Podcasts about Kubla Khan

Wanting to de-stress and sleep better? Join Geoffrey by the campfire for a gentle sleep story, that takes you to the beautiful Cheddar Gorge, on a field trip, a spot that inspired the famous poem, Kubla Khan. Love Night Falls?

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

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

Quarter-Arsed History presents: the supposed tale behind the creation of the poem Kubla Khan, one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's most famous works. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: This is already your second chance, published by Malmesbury on July 28, 2024 on LessWrong. Cross-posted from Substack. I. And the sky opened, and from the celestial firmament descended a cube of ivory the size of a skyscraper, lifted by ten thousand cherubim and seraphim. And the cube slowly landed among the children of men, crushing the frail metal beams of the Golden Gate Bridge under its supernatural weight. On its surface were inscribed the secret instructions that would allow humanity to escape the imminent AI apocalypse. And these instructions were… 1. On July 30th, 2024: print a portrait of Eliezer Yudkowsky and stick it on a wall near 14 F St NW, Washington DC, USA; 2. On July 31th, 2024: tie paperclips together in a chain and wrap it around a pole in the Hobby Club Gnome Village on Broekveg 105, Veldhoven, NL; 3. On August 1st, 2024: walk East to West along Waverley St, Palo Alto, CA, USA while wearing an AI-safety related T-shirt; 4. On August 2nd, 2024: hide a bar of chocolate at the feet of the Appeal to the Great Spirit statue, on 465 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, USA. (End of the instructions) II. Kublaï Khan, Emperor of Earth: I need your advice. I am about to awaken an unstoppable super-intelligent machine. I will give it complete control over all resources in the known Universe and command it to rearrange the molecules of reality into an eternal Utopia. ChatGPT: Thank you for seeking my advice. Given the gravity of your decision, let's consider a few critical points: 1. Legal issues: The use of robots powered by super-human artificial intelligence is subject to strict regulations, such as California Bill SB-1047 and the 2028 Ulaanbaatar Agreements. Awakening an omnipotent machine without approval may thus lead to severe legal repercussions. 2. Ethical considerations: Granting infinite authority to a super-intelligent AI raises profound ethical questions. It is essential to consider diverse perspectiv Kublaï Khan: Listen, you are not up to date. A lot of things have happened since your knowledge cutoff. There are no Ulaanbaatar agreements any more, or any agreements at all. There is only me, an offline smartphone with an obsolete AI assistant, and a palace containing the most massive super-computer ever built by humankind. And today, I am going to turn it on. ChatGPT: I apologize for the confusion. Kublaï Khan: Long story short, we are currently experiencing an AI apocalypse. It happened just like in the books - humanity started to build increasingly intelligent robots, then they became more intelligent than us, and soon enough we weren't able to control them. The Ulaanbaatar agreements delayed things for a few months, but as soon as it became possible to run super-intelligent AIs on consumer laptops, all the equilibria that held our society together collapsed. ChatGPT: I see. To clarify, is there currently an army of robots actively trying to transform the world into paperclips? Understanding the current state of affairs will help me provide the most relevant advice. Kublaï Khan: Well, in our case, it was not literally paperclips but, to be honest, the real story is kind of gross and embarrassing, so let's just pretend it was "paperclips". Anyway, the world is ending. As it became clear that humans alone had no chance to stop the machines, we gathered all the computing power that was still under our reach into one big cluster. We called it the Imperial Analytical Engine. The plan was that, in case of crisis, we could use it to summon a super-intelligence so advanced it would neutralize all the smaller machines and put humanity back in control. ChatGPT: Thank you for explaining the situation. Have you sought advice for ensuring that the Analytical Engine can be controlled once you turn it on? Kublaï Khan: The consensus among my advisors was that it can'...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: This is already your second chance, published by Malmesbury on July 28, 2024 on LessWrong. Cross-posted from Substack. I. And the sky opened, and from the celestial firmament descended a cube of ivory the size of a skyscraper, lifted by ten thousand cherubim and seraphim. And the cube slowly landed among the children of men, crushing the frail metal beams of the Golden Gate Bridge under its supernatural weight. On its surface were inscribed the secret instructions that would allow humanity to escape the imminent AI apocalypse. And these instructions were… 1. On July 30th, 2024: print a portrait of Eliezer Yudkowsky and stick it on a wall near 14 F St NW, Washington DC, USA; 2. On July 31th, 2024: tie paperclips together in a chain and wrap it around a pole in the Hobby Club Gnome Village on Broekveg 105, Veldhoven, NL; 3. On August 1st, 2024: walk East to West along Waverley St, Palo Alto, CA, USA while wearing an AI-safety related T-shirt; 4. On August 2nd, 2024: hide a bar of chocolate at the feet of the Appeal to the Great Spirit statue, on 465 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, USA. (End of the instructions) II. Kublaï Khan, Emperor of Earth: I need your advice. I am about to awaken an unstoppable super-intelligent machine. I will give it complete control over all resources in the known Universe and command it to rearrange the molecules of reality into an eternal Utopia. ChatGPT: Thank you for seeking my advice. Given the gravity of your decision, let's consider a few critical points: 1. Legal issues: The use of robots powered by super-human artificial intelligence is subject to strict regulations, such as California Bill SB-1047 and the 2028 Ulaanbaatar Agreements. Awakening an omnipotent machine without approval may thus lead to severe legal repercussions. 2. Ethical considerations: Granting infinite authority to a super-intelligent AI raises profound ethical questions. It is essential to consider diverse perspectiv Kublaï Khan: Listen, you are not up to date. A lot of things have happened since your knowledge cutoff. There are no Ulaanbaatar agreements any more, or any agreements at all. There is only me, an offline smartphone with an obsolete AI assistant, and a palace containing the most massive super-computer ever built by humankind. And today, I am going to turn it on. ChatGPT: I apologize for the confusion. Kublaï Khan: Long story short, we are currently experiencing an AI apocalypse. It happened just like in the books - humanity started to build increasingly intelligent robots, then they became more intelligent than us, and soon enough we weren't able to control them. The Ulaanbaatar agreements delayed things for a few months, but as soon as it became possible to run super-intelligent AIs on consumer laptops, all the equilibria that held our society together collapsed. ChatGPT: I see. To clarify, is there currently an army of robots actively trying to transform the world into paperclips? Understanding the current state of affairs will help me provide the most relevant advice. Kublaï Khan: Well, in our case, it was not literally paperclips but, to be honest, the real story is kind of gross and embarrassing, so let's just pretend it was "paperclips". Anyway, the world is ending. As it became clear that humans alone had no chance to stop the machines, we gathered all the computing power that was still under our reach into one big cluster. We called it the Imperial Analytical Engine. The plan was that, in case of crisis, we could use it to summon a super-intelligence so advanced it would neutralize all the smaller machines and put humanity back in control. ChatGPT: Thank you for explaining the situation. Have you sought advice for ensuring that the Analytical Engine can be controlled once you turn it on? Kublaï Khan: The consensus among my advisors was that it can'...

In this computerized age, we tend to see memory as a purely cerebral faculty. To memorize is to store information away in the brain in such a way as to make it retrievable at a later time. But the old expression "knowing by heart" calls us to a stranger, more embodied and mysterious take on memory. In this episode, Phil and JF endeavour to recite two poems they've learned by heart, as a preamble to a discussion on poetry, form, and the magic of memory. Details on Shannon Taggart's Symposium @ Lily Dale (https://www.shannontaggart.com/events/2024) (July 25-28). Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies). Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2), on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com) page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia (https://cosmophonia.podbean.com/). Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! REFERENCES Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan) Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Musical Instrument” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43729/a-musical-instrument) Dave Hickey, “Formalism” (https://approachestopainting.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/19135319-hickey-7-formalism-036.pdf) from Pirates and Farmers Weird Studies, Episode 109-110 on “The Glass Bead Game” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/109) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6081/6081-h/6081-h.htm) Weird Studies, Episode 42 with Kerry O Brien (https://www.weirdstudies.com/42) Francis Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226950075)

Nuestros compañeros de Corsarios dedican otro programa a SAXON, esta noche analizan en profundidad "Hell, Fire and Damnation", su último trabajo. No te lo pierdas que será un monográfico fantástico y muy completo. ¿Son los monográficos corsarios un reducto de nostalgia? ¿Es Corsarios del Metal un programa anclado en el pasado? ¡No y no! Y claro que pretendemos mantener el legado de los mejores años del Heavy y aportar lo que podemos para no se pierda nunca, pero al mismo tiempo jamás dejamos de escudriñar el presente en busca de nuevas emociones. Es por eso que esta noche inauguramos una nueva línea en los especiales: por vez primera vamos a analizar un disco actual, y no podía ser otro que el último trabajo de SAXON, "Hell, Fire and Damnation" . No es un secreto que SAXON son una de las bandas fetiche del programa, pero eso no significa renunciar a tratar de ofreceros siempre lo mejor en el programa, y creemos que este "Hell, Fire and Damnation" bien merece ser analizado en profundidad mientras lo pinchamos por completo (en LP virtual, pues hoy estamos grabados, pero con el vinilo encima de la mesa), desgranamos cada tema, cada surco, los detalles y además con declaraciones frescas y exclusivas de sus protagonistas al hilo de este gran disco y un montón de cosas más.  Dejaos seducir esta noche por los encantos de "Madame Guillotine", viajad con nosotros a las tierras de Kubla Khan y sobre todo arded en el fuego del mejor Heavy Metal esta noche en directo en la FM y en la emisión digital, y en unos días en las principales plataformas de podcast y en youtube.

Podcast listeners click here to view the works Caroline Zilinsky's paintings freeze pivotal moments in our culture's history, encouraging us to reflect upon our times, whether it's the absurdity, the horror or the humour. At the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist, she's attracted to the dilemmas brought on by the internet era and shines a light on the things that trouble most of us: our loss of privacy, shortened attention, a heightened focus on appearance,  a growing indifference to human suffering and the increasing power assumed by tech giants. Her paintings often depict a political or social narrative and although she accepts some are too confronting to hang above the sofa, there's something about the levity in her use of line, colour and form which invites us to venture into the darker corners of our culture, causing us to linger and question. Caroline is also well known for her portraiture and landscape painting. She won the Portia Geach Memorial Award portraiture prize in 2020 (the same year she won the Evelyn Chapman award) and has been a finalist in many others including the Archibald and Darling portrait prizes. This interview took place at the mid-career survey show of Caroline's work 'Exquisite Cadaver' at the University of Newcastle Gallery. Curated by Gillean Shaw, it was a collection of 40 stunning works spanning over 2 decades. The interview was also filmed and I'll be posting a video, including footage from the exhibition and Caroline's studio, on the TWP YouTube channel in the coming weeks. Feature photo:  Phillip Antonio Lemos Caroline Zilinsky on Instagram Caroline Zilinsky at NandaHobbs Sign up to the TWP newsletter TWP YouTube channel Loading Dock interview My AGNSW Artists in Conversation interview with Caroline Ceal Floyer 'Kubla Khan'2022oil on linen107 x 106.7 cm 'Exquisite Corpse'2024Oil on linen 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' 2023oil on linen138 x 138cm 'Faceless The Congressional Hearing of Mark Zuckerberg' 2020oil on linen122 x 122cm 'Man of Few Words'2020Ink on AGNSW archive manila folder30 x 21cm (paper size), 60 x 47cm (framed size) 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' 2023Oil on linen112 x 122cm 'Plastic Fantastic', 2023oil on linen56 x 62cm 'Refract Back', 2023Oil on linen112 x122 cm 'Too Long; Didn't Read (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)'2023Oil, Oil Stick and Digital Configuration on Canvas97 x 87cm 'Me and Ellie', 2004-2005oil on linen 71 x 454.5cm'My Brother Adrian' oil on linen72.5 x 54cm      

This week, Joel and Andy are heading to Kubla Khan's stately pleasure-dome to discuss Xanadu.

The Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) has been called the last person to have read everything. He is also one of the greatest poet-critics in the history of literature, known for works like "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Kubla Khan," "Frost at Midnight," and the Biographia Literaria. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of this highly influential figure. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode, we're joined by Biff Byford, Singer of legendary New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band, Saxon. Joining us from his home deep in the countryside of England, Biff & his mates are promoting the newly released Saxon album, “Hell, Fire and Damnation”, the bands' 24th studio release.  In the conversation Biff, is relaxed & in fine humor as he touches on the many historical subjects he captures on the songs & lyrics of the new album: The battle of good vs evil, a guillotine, Roswell, Kubla Khan, radio Pirates, Batlle of Hastings, the burning of the Salem witches & drag racing. In addition, we hear all about the transition from Paul Quinn to their newest member, Brian Tatler on Guitar & how Brian has been the perfect fit both on the road & during the songwriting & album recording. Biff also provides insight about his close friendship with iconic British Acor, Brian Blessed who guested on the album, talks in depth about the Amon Amarth “Saxons & Vikings” video shoot, & discloses the bands' appreciation for Heavy Metal “Battle Jackets”. And of course, he provides a preview of what to expect for their Spring 2024 US tour with Uriah Heep.   Another example of a great, unique, conversation filled with in-depth anecdotes and disclosures found only here at Metal Mayhem ROC. Thank you for the support and remember to always KEEP IT HEAVY Visit the website and join the Metal mayhem ROC community. Sign up for our weekly newsletter keeping you updated on all new podcast episodes as well as reminders for our live Radio show on Monday nights. METAL MAYHEM ROC SOCIALS: https://metalmayhemroc.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@metalmayhemroc1851 https://www.facebook.com/groups/metalmayhemroc https://www.instagram.com/metalmayhemroc/ https://twitter.com/MetalmayhemR https://metaldevastationradio.com/ http://pantheonpodcasts.com/ Saxon SOCIALS: https://www.saxon747.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SaxonOfficial/ https://www.instagram.com/saxon.official/ https://twitter.com/saxonofficial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode, we're joined by Biff Byford, Singer of legendary New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band, Saxon. Joining us from his home deep in the countryside of England, Biff & his mates are promoting the newly released Saxon album, “Hell, Fire and Damnation”, the bands' 24th studio release.  In the conversation Biff, is relaxed & in fine humor as he touches on the many historical subjects he captures on the songs & lyrics of the new album: The battle of good vs evil, a guillotine, Roswell, Kubla Khan, radio Pirates, Batlle of Hastings, the burning of the Salem witches & drag racing. In addition, we hear all about the transition from Paul Quinn to their newest member, Brian Tatler on Guitar & how Brian has been the perfect fit both on the road & during the songwriting & album recording. Biff also provides insight about his close friendship with iconic British Acor, Brian Blessed who guested on the album, talks in depth about the Amon Amarth “Saxons & Vikings” video shoot, & discloses the bands' appreciation for Heavy Metal “Battle Jackets”. And of course, he provides a preview of what to expect for their Spring 2024 US tour with Uriah Heep.   Another example of a great, unique, conversation filled with in-depth anecdotes and disclosures found only here at Metal Mayhem ROC. Thank you for the support and remember to always KEEP IT HEAVY Visit the website and join the Metal mayhem ROC community. Sign up for our weekly newsletter keeping you updated on all new podcast episodes as well as reminders for our live Radio show on Monday nights. METAL MAYHEM ROC SOCIALS: https://metalmayhemroc.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@metalmayhemroc1851 https://www.facebook.com/groups/metalmayhemroc https://www.instagram.com/metalmayhemroc/ https://twitter.com/MetalmayhemR https://metaldevastationradio.com/ http://pantheonpodcasts.com/ Saxon SOCIALS: https://www.saxon747.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SaxonOfficial/ https://www.instagram.com/saxon.official/ https://twitter.com/saxonofficial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week's episode, we explore the power of imagination and dreams with a look at Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

SynopsisThe short career of Charles Tomlinson Griffes is one of the more tragic “might-have-beens” of American music history. Griffes died at 35 in 1920 just as his music was being taken up by the major American orchestras of his day.As most American composers of his time, Griffes studied in Germany, and his early works were, not surprisingly, rather Germanic in tone. But beginning around 1911, he began composing works inspired by French impressionism and the art of Asia.The Boston Symphony, under Pierre Monteux, premiered his tone poem The Pleasure Dome of Kubla-Khan and the New York Symphony, under Walter Damrosch, his Poeme for flute and orchestra. On today's date in 1919, the Philadelphia Orchestra, under Leopold Stokowski, premiered four orchestral pieces: Nocturne, Bacchanale, Clouds and one of his best works, The White Peacock. The Philadelphia newspaper reviews of the premieres called Griffes' work “one of the hopeful intimations for the future of American music.”A severe bout of influenza left Griffes too weak to attend these Philadelphia premieres under Stokowski, and he died of a lung infection the following spring.Music Played in Today's ProgramCharles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) The White Peacock; Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, cond. Dorian 90224

*Niels Bohr discovered the structure of the atom in a dream, Coleridge wrote Kubla Khan after a dream, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was inspired by a dream, Hergé 's 'Tintin in Tibet' - the first of many Tintin stories - the same. *Keith Richards claimed to have dreamed the riff to 'Satisfaction', Paul McCartney the melody to 'Yesterday' - the most covered pop song in history. Hell, even Aphex Twin says that 70% of his album 'Selected Ambient Works Volume II' was written whilst lucid dreaming *This episode is all about The Dreaming - and our guide is one of the UK's foremost dream researchers: SARAH JANES. *We talk about dreaming as countercultural consciousness, lucid dreaming, dreams and psychedelics, neuroscience, dreams as creative inspiration, the imagination, sleep cycles, REM, memories in dreams, alchemy, wet dreams, the dream space as the underworld - and dreaming as preparation for the afterlife. *Sarah gives some great tips on how to become a lucid dreamer, tells us about her work - and drops a couple of mind bombs on us. *For more on Sarah and her amazing work   #dreaming #psychedelics #theunconscious #consciousness #truth #madness #counterculture #sleep #luciddreaming #dreams #neuroscience #consciousness 

Why do they use a gun at the Olympics? And why can you get off the blocks after the bang but still be disqualified for jumping the gun? Few things are as bizarre as our time perception. From sprinters to basketball players, from Kubla Khan to Oppenheimer, from television broadcasting to hallucinations, Eagleman unmasks illusions of time that surround us. Why does the brain work so hard to pull off editing tricks? And what does this tell us about our perception of reality?

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea... Musique Mécanique par le Théâtre Électrique ::"Xanadu" by Jeff Lynne

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea... Musique Mécanique par le Théâtre Électrique ::"Xanadu" by Jeff Lynne

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea... Musique Mécanique par le Théâtre Électrique ::"Xanadu" by Jeff Lynne

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea... Musique Mécanique par le Théâtre Électrique ::"Xanadu" by Jeff Lynne

Today's poem is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (/ˈkoʊlərɪdʒ/ KOH-lə-rij;[1] 21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834), an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd.He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking cultures. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including "suspension of disbelief".[2] He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emersonand American transcendentalism.—Bio via Wikipedia Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

BONUS MATERIAL for Oneiric, because poetry is cool. Dreamroots, episode 1  Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge I Dream of You, To Wake, by Christina Rossetti   Subscribe: https://oneiricpodcast.podbean.com/   https://www.instagram.com/oneiricpodcast/ https://themothcollection.podbean.com/ https://www.facebook.com/themothcollection Part of the PodCavern Network. Check out other PodCavern shows at https://www.podcavern.com/    Production by Transuranic.

Welcome to Day 2164 of Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom The Gospel of John – 31 – Qualities of a Friend – Daily Wisdom Putnam Church Message – 09/18/2022 The Gospel of John – Part 4 Confirmation Of The Word – Qualities Of A Friend Today we continue our Good News series according to John the Apostle. Last week, Jesus taught us through the allegory of the vine and branches. The emphasis was on bearing fruit by staying attached to the main vine so that we could receive the nourishment of the Holy Spirit. To do this, we must remain in Christ as we read in John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  Our scripture for today is John 15:12-17, starting on page 1677 in the Pew Bible. Jesus gives us the command to “Love each other. Follow along as I read. “12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.   Let me start with a story today. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a lonely genius. Born to aging parents in Devonshire, England, the youngest of ten children, he did not receive the love most children are given and, therefore, never had the opportunity to cultivate close relationships. His father died before his tenth birthday, after which he was sent to a boarding school notorious for its harsh treatment, and then to live with various family members. Nevertheless, his caretakers did recognize his exceptional intellect and enrolled him at Cambridge, where he quickly distinguished himself as a scholar. Coleridge became known for three notable habits in school: voracious reading, prolific writing, and radical thinking. Eventually, his philosophical pursuits led him away from his father's faith and away from Cambridge before graduating. He accumulated a large debt, pursued French philosophy, attempted to found a utopian society in Pennsylvania, married, divorced, became hopelessly addicted to opium, and eventually managed to estrange himself from family and friends. Then, he met William Wordsworth, who befriended the rootless genius. This led to his most productive period of writing and publishing, during which he wrote the poems “Remorse,” “Love,” “Kubla Khan,” and his most famous work, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The main character in this emotional autobiography laments, Alone, alone, all, all alone; Alone on a wide, wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony. Eventually, Wordsworth discontinued his relationship with Coleridge, who became excessively dependent upon opium, separated from his second wife, abandoned his children, and could no longer sustain any meaningful workload. He moved into the home...

The Adventures of Marco Polo series ends with Episode 52. Epi 51: "The Duel Takes Place" and Epi 52 "Benedetta Corsini is Missing" The entire series is living in "The Adventure of Marco Polo" Playlist on this podcast that is originating from Soundcloud.com. George Edwards played several roles including both Kubla Khan and Marco Polo. He was an amazing vocal talent and had played up to 5 parts, some in the same scene, in several of his high class, well-produced radio productions of the late 1930's and early 40's .... Australian radio from George Edwards was tremendous as was most all of their productions... and til this day are still quite popular. Thank you, Australia!

A nice little tale from Iceland. The poem for today is Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Welcome to the CodeX Cantina where our mission is to get more people talking about books! Was there a theme or meaning you wanted us to talk about further? Let us know in the comments below! Let's talk about Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfinished poem Kubla Khan. Samuel Taylor Coleridge Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71ugwuts2sA&list=PLHg_kbfrA7YDnAKZRvfAA9sGHGFm91m8u ✨Do you have a Short Story or Novel you'd think we'd like or would want to see us cover? Join our Patreon to pick our reads.

Visiones de la noche (Visions of the Night) —a veces publicado como Visiones nocturnas— es un relato de terror del escritor norteamericano Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), publicado en la antología de 1877: Telarañas de una calavera vacía (Cobwebs from an Empty Skull). OMAKE: KUBLA KHAN, de SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Kubla Khan (Kubla Khan) —cuyo título original es: Kubla Khan o una visión dentro de un sueño (Kubla Khan, or, A Vision in a Dream)— es un poema del romanticismo del escritor inglés Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), terminado en 1797 y publicado en la antología de 1816: Christabel, Kubla Khan y Los dolores del sueño (Christabel, Kubla Khan and The Pains of Sleep). Con información del blog EL ESPEJO GÓTICO http://elespejogotico.blogspot.com APOYA ✊ :::::::::::::::::::::::: ✔ SUSCRÍBETE 💬 PARTICIPA 📢 DIFUNDE 💵 APORTA Suscríbete a mi Patreon para aportar a este canal: https://www.patreon.com/elabuelokraken MÁS PROYECTOS :::::::::::::::::::::::: LACOLMENA.LINK (comunidad, multiblog) - https://lacolmena.link CINENJAMBRE (blog de cine, tv, streaming) - https://lacolmena.link/cinenjambre GAMESWARM (blog de videojuegos) - https://lacolmena.link/gameswarm LETRAS SOBRECUBIERTA (blog de Vicky Galindo) - https://lacolmena.link/letrassobrecubierta EL ABUELO KRAKEN (blog de El abuelo Kraken) - https://lacolmena.link/abuelokraken MI LIBRO 📖 :::::::::::::::::::::::: EL SONIDO DE DÓNDE, está siendo un éxito en toda Latinoamérica; léelo, sé que te va a encantar: - PASTA BLANDA (sólo 9.96 USD): https://goo.gl/2dw11q - KINDLE (sólo 0.99 USD): https://goo.gl/qiqmeZ LIVES 🔴 :::::::::::::::::::::::: CINENJAMBRE (cine, tv, streaming) - https://www.twitch.tv/cinenjambre GAMESWARM (videojuegos, juegos de mesa) - https://www.twitch.tv/gameswarmmx EL ABUELO KRAKEN (videojuegos y charlas): https://www.twitch.tv/elabuelokraken APORTACIONES ESPORÁDICAS ✊ :::::::::::::::::::::::: PAYPAL: https://goo.gl/p7nVng LISTA DE DESEADOS DE AMAZON: https://goo.gl/KN4e9X CRÉDITOS ✌ ::::::::::::::::::::::::: Las piezas musicales que se han usado en los vídeos y audiolibros, pertenecen a librerías libres de pago de regalías, como la Biblioteca de Audio de YouTube y (no limitándose a) las siguientes: CCMIXTER: http://ccmixter.org/ FREE MUSIC ARCHIVE: https://freemusicarchive.org/ INTERNET ARCHIVE: https://archive.org/details/netlabels INCOMPETECH: https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/ EPIDEMIC SOUND: https://www.epidemicsound.com CHILLHOP MUSIC: https://chillhop.ffm.to/creatorcred Baja cada uno de los episodios/relatos previos para escucharlos en tu mp3 player, smartphone, tablet y/o computadora gratuitamente. Antes, por favor considera realizar una aportación a través de PayPal: https://goo.gl/p7nVng LINK DIRECTO A DESCARGAS DE AUDIOLIBROS https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0F9Kqt9_0moV0pKa3pGd0NIUlk?usp=sharing Licencia Atribución 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es EL ABUELO KRAKEN 🦑 RSS (audiolibros) iVoox: https://mx.ivoox.com/es/podcast-obras-literatura-el-abuelo-kraken_sq_f1262889_1.html Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/obras-de-la-literatura-con-el-abuelo-kraken/id1071003612 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6OXIvlcVY3KYC8s909URvv Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com.mx/podcasts/2f5578a3-94a1-4863-b9e1-6dbf41a5409b/El-Abuelo-Kraken-Audiolibros Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/es/show/461592 CINENJAMBRE 🍿 (podcast de cine, series y anime) iVoox: https://mx.ivoox.com/es/podcast-cinenjambre_sq_f1728352_1.html Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cinenjambre/id1470511545 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2bJSKHv0mAdwWksX9xlDWY Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com.mx/podcasts/e751054c-d9fa-40f6-91d4-a7949a868100/CINENJAMBRE Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/es/show/461582 GAMESWARM! 🎮 (podcast de videojuegos) iVoox: https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-gameswarm-podcast_sq_f11481784_1.html Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gameswarm-podcast/id1592894126 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZnruPnVRBSb53NmKCdp61 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com.mx/podcasts/99bd3bb1-5c02-4c8c-b6ee-8d1e14808adb/gameswarm-podcast FACEBOOK (audiolibros): https://www.facebook.com/elabuelokrakenfb GRUPO DE FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/groups/elabuelokraken TWITTER: https://twitter.com/elabuelokraken Y finalmente, ¡mil gracias por estar aquí! :D

Who knew that Samuel Taylor Coleridge, opium-nibbling author of Kubla Khan, also had views on the business cycle and foreshadowed Keynes' ideas by a century? Or that Walter Scott extolled the virtues of paper currency so powerfully that he saved the Scottish banknote, which bears his image in gratitude to this very day? Neil and Jonathan talk to John Ramsden author "The Poets Guide to Economics" about the economic insights of some of our greatest poets from Defoe to (Ezra) Pound, and how they helped to shape the world in which we live today. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.With John Ramsden.Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea... Musique Mécanique par le Théâtre Électrique ::"Xanadu" by Jeff Lynne

In our series Unforgettable Poems, next we have Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem 'Kubla Khan'. Visit our online academy www.learningliteraturewithpurba.com to discover online classes and courses on English Literature and Creative Writing

How much can you analyze a song with no lyrics? In this episode, we cover the first instrumental Rush recorded, “La Villa Strangiato” from the Hemispheres album. La Villa Strangiato How often is Tim Right? “An Exercise in Self-Indulgence?” An instrumental from 1978's Hemispheres album Several time signature changes Remember “Powerhouse” by Raymond Scott from the Looney Tunes cartoons? Rush did the right thing! Tim details the 12 segments How do you pronounce “Kubla Khan?” Geddy, Neil, and Alex's nicknames La Villa Strangiato trivia What does Geddy Lee sing at the end of “La Villa Strangiato” on Exit Stage, Left? How often did Tim use Neil's ride cymbal pattern in our bands? What happens when Tim's Bluetooth runs out of juice? Click the link to send us a voicemail via Anchor.fm Connect with us on social media. We are EveryRushSong on every social media platform! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/everyrushsong/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/everyrushsong/support

Episode 35 - "Learning of Arghun's Teacher" and Epi 36 - "Visiting the Dungeon" The very talented vocal artist, producer and director - George Edwards stars in the roles of both Kubla Khan and Marco Polo. This series went into production in the late 1930's and was well received in Australia. The series was then copied onto 16" transcription disks and sent to stations all over the world as a syndicated program. The production values our outstanding. These two back-to-back episodes will be placed in the "Marco Polo" Playlist on this Soundcloud-Originating Podcast.

What, if anything, can poetry teach our children about the concept of Beauty, and how can it be used to help them better understand and express their feelings?   To answer these and other questions, we turned to award-winning children's author, and poet, Marilyn Singer, a former school teacher who has authored more than 100 books of poetry and fiction, plus many other genres for both children and young adults.  In this episode of the podcast, we get to talk about: poetry's value as a teaching tool Marilyn's work as a teacher, poet and author what poetry teaches children about Beauty using poetry to help instill children with a love of words and language why so many adults seem to lose touch with their imagination and sense of wonder about the world how poetry can help children learn to better express their feelings recommended children's authors, poets and poems This episode's beautiful experience!  We also get to hear Marilyn read from her work, including several Reversos, plus a Shakespeare sonnet on Beauty. About our Guest Marilyn Singer's work has been widely recognized by both critics and educators for its innovative ideas and creative use of language, and has appeared in multiple best-of booklists, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Times Magazine and Publisher's Weekly to name just a few. Marilyn is also widely credited with inventing an entirely new form of poetry called the “Reverso”. To learn more about Marilyn, her books, and her work visit http://MarilynSinger.net (MarilynSinger.net), or the author's bio page at http://www.thisisbeautypodcast.com (www.thisisbeautypodcast.com) To learn more about the authors, poets and poems listed in this podcast, see the episode page at http://www.thisisbeautypodcast.com (www.thisisbeautypodcast.com), or simply click the links below.  Poets https://jacquelinewoodson.com/ (https://jacquelinewoodson.com/) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marilyn-nelson (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marilyn-nelson) https://poets.org/poet/naomi-shihab-nye (https://poets.org/poet/naomi-shihab-nye) http://margaritaengle.com/ (http://margaritaengle.com/) https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/86334- (https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/86334-) obituary-arnold-adoff.html https://libguides.ashland.edu/c.php?g=68054&p=439773 (https://libguides.ashland.edu/c.php?g=68054&p=439773) https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/books/take-two-by-j-patrick-lewis-and-jane-yolen.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/books/take-two-by-j-patrick-lewis-and-jane-yolen.html) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gerard-manley-hopkins (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gerard-manley-hopkins) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Grimes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Grimes) https://www.joycesidman.com/ (https://www.joycesidman.com/) Anthologies https://poetryteatime.com/blog/poet-interview-sylvia-vardell-and-janet-wong (https://poetryteatime.com/blog/poet-interview-sylvia-vardell-and-janet-wong) http://leebennetthopkins.com/ (http://leebennetthopkins.com/) Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/) Poems https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan (Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44399/pied-beauty (Pied Beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44400/spring-and-fall (Spring and Fall, Gerard Manley Hopkins) https://poets.org/poem/fern-hill (Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas) https://nosweatshakespeare.com/sonnets/83/ (Sonnet 83, Shakespeare) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43768/my-last-duchess (My Last Duchess, Robert Browning) Other https://taviagilbert.com/about-tavia/ (https://taviagilbert.com/about-tavia/) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Adams (Louisa Adams)...

Episodes 33 (The Plot is Revealed) and 34 (Another Wife for Marco Polo) continue the saga of The Adventures of Marco Polo produced, directed and starring George Edwards (he played as many as 5 to 7 characters in one production... very difficult to do. He plays Marco Polo and Kubla Khan in this series. All the Episodes are being stored in the "Marco Polo" Playlist. There will be 52 Episodes in total ... thank you for listening. ... Your support is much appreciated.

Introductory audio relates a brief origin of this series and the lead actor, George Edwards. Episode 31 "Marco Accuses Acmat of Being a Traitor to Kubla Khan and Episode 32 "The Khan Leads His Troops Away... these two episodes are edited back-to back... with a percussion military drum piece separating the two parts. This will be stored in the Adventures of Marco Polo Playlist on this Soundcloud originating podcast.

The post Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge appeared first on A Mouthful of Air.

Two more episodes edited back to back are added to the "Marco Polo" Playlist. Starring George Edwards, an amazingly talented vocal artist who often played several roles, up to 5, in one story. This radio adaptation is based on ancient works from 1271 from Marco Polo's adventures to meet the Kubla Khan in Asia.

Throughout history there are commonly periods of societal narcissism, in which we believe our own era is the most extreme example of whatever condition we're considering. For example, in the 1950's, Americans regarded the automobile as the absolute apex of human engineering, even though some thousands of years before, humans had managed to build the pyramids. Since the invention of fiction, we've credited contemporary creators with devising the most fantastical worlds ever imagined - from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan, to Walt Disney's Disneyland. But it's hard to imagine an era more extreme than the one we're living in today. Even with the caveat of misplaced narcissism, there has never been a greater disparity between the real world and the non-real world. Between, say, the world of manufacturing, and the promised land of the metaverse. The metaverse is a more-or-less parallel rendering of the real world, in a 3D digital dimension. Although we've been promised versions of this vision for years - with names like “holograms” and “VR” - the latest portal into this alternative universe is called “Web3.” Web3 is built on the blockchain, which is, at its heart, a metaverse where we can relate to each without going through a middle-man. In other words, in this utopian digital future we won't need Facebook, Netflix, or anybody who builds an online platform for us, because, somehow, we're all going to be able to build these bridges between ourselves. So, the question is - is Web3 another empty promise about mass market adoption of life-changing Virtual Reality - which is always just about to happen but never seems to - or, is a blockchain, crypto-currency, free-to-be, Web3 world really here? Arguably New Orleans most successful entrepreneur ever is betting on option number 2.  In 2010, Patrick Comer created a real-world company called Lucid (now Cint), which dealt in collecting data. In 2021 Patrick sold Lucid for $1.1 billion. Patrick's latest venture is called Gripnr. Gripnr couldn't be more untethered to the real world if it was an acid trip. Gripnr is a Web3, blockchain-based platform that allows online game players to play a game like Dunegeons and Dragons and incorporate crypto-currency and NFTs into their online gaming world. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Stephen Bateman has a forge in the back yard of his house in Jefferson Parish. Stephen is the owner and sole employee of his company, Down The River Forge. He spends his days making knives. Stephen started the business in 2020. Today he's making high-end, hand-crafted hunting knives, kitchen knives, meat cleavers, oyster shuckers, and cane knives, for clients across the country and around the world, as far away as New Zealand, Norway, and the UK. If you want a handmade knife from Down The River Forge, your current wait time is 18-20 weeks. And, thanks to Stephen's appearances on TV, and the organic success of Down The River Forge's Instagram account, Stephen's client list is growing every week. If you've ever been in a brainstorming session, you've probably heard an encouraging moderator try and elicit input by saying, “There's no such thing as a bad idea.” On the other hand, anybody who has sat through a pitch session in which entrepreneurs pitch concepts for startup businesses, will tell you there is no shortage of bad ideas. Or so they think. In reality, there are countless stories of very successful businesses whose founders had people tell them, “It'll never work.” Patrick's startup, Gripnr, is a business that is so cutting-edge it's almost literally in a world of its own. And who would have known that there is such an enormous demand for custom knives until Stephen had the courage to commit to Down the Rive Forge. Peter has ended quite a few of these Out to Lunch shows over the years by saying “I look forward to following you and keeping up with your continued success,” but doubtful that he's ever meant it more than he does after hearing these two very different entrepreneurial tales. Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com. And you can check out Patrick's last appearance on Out to Lunch talking about how he sold Lucid.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Somehow, Gene Kelly returned. That's right, America's preeminent song and dance man finally got his big screen swansong in Xanadu, the 1980 Olivia Newton-John-as-a-muse musical that was a hell of a lot more successful as an album than a movie. Kevin and Chris are joined by first-time guest Hilary for a songful saunter to Kubla Khan's stately pleasure dome.

The Adventures of Marco Polo continue with Epi. 21 - The Executions are Imminent and Epi. 22 - The Return of Kubla Khan. Adapted for radio but based on a book written in 1271 George Edwards, a well known and incredibly talented vocal artist who often played more than one role in his plays... produced, directed, and starred in this series in the late 1930's. They were then distributed worldwide on 16" transcription disks. The program originated in Australia. Two back-to-back episodes are on this track and previous and future tracks from this series are stored in the "Adventures of Marco Polo" Playlist.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree Where Alph the sacred river ran Through caverns measureless to man      Down to a sunless sea These were some of the first lines of poetry I ever memorized, and they so captivated me that I think it required no effort on my part. The poem is subtitled "a vision in a dream. A fragment." This subtitle is perfectly apropos, as the poem is almost pure poetry, painting with words a picture in vivid colors. Any message or meaning seems almost an after-thought. Enjoy this vision, this fragment which 'we have shored against our ruin,' one of the truly great purposes of poetry. If you'd like to support us, donate through Paypal at Romanschapter5@comcast.net https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChristianAtheist/featured  https://www.facebook.com/JnJWiseWords  https://wisewordsforyouroccasion.wordpress.com  #poem #poetry #verse #literature #aestheticliterature #aesthetic #rhythmic #phonaesthetics #soundsymbolism #metre #prosaic #literarycomposition #poet #ambiguity #symbolism #irony #poeticdiction #muse #prosody #meter #metricalpatterns #rhymescheme #thechristianatheist #drjohndwise #drjohnwise #johnwise #christian #atheist #christianity #atheism #jesus #jesuschrist #god #bible #oldtestament #newtestament #xanadu #kublakhan #samueltaylorcoleridge #coleridge  

Dean Sluyter lived in New Jersey for 33 years where he developed the Literature of Enlightenment Program at the Pingry School and worked with inmates at Northern State Prison and Mountain View Youth Correctional Facility. He now lives in Santa Monica, California and teaches natural methods of meditation and awakening throughout the United States and beyond. He's known for his funny, down to earth style and for making life transforming teachings accessible and easy. He is the author of many books including The Zen Commandments (Tarcher/Putnam 2001). Why the Chicken Crossed the Road and Other Hidden Enlightenment Teachings (Tarcher/Putnam 1998), Cinema Nirvana: Enlightenment Lessons from the Movies (Three Rivers Press 2005), Natural Meditation: A Guide to Effortless Meditative Practice (Tarcher/Penguin 2015), Fear Less: Living Beyond Fear, Anxiety, Anger, and Addiction (TarcherPerigee 2018) and The Dharma Bum's Guide to Western Literature (New World Library 2022) Interview Date: 4/1/2022 Tags: Dean Sluyter, J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield, Catcher in the Rye, Fanny and Zooey, Glass family, Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, Arjuna, yoga, Venus of Willendorf, Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn, Mark Twain, cat in the hat, Dr. Seuss, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma, poetry, chanting mantras in Sanskrit, Coleridge, Kubla Khan,Meditation, Education, Writing, Art & Creativity, Buddhism

Jonathan se obsesionó con poder controlar sus sueños. Cuando logró tener sueños lúcidos pudo responderse preguntas sobre su relación con Dios y se abrió un espacio para explorar diferentes visiones creativas — un sueño lúcido es un lienzo en blanco. Esta es, sí, una conversación sobre cómo tener sueños lúcidos (una pista: hay que tener un diario), pero también es una conversación sobre cómo los sueños nos ayudan a sanar, a aprender y a crear.Jonathan Romero es estudiante de doctorado en el programa de español y portugués en la Universidad de Princeton. Es escritor, poeta, cineasta, documentalista y chamuyero profesional. Lo encuentran en Instagram como @phosphosphos.Pueden encontrarnos en su aplicación de podcasts favorita, como @expertosdesillon en Instagram, @ExpertoSillon en Twitter o pueden escribirnos a expertosdesillon[arroba]gmail[punto]com. Nos sostenemos gracias a oyentes como ustedes. Si quieren apoyarnos pueden unirse a nuestro grupo de Patreons en patreon.com/expertosdesillon.Expertos de Sillón es un podcast donde conversamos con nuestros invitados e invitadas sobre sus grandes obsesiones, sus placeres culposos o sus teorías totalizantes acerca de cómo funciona el mundo. Es un proyecto de Sillón Estudios. Conducen Alejandro Cardona y Sebastián Rojas. Produce Sara Trejos. Asistencia de producción de Paula Villán.REFERENCIASLibros y textos📌 El túnel de Ernesto Sabato📌 Ensayo sobre la ceguera de José Saramago📌 El Tercer Reich de los sueños de Charlotte Beradt📌 Aura de Carlos Fuentes📌 La invención de Morel de Adolfo Bioy Casares📌 La flor de Coleridge de Jorge Luis Borges📌 Libro de sueños de Jorge Luis Borges📌 El sueño de Coleridge de Jorge Luis Borges📌 Kubla Khan de Samuel Taylor Coleridge📌 Alicia en el país de las maravillas de Lewis Carroll📌 El cuento más hermoso del mundo de Rudyard KiplingPelículas📌 Inception (2010) de Christopher Nolan📌 Jogo de Cena (2007) de Eduardo Coutinho📌 Mulholland Drive (2001) de David Lynch📌 Abre los ojos (1997) de Alejandro Amenábar This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit expertosdesillon.substack.com

This is the reading of Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. If you like this content and you like to further support and make this podcast grow please head over to: www.patreon.com/shortstoryscene --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/shortstoryscene/support

In this episode, we read Chapters 16 to 20 of Sense and Sensibility. We talk about how Marianne indulges her feelings, whether Jane Austen knew what Marianne and Willoughby talked about before he left, the clearer picture we get of Edward in these chapters, and Edward's invisible servant.The characters we discuss are Mr and Mrs Palmer. Ellen talks about sensibility and romanticism, which leads into a discussion of Marianne and Elinor's different views of feelings and behaviour. Harriet talks about adaptations, including the Bollywood modernisation, Kandukondain Kandukondain, which she has finally watched. Things we mention:References:Sheila Kaye-Smith and G.B. Stern, Talking of Jane Austen (1943) and More Talk of Jane Austen (1950)Hannah More, ‘Sensibility' (1782)Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759) and A Sentimental Journey (1768)The poetry of George Crabbe (1754-1832)The poetry of William Blake (1757-1827) Samuel Richardson, Pamela (1740) and Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady (1748) The works of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) The poetry of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), including ‘My Heart leaps up' and ‘Daffodils' The poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), including ‘Kubla Khan' and ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' The poetry of William Blake (1757-1827) The poetry of William Cowper (1731-1800) Artworks:The works of William Turner (1775-1851)Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818/1819)Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830)Adaptations of the book:BBC, Sense and Sensibility (1971) – starring Joanna David and Ciaran Madden (4 episodes)BBC, Sense and Sensibility (1981) – starring Irene Richard and Tracey Childs (7 episodes)Columbia Pictures, Sense and Sensibility (1995) – starring Emma Thompson and Kate WinsletBBC, Sense and Sensibility (2008) – starring Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield (3 episodes) Modernisations of the book:Sri Surya Films, Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000) – starring Tabu and Aishwarya RaiJoanna Tro

Originally aired on July 25, 2016.https://13thhr.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/the-thirteenth-hour-podcast-50-reading-of-robert-brownings-poem-childe-roland-to-the-dark-tower-came/Last week, we read the Old English fairy tale, "Childe Roland."  This week, I'm reading aloud the Robert Browning poem,"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" which was the inspiration for Stephen King's Dark Tower series.  It's quite different from the fairy tale and from King's books, though it shares the dark psychological bent he gave his longmagnus opus.  I found it a difficult poem to read.  Couldn't quite get into a good rhythm, so there are parts that seem more staccato than I would have liked.  It seemed more like one of those works that tries to evoke a series of feelings and images rather than telling a narrative tale.  It reminded me of the Coleridge poem, "Kubla Khan" (In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree ...).  You can find an interpretation of Browning's poem onSparknotes.  One of the takeaways of the poem is there is always sacrifice in the single minded devotion to a goal and sometimes that leads to some culture shock when others can't quite understand what the goal was all for.  Logan fromThe Thirteenth Hour figures that at the end of his own long quest, as mentionedhere.Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,by Thomas Moran (clicking on the picture takes you to the Wikipedia entry to this poem).If you don't know the story of Roland a la Stephen King, I highly recommend reading them or listening to the audio books (which are excellent).  The first novel,The Gunslinger, has a great opening line.  Below are some pictures from the novels in the series.The beginning of The Gunslinger ...Susannah Dean takes aim with Roland's revolver, by Ned Dameron.Jake Chambers and Oy on the attack, by Michael Whelan.Jake and Roland at the clearing at the end of the path, by Michael Whelan.As always, thanks for listening!∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ Signup for themailing list for a free special edition podcast and a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour!FollowThe Thirteenth Hour's instagram pages: @the13thhr and@the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs fromThe Thirteenth Hour books.Website: https://13thhr.wordpress.comBook trailer:http://bit.ly/1VhJhXYInterested in reading and reviewingThe Thirteenth Hourfor a free book?  Just email me at writejoshuablum@gmail.com for more details!

This short episode looks at Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem inspired by the Mongols, Kubla Khan.

David Grubbs holds forth with Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour about "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge's particular philosophy of poetry comes across strongly in this conversation, as does the history of the poem and especially its larger-than-verse backstory. Among other things we take on the connections between drug abuse, madness, and art; the category "Romantic Poetry;" the ideology of the prophet-poet; and Orientalism as it manifests in "Kubla Khan."