those who died deserved it, they died because of their sins.And if we're alive, the fact that we are spared means that we're good with God, that we're pleasing to God. The theology isn't some moralistic theology and a lot of people actually believe this without even thinking it through, that bad people deserve bad things and good people deserve good things and that's what they get. It's a false theology. It's a theology of that Job, in the book of Job his comforters had that Job must have sinned egregiously against the holy God because of his suffering. And Jesus says, no, no. We are no less sinners than those who died.And perhaps the reason why we're still alive is because we have not been reconciled with God because God is still patient with us and giving us a chance to repent. And twice he drives this home in verse three and five. Verse three he says, "No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish." In verse five, "No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish." Dear friend, if you don't repent, you will face God's judgment perhaps soon. To tell you this truth is my solemn responsibility as a minister of the gospel.In the old testament, the false prophets were condemned by God because when God sent them to send a message of looming judgment, instead they came and said, "No, it's okay. You're at peace with God. You will get peace from God," when they were not at peace with God. So rather than asking in this moment philosophical abstract questions of why is this happening in the world, we need to ask, no, no, no. What is God saying to me through this? Why am I still alive? And Jesus's answer is that tragedies are signs. They are notifications, they're alerts from God that judgment is coming and it is imminent so we need to be ready through repentance.Jesus doesn't waste time talking about how awful Pilate is as a politician, how cruel his strategies and tactics are. He doesn't waste time with philosophical questions about theodicy and where is God. He turns the attention to each person. He turns to the heart of each person and he doesn't want the audience to go away unchanged. Philosophy does not change our hearts. Politics does not change our hearts. Only the gospel can do that. And Jesus uses this opportunity to speak to the eternal soul. And Jesus gets personal, uncomfortably personal because when he starts talking about our personal sin, that doesn't feel good, but he does that as a good doctor.He does that as a surgeon who is doing a heart surgery. It doesn't feel good in the beginning, but it needs to happen. There are two tragedies in this text. The first caused by Pilate, and that's an atrocity. It's caused by the evil of people. The other, he talks about this tower that falls, that's a catastrophe. That's an accident. Natural disasters are in the same category. Is this pandemic and atrocity or a catastrophe? We don't know. Maybe a mixture of both, but there's a worst tragedy than these and that's the final judgment. And Jesus uses the word perish.We repent or we perish. And he's not talking just about dying. There's physical perishing or physical dying. But Jesus isn't talking about that. He's talking about spiritual death, which is not disappearing. It's not annihilationism, it's actually separation from God. It's not cessation, it's separation and when you're soul is separated from the presence of God in a place called hell. The words of Jesus in Luke 12:4 and 5, I tell you my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do.He's saying, do not fear the Corona virus. What's the worst that it can do? It could kill you physically. That should not be your greatest fear. It says, but I will warn you, in verse five, I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him, who after he has killed has authority to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. And we are to fear him. You are to fear him, be scared of the judgment. It's coming, beware. That's what Jesus is teaching. And he's teaching the most basic truth, that after you die, there's only one of two destinations and that's either heaven or hell and each is as real and as eternal as the other.And unless and until we submit our lives to Jesus Christ through faith and repentance, we're headed for hell. Every single human tragedy, every single atrocity or catastrophe, it all stems from our rebellion against God. And Jesus assumes here what all of scripture teaches, that all people are by nature sinners and by choice sinners. And we sin sins of commission, sins of omission, we don't do what we're supposed to do and we do things that we're not supposed to do. And every single one of us, we deserve God's judgment.So when we talk about good people or innocent people, these are relative terms. Nobody is good and nobody is innocent concerning God. Every single one of us has a wicked, self-serving, selfish, evil, self-righteous heart. And I know the challenge of when I preach this truth to people who are listening to a sermon. It's as if you're at your best right now, you are listening to God's word, you are seemingly pursuing God. So I can't be that bad. Well, take this truth and shine the light of this truth on yourself when you're alone, when nobody's watching.Let this light shine into your heart to reveal what you truly think, what you truly want to say, what you truly want to do and you don't because God is restraining you. God's grace is restraining you. We all have sinful hearts and even the most righteous of us deserves God's righteous judgment. Our sin was the cause of the curse and every single natural disaster that stems from our rebellion, it comes from this curse. Floods and earthquakes and tsunamis, tornadoes and epidemics, diseases and accidents. And every single one of them is a sign, it's a reminder. It's a warning.There will come a time when God brings down the new heavens and the new earth and God will wipe away every single tear from his redeemed. There shall be no more curse and no more death. But until then, God is giving us time to repent and get this message of faith and repentance to others. Twice Jesus asks, "Do you think they are worse sinners than all the others?" And twice he responded, "No. No, I tell you." And that's a false theology that's deep in every single one of our hearts, even in the hearts of the disciples.When they saw a man who had been born blind, spent all of his life blind before Jesus healed him, they asked Jesus, "Why was he born blind? Because of his own sin or the sin of his parents?" And that's the wrong assumption. That if you suffer tragedy, you suffer because you're paying for your sins, not necessarily. The general principle is that God does bless those who pursue him and are obedient and that the sinful reap the evil consequences of their evil ways. But there are many exceptions.I can't stand up here and say that death will not come to you. I can't stand up here and say that you will not die from this Corona virus, I can't say that. That could be part of God's plan and we humbly submit. Tragedy might come to any one of us. Scripture often shows godly people suffering and dying young like John the Baptist. And then you see ungodly people living long trouble-free lives like king Herod who killed him. But ultimately there will be a resolution to this problem of evil and suffering. And that's the last judgment.Every wicked person who has not repented of their sins will bear the full wrath of God. And every single believer in Jesus Christ will be eternally rewarded. And lurking beneath this false theology, that bad people get bad things and good people get good things. And if I haven't received the bad, then that must mean I'm good. Looking underneath that is our self righteousness. Where we start thinking, "No, that can't happen to me." People say that all the time. I thought that would never happen to me. Why do we think that? Why do you think you will be immune from tragedy?And the reason why we do that is because we judge others more rigorously than we judge ourselves. When we see someone else sick or someone else experiencing pain or tragedy, we draw a straight line from their tragedy to their sin. And Jesus here is saying, no, no, no, don't do that. When you see someone else suffer, when you see calamity, when you see a pandemic like we're in, from that, draw straight line to your own sin. Judge yourself as rigorously as you judge others. Tragedies remind us that life is fragile and that we must get right with God before we die and we face judgment. Don't let this pandemic leave you unchanged. This is my fear.My fear is as this passes and Lord willing, it will. Then we just forget about it. God is using this moment to draw you closer to himself, to reveal himself. Don't just go back to life as usual. You need to ask and truly, yes soberly ask yourself, dead serious. What if I get sick? What if I end up in a hospital? What if I need a respirator or a ventilator? What if it's me? Am I ready to meet the eternal God? We don't know what's going to happen with us tomorrow, we don't know what's going to happen with us in the next minute.We might succumb to this disease or something else. We might end up in a hospital today and we might end up in a coffin tomorrow or two days from now. So what happens to you when your body turns into a corpse? What happens to you? And I'm not talking about your body, I'm talking about you, the immaterial you, the imperishable you, your eternal soul. What happens to you? Are you ready to meet your maker? Sooner or later it will be me and sooner or later it will be you.The Corona virus kills a certain percentage of people, but sin kills 100% of us. Death comes to each one of us. None of those Galileans who were going to the temple to bring sacrifices to the Lord, not one of them knew that that would be their final act on earth. Not one of the 18 people who were under the tower knew that that was the day that they were going to die. Not one of them woke up and said, "This is my last day." It could be for us and are you ready? We don't know what tomorrow will bring. We don't know what the next minute will bring.You are a sinner and I am a sinner and we must repent. This is what God is saying to each one of us. Today is the day of repentance. You have no more pressing need than to make sure that you are right with God to do that through repentance. We're living through a global disaster, one that many of us have never seen anything the likes of. However, we're headed for a much more comprehensive disaster, a disaster unprecedented in degree and scale and it's eternal in its effects and it looms over all of us. And the pandemic is just a foretaste of that one of imminent judgment and every tragedy, every disaster like this one is a reminder, are you ready? Are you ready today to meet God?Luke 13:2 Jesus says, used the word sinners, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the others?" Luke 13:4 uses a different word and he says, "Do you think that they are worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?" By offenders, the word here, the definition in the original is debtors. You've offended God and his objective moral code, his commandments. We're debtors against God and either we will pay this eternal debt, this infinite debt forever in a place called hell apart from God, or we trust in the sinless substitute Jesus Christ who died an excruciating death on our behalf, on the cross.Tragedies should drive us to repentance. And repentance is what can keep us from perishing. This is the antidote. This is what can avert God's wrath. Luke 13:3, unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Luke 13:5, unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Two options. Two options. Repent or perish. I don't want to perish. I don't want you to perish eternally. To turn to God from your sin, we do that through repentance. What does repentance mean? Repentance begins with confession.Lord, I confess that I've sinned against you. I confess that I've been indifferent to you. Lord, I confess that I've lived my life as if you don't exist. Lord, I confess that I've lived my life as if I'm my own. And then it's contrition. Lord, I've broken your commandments and I'm heartbroken over the fact that I've broken your heart as a good father. Lord, forgive me, I'm sorry, and then change. Lord, I want to change. Give me your grace to change. I don't want to love sin. I don't want to love idolatry. Lord, I want to love you above all else, and neighbor as self.Repentance, confession, contrition, desire, change. But that's not enough. No amount of sorrow, no amount of tears can get us into heaven, not an ocean of tears. We need to trust in Jesus Christ. We can't trust in our repentance, we can't trust in our confession, our contrition or our desire to change. We need to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, that God the father sent God the son onto earth and Jesus Christ lived a perfect life for us. Lived the life that we wouldn't live. And then he died on the cross, an excruciating death.Excruciating, not just physically, but on the cross. He felt what it means to perish. He felt that darkness. He felt that alienation. He felt hell on the cross. Jesus went through hell so that you wouldn't have to. When you trust in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes and applies that sacrifice to your heart and your sins are forgiven. All of your sins are forgiven. Jesus is the one that pays that debt that we owe. Jesus is the one who is the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus is the one who absorbed the tower of God's wrath so that you wouldn't have to.Sin. You know what the essence of sin is? It's putting ourselves in the place of God. And the essence of salvation, God putting himself in our place. It's Jesus in my place. And God's more ready to forgive you than you are even to repent. So what's keeping you? What's holding you back from accepting this gift of grace and mercy. Jesus took our judgment upon himself, accept it. Accept that gift, receive that gift through faith and repentance. Why do bad things happen to good people? It's only happened once and he volunteered. Jesus did that for us. He's the only truly good person who has ever lived and he calls us to himself today.God has the absolute right to judge sinners, that's the bad news. The bad news is that we deserve God's justice and the good news is that God absorbed that justice for us. God's holiness and his mercy, they meet at the cross. Would you receive that gift? Luke 13:6 through 9, Jesus reinforces everything he taught with this parable. He said the man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, "Look, for three years now I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?"And he answered him, "Sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down." If a tree went three years without fruit, that usually meant that it would never bear fruit. And the point of the story is that God is a creator, just like the owner of the vineyard has a right to the vineyard, to its fruit. God has a right to have fruit from us. If we don't produce the fruit that God would have for us, if we don't live out our purpose, God has a right to judge.He owns us, he made us. He can do whatever he chooses with us. He has the sovereign and just right as the creator of the universe to judge us. And the more clearly you see that, the quicker you will be to repent. We are planted in his vineyard, we breathe God's air, we drink God's water, we eat God's food. We enjoy God's creation and it's all given as a gift to remind us God is a good God and he wants a loving relationship with us. So why is that so many of us live without regard for God, without regard for a neighbor, with no desire to worship him? It's because of sin.There is a holy God and he will judge and deep in your heart you know this is true. We hear the ringing of judgment all around us. So come to Christ. Life is fragile, the future is uncertain. So get right with God. Repent and believe. And how do I know that my repentance is genuine? Well, that repentance always leads to fruit. And what does he mean by fruit here? It's growth in holiness that begins in salvation and continues every single day. The first steps in the faith, the first steps to being reconciled with God is repent and believe.And the next steps are repent and believe and the steps after that on a daily basis, the life of a Christian is a life of continual faith and repentance. As the owner of the vineyard expects figs from the fig trees, so God expects humanity from humans. This is what sin does. Sin dehumanizes us. Sin gets us to a place where we are not as we ought to be. And if you're honest with yourself, you know you're not as you ought to be. That's the presence of sin in your life. And what the gospel of Jesus Christ, what God's grace does, what salvation does is it rehumanizes us.Sin dehumanizes, the gospel rehumanizes and we begin to grow in the image of the only perfect human being who ever lived, and that's Jesus Christ. Fruitfulness is Christ likeness where we grow in character and conduct to look like Christ. The fruit of the spirit, the most succinct list is in Galatians 5:22 and 23, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things, there is no law. Imagine of people like this. This is true humanity. Imagine if more people were like this.Well, God is offering that gift of salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to every single one of us. Imagine if we were like this. This past week, a video went viral where the video was comprised of little snippets of celebrities singing John Lennon's, Imagine. I'm sure you know the lyrics. Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today, imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace. This song is all a fabrication of John Lennon's imagination.There is a heaven and there is a hell and there is a God. And justice is imminent, justice is looming, but God calls us to repentance. If you get rid of God, you have no peace because you have no objective morality. And people don't grow together in unity, people don't grow together and brother in generosity, only Christ can do that. Christ calls us to repent of sin and trust in him, receive a new heart and grow in Christ likeness. And this is the only thing that can change you and this is the only thing that can change the world and change the trajectory of your eternal soul.Christ is the only one who can bring us to unity. Christ is the only one who can bring us to a true brotherhood as human beings and Christ is the only one who can create truly generous hearts. So there's no need and there's no greed, it's just a people who love one another and share the good news of Jesus Christ with one another. And I'll close with just how amazing the role of the vine dresser here is. The vine dresser tells the owner, "Sir, let it alone this year only. Let me dig around it. Let me reveal the roots. The roots that are trying to find nutrients in places where there's arid ground, there's nothing there."And this is a sign of God's patience, a sign of God's goodness and his mercy. And what God is doing now is same thing that this vine dresser is doing. He's urging you, he's pleading with you, he's coaxing you to repent of sin, to stop seeking satisfaction for your soul and things that only cause fire and anguish and outer darkness. And his patience is here, but his patience is running out. There's a limit to it. And don't mistake God's patience to mean that the ax will never fall.If the master is giving you another year or another month or another day, don't waste it. Second Peter 3:8 through 13, but do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but he's patient towards you. Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. The day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed since all these things are thus to be dissolved.What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming the day of God because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Today repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Run to Jesus as your refuge. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, I pray that you continue to focus our attention on Christ, focus our affections on his love for us, on the sacrifice. And God the father, our Lord in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, I pray that you use this moment to draw many to yourself, drum many sensitive hearts to yourself. Speak powerfully and save dozens and hundreds and thousands and millions despite this pandemic. Lord, we thank you and we love you and pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

We finally get to the end of The Intimations Ode, after detours again through "Frost at Midnight" and the nature of nature in The Prelude and the relation of nature to death.  

Echoes of Milton in Wordsworth.  More of the Intimations Ode with a detour through Tintern Abbey.  The shockingness of "O joy!"

We start with the Intimations Ode, which means we really start with "My Heart Leaps Up" -- and after the fourth stanza, which is where Wordsworth broke it off, we go to the glad preamble of The Prelude.  Some attention to echoes between Coleridge and Wordsworth.

And its relation to the Invocation to Book 3 of Paradise Lost.  Loss of intensity converted to the intensity of loss.

St. Paul told the Corinthians to “make holiness perfect in the fear of the Lord.” For some this sounds like “works-righteousness” and for others like the picture of an angry God. Instead, St. Paul echoes many OT texts that give tantalizing intimations of holiness to which we are called, participating in what has been done for us already.

Nathan Gilmour talks with Michial Farmer and David Grubbs about William Wordsworth's poem "Ode: Intimations of Immortality." From its place in the Romantic era to its influence on Latter-Day-Saints theology, our conversation takes on the poem's ideology of childhood and its accompanying passages about the pre-existence of the soul. Among other things we discuss are possible Platonic and Buddhist influences, how Romantic poetry departs from its predecessors and how it doesn't, and the end of childhood.