Podcasts about Stephen Spender

Ted Hughes, one of the giants of twentieth-century British poetry, was born in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire. After serving in the Royal Air Force, Hughes attended Cambridge, where he studied archeology and anthropology and took a special interest in myths and legends. In 1956, he met and married the American poet Sylvia Plath, who encouraged him to submit his manuscript to a first-book contest run by the Poetry Center. Awarded first prize by judges Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, and Stephen Spender, The Hawk in the Rain (Faber & Faber, 1957) secured Hughes's reputation as a poet of international stature. According to poet and critic Robert B. Shaw, Hughes's poetry signaled a dramatic departure from the prevailing modes of the period. The stereotypical poem of the time was determined not to risk too much: politely domestic in its subject matter, understated and mildly ironic in style. By contrast, Hughes marshaled a language of nearly Shakespearean resonance to explore themes which were mythic and elemental.Hughes remained a controversial figure after Plath's suicide left him as her literary executor and he refused (citing family privacy) to publish many of her papers. Nevertheless, his long career included unprecedented best-selling volumes such as Lupercal (Faber & Faber, 1960), Crow (Faber & Faber, 1970), Selected Poems 1957–1981 (Faber & Faber, 1982), and Birthday Letters (Faber & Faber, 1998), as well as many beloved children's books, including The Iron Man (Faber & Faber, 1968), which was adapted as The Iron Giant (1999). With Seamus Heaney, he edited the popular anthologies The Rattle Bag (Faber & Faber, 1982) and The School Bag (Faber & Faber, 1997). Hughes was named executor of Plath's literary estate and he edited several volumes of her work. Hughes also translated works from classical authors, including Ovid and Aeschylus. Hughes was appointed Britain's Poet Laureate in 1984, a post he held until his death in 1998. Among his many awards, he was appointed to the Order of Merit, one of Britain's highest honors.Hughes married Carol Orchard in 1970, and the couple lived on a small farm in Devon until his death. His forays into translations, essays, and criticism were noted for their intelligence and range. Hughes continued writing and publishing poems until his death from cancer on October 28, 1998. A memorial to Hughes in the famed Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey was unveiled in 2011.-bio via Poetry Foundation Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

In February 1952, Barbara (Cohen) Holdridge and Marianne (Roney) Mantell, two recent graduates of Hunter college, founded Caedmon records, the first label devoted to recording spoken word. In this episode, producers Michelle Levy and Maya Schwartz revisit the early history of Caedmon records. They pay tribute to Holdridge and Mantell by re-listening to two poems from the Caedmon Treasury of Modern Poets Reading, first released in 1957 from and now held in SFU's Special Collections. Michelle discusses Robert Frost's recording of “After Apple Picking” with Professor Susan Wolfson, of Princeton University, and Maya chats with Professor Stephen Collis, of SFU's English department, about William Carlos Williams' reading of “The Seafarer.” As they listen to the poems together, they debate what it means to listen to as opposed to read these poems, with the recordings providing what Holdridge described as a “third-dimensional depth, that a two-dimensional book lacked.”Featured graphic credit: photographs by Phillip A. Harrington, courtesy of Evan HarringtonWorks CitedOnion, Charlie. “Caedmon Spoken-Word Recordings go Digital.” Wag: a magazine for decadent readers, June 2002, http://www.thewag.net/books/caedmon.htm. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.“Caedmon: Recreating the Moment of Inspiration.” NPR, December 2002, https://www.npr.org/2002/12/05/866406/caedmon-recreating-the-moment-of-inspiration. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.“Caedmon.” HarperCollins.com. https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/caedmon. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.“Caedmon Treasury of Modern Poets Reading: Gertrude Stein, Archibald MacLeish, E.E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, William Empson, Stephen Spender, Conrad Aiken, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Richard Eberhart, Ezra Pound, and Richard Wilbur reading #604.” n.d. Sound recording. MSC199 #604.. Simon Fraser University Sound Recordings Collection, Simon Fraser University Archives, Burnaby, B.C. November, 2023.“Mattiwilda Dobbs – Bizet: FAIR MAIDEN OF PERTH, HIgh F, 1956 ” Youtube, uploaded by Songbirdwatcher, June 14, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxZZtxM8ykam-Rml9Q7ij4J2OIWLrx3lUB. Etude 8 Dimitri by Blue Dot SessionsFrost, Robert. “After Apple-Picking.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44259/after-apple-picking. Accessed 30 January 2024.“File:Mattiwilda Dobbs 1957.JPEG.” Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mattiwilda_Dobbs_1957.JPG. Accessed 14 February 2024.Harrington, Philip A. “[Marianne Roney and Barbara Cohen of Caedmon Publishing Company pushing a wheelbarrow full of boxes of their recordings of modern literature in New York City]”. December, 1953.“How two young women captured the voices of literary greats and became audiobook pioneers.” Writers and Company. CBC, July, 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/writersandcompany/how-two-young-women-captured-the-voices-of-literary-greats-1.6912133. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.“January 20, 1961 - Poet Robert Frost Reads Poem at John F. Kennedy's Inauguration.” Youtube, uploaded by Helmer Reenberg, January 15, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AILGO3gVlTU.“Oread.” H.D. Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48186/oread. Accessed 30, January 2024.“The Caedmon Treasury of Modern Poets Reading 2LP Caedmon TC 2006 Vinyl Record.” Boundless Goodz, https://www.ebay.com/itm/374791681072?itmmeta=01HPJMRA2M8G311HNSS83Q5Z2G&hash=item5743533430:g:ESgAAOSwdLVkomcL&itmprp=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8OcrOX8GrjGcCKd73gETrLCg9HgtTomQcdBFQsfuKIbZJCerwOPQAP8v95zLuLDTLfzKCEpHr6ciRZXXlKA1iJKJQIZBNBP68Ru6LBfSoa%2FfPEP7%2Fa%2BIRslUZ5i2RDM4SZwOC2l6XlwBx5qb9ihywjJIDK71WKdGDo8mhOnddK0NPBgnn26N5JH6N9DSuSkFkjy7BoQeE7hzXcLV76vAmN2Q6IKkpjLN5l%2B4M36eDSYpXhiFfxsmyok%2Bn1aYfEds46k8%2FfPX0doDJv7qXPKwVi5g99nrSnyZ95AdrCWpR3Tj3%2FkxYp0wlrb2dQ%2F%2FuEaktQ%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABFBMwHh1LRj. Accessed 14 February 2024.Williams, Williams Carlos. “The Seafarer.” University of Washington, http://www.visions05.washington.edu/poetry/details.jsp?id=18. Accessed 30 January, 2024.

词汇提示1.Normandy 诺曼底2.allied 盟军3.tyranny 暴政4.Rangers 游骑兵5.desolate 荒凉的6.grenades 手榴弹原文Ronald Reagan: 'Speech at Normandy'We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied peoples joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty.For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow.Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation.Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue.Herein Normandy the rescue began.Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France.The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns.The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine-guns and throwing grenades.And the American Rangers began to climb.They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up.When one Ranger fell, another would take his place.When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.Soon,one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top,and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.Two hundred and twenty-five came here.After two days of fighting only ninety could still bear arms.Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs.And before me are the men who put them there.These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc.These are the men who took the cliffs.These are the champions who helped free a continent.These are the heroes who helped end a war.Gentlemen,I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem.You are men who in your lives fought for life...and left the vivid air signed with your honor'...Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here.You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you.Yet you risked everything here.Why?Why did you do it?What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs?What inspired all the men of the armies that met here?We look at you, and somehow, we know the answer.It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and love.The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.It was the deep knowledge – and pray God we have not lost it -that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause.And you were right not to doubt.You all knew that some things are worth dying for.One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for,because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.All of you loved liberty.All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.翻译罗纳德·里根:“诺曼底演讲”我们在这里纪念历史上的那一天，盟国人民共同为解放这片大陆而战。在漫长的四年里，欧洲大部分地区都笼罩在可怕的阴影之下。自由的国家已经沦陷，犹太人在集中营里大声疾呼，数百万人大声疾呼要求解放。欧洲被奴役了，全世界都在祈祷拯救它。在诺曼底，救援行动开始了。盟军站在这里，在人类历史上无与伦比的伟大事业中与暴政作斗争。我们站在法国北岸一个孤独的、被风吹过的地方。空气是柔和的，但四十年前的这个时候，空气中弥漫着浓烟和人们的呼喊声，空气中充满了步枪的噼啪声和大炮的轰鸣声。1944年6月6日清晨，黎明时分，225名游骑兵从英国登陆艇上跳下，奔向悬崖底部。他们的任务是入侵中最困难和最大胆的任务之一:爬上这些陡峭而荒凉的悬崖，摧毁敌人的大炮。盟军被告知，这里有一些最强大的大炮，它们将在海滩上接受训练，以阻止盟军的推进。游骑兵们抬头一看，看到了悬崖边的敌军士兵，他们用机关枪和手榴弹向他们射击。美国游骑兵开始往上爬。他们把绳梯架在悬崖上，开始往上爬。当一个游骑兵倒下时，另一个会接替他的位置。当一根绳子被割断时，游骑兵就会抓住另一根绳子重新开始攀登。他们爬上去，反击，站稳脚跟。很快，游骑兵们一个接一个地爬上了山顶，在占领了悬崖顶上坚固的土地后，他们开始夺回欧洲大陆。225人来过这里。经过两天的战斗，只有90人还拿着武器。我身后是一座纪念碑，象征着刺入悬崖顶端的游骑兵匕首。在我面前的是把他们放在那里的人。这些是奥克角的孩子们。就是这些人占领了悬崖。他们是帮助解放一个大陆的斗士。他们是帮助结束战争的英雄。先生们，我看着你们就想起了斯蒂芬·斯彭德的诗。你们是为生命而战的人……留下了写有“阁下”字样的生动的空气……自从你们在这里战斗以来，已经过去了40个夏天。你踏上这些悬崖的那天还很年轻;你们中的一些人还仅仅是孩子，有着生命中最深的快乐。但你却冒着一切危险。为什么?你为什么要这么做?是什么促使你们抛开自我保护的本能，冒着生命危险去爬这些悬崖?是什么激励了所有在这里相遇的士兵?我们看着你，不知怎么的，我们知道答案。这是信念，是信念;那是忠诚和爱。诺曼底的战士们坚信他们所做的是正确的，坚信他们为全人类而战，坚信公正的上帝会在这个滩头阵地或下一个滩头阵地给予他们怜悯。这是一个深刻的认识——祈祷上帝我们没有失去它——在使用武力解放和使用武力征服之间存在着深刻的道德差异。你们来这里是为了解放，而不是征服，所以你们和其他人都没有怀疑自己的事业。你不怀疑是对的。你们都知道有些东西是值得为之牺牲的。一个人的国家值得为之牺牲，民主也值得为之牺牲，因为它是人类所创造的最崇高的政府形式。你们所有人都热爱自由。你们所有人都愿意与暴政作斗争，你们知道你们国家的人民都在支持你们。

Today's poem is by Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889), an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among leading English poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innovator, as did his praise of God through vivid use of imagery and nature. Only after his death did Robert Bridges publish a few of Hopkins's mature poems in anthologies, hoping to prepare for wider acceptance of his style. By 1930 Hopkins's work was seen as one of the most original literary advances of his century. It intrigued such leading 20th-century poets as T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis.—bia via Wikipedia Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Poet, novelist, translator, journalist, crime fiction writer, children's book author, teacher, math tutor: now here is a man who contains multitudes. Jerry Pinto joins Amit Varma in episode 314 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his life and learnings. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Jerry Pinto on Instagram, Amazon and his own website. 2. Em and the Big Hoom -- Jerry Pinto. 3. The Education of Yuri -- Jerry Pinto. 4. Murder in Mahim -- Jerry Pinto. 5. A Book of Light -- Edited by Jerry Pinto. 6. Baluta -- Daya Pawar (translated by Jerry Pinto). 7. I Have Not Seen Mandu -- Swadesh Deepak (translated by Jerry Pinto). 8. Cobalt Blue -- Sachin Kundalkar (translated by Jerry Pinto). 9. The Life and Times of Shanta Gokhale -- Episode 311 of The Seen and the Unseen. 10. ‘Sometimes I feel I have to be completely invisible as a poet' -- Jerry Pinto's interview of Adil Jussawalla. 11. A Godless Congregation — Amit Varma. 12. The Rooted Cosmopolitanism of Sugata Srinivasaraju — Episode 277 of The Seen and the Unseen. 13. The Big Questions — Steven E Landsburg. 14. Unlikely is Inevitable — Amit Varma. 15. The Law of Truly Large Numbers. 16. The Gentle Wisdom of Pratap Bhanu Mehta — Episode 300 of The Seen and the Unseen. 17. Young India — Episode 83 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Snigdha Poonam). 18. Dreamers — Snigdha Poonam. 19. The Loneliness of the Indian Man — Episode 303 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Taneja). 20. The History Boys -- Alan Bennett. 21. The Connell Guide to How to Write Well -- Tim de Lisle. 22. Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut -- Marcus Du Sautoy. 23. Dead Poet's Society -- Peter Weir. 24. A Mathematician's Apology -- GH Hardy. 25. The Man Who Knew Infinity -- Robert Kanigel. 26. David Berlinski and Martin Gardner on Amazon, and Mukul Sharma on Wikipedia.. 27. Range Rover -- The archives of Amit Varma's column on poker for The Economic Times. 28. Luck is All Around -- Amit Varma. 29. Stoicism on Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Britannica. 30. House of the Dead —  Fyodor Dostoevsky. 31. Black Beauty -- Anna Sewell. 32. Lady Chatterley's Lover -- DH Lawrence. 33. Mr Norris Changes Trains -- Chistopher Isherwood. 34. Sigrid Undset on Amazon and Wikipedia. 35. Some Prefer Nettles -- Junichiro Tanizaki. 36. Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe. 37. Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy on Amazon. 38. Orientalism -- Edward Said. 39. Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Kurt Vonnegut on Amazon. 40. Johnny Got His Gun -- Dalton Trumbo. 41. Selected Poems -- Kamala Das. 42. Collected Poems -- Kamala Das. 43. In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones — Pradip Krishen. 44. Dance Dance For the Halva Waala — Episode 294 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jai Arjun Singh and Subrat Mohanty). 45. Tosca -- Giacomo Puccini. 46. Civilisation by Kenneth Clark on YouTube and Wikipedia. 47. Archives of The World This Week. 48. Dardi Rab Rab Kardi -- Daler Mehndi. 49. Is Old Music Killing New Music? — Ted Gioia. 50. Mother India (Mehboob Khan) and Mughal-E-Azam (K Asif). 51. A Meditation on Form — Amit Varma. 52. Sara Rai Inhales Literature — Episode 255 of The Seen and the Unseen. 53. Collected Poems — Mark Strand. 54. Forgive Me, Mother -- Eunice de Souza. 55. Porphyria's Lover -- Robert Browning. 56. Island -- Nissim Ezekiel. 57. Paper Menagerie — Ken Liu. 58. Jhumpa Lahiri on Writing, Translation, and Crossing Between Cultures — Episode 17 of Conversations With Tyler. 59. The Notebook Trilogy — Agota Kristof. 60. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life — Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen. 61. The Blue Book: A Writer's Journal — Amitava Kumar. 62. Nissim Ezekiel on Amazon, Wikipedia and All Poetry. 63. Adil Jussawalla on Amazon, Wikipedia and Poetry International. 64. Eunice de Souza on Amazon, Wikipedia and Poetry International. 65. Dom Moraes on Amazon, Wikipedia and Poem Hunter. 66. WH Auden and Stephen Spender on Amazon. 67. Pilloo Pochkhanawala on Wikipedia and JNAF. 68. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra on Amazon, Wikipedia and Poetry Foundation. 69. Amar Akbar Anthony -- Manmohan Desai. 67. Ranjit Hoskote on Amazon, Instagram, Twitter, Wikipedia and Poetry International. 71. Arundhathi Subramaniam on Amazon, Instagram, Wikipedia, Poetry International and her own website. 72. The Red Wheelbarrow -- William Carlos Williams. 73. Mary Oliver's analysis of The Red Wheelbarrow. 74. A Poetry Handbook — Mary Oliver. 75. The War Against Cliche -- Martin Amis. 76. Seamus Heaney on Amazon, Wikipedia and Poetry Foundation. 77. The world behind 'Em and the Big Hoom' -- Jerry Pinto interviewed by Swetha Amit. 78. Jerry Pinto interviewed for the New York Times by Max Bearak. 79. Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh and GV Desani on Amazon. 80. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with Roshan Abbas, Varun Duggirala, Neelesh Misra, Snehal Pradhan, Chuck Gopal, Nishant Jain, Deepak Shenoy and Abhijit Bhaduri. 81. Graham Greene, W Somerset Maugham and Aldous Huxley on Amazon. 82. Surviving Men -- Shobhaa De. 83. Surviving Men -- Jerry Pinto. 84. The Essays of GK Chesterton. 85. The Life and Times of Nilanjana Roy — Episode 284 of The Seen and the Unseen. 86. City Improbable: Writings on Delhi -- Edited by Khushwant Singh. 87. Bombay, Meri Jaan -- Edited by Jerry Pinto and Naresh Fernandes. 88. The Life and Times of Urvashi Butalia — Episode 287 of The Seen and the Unseen. 89. Films, Feminism, Paromita — Episode 155 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Paromita Vohra). 90. Wanting -- Luke Burgis. 91. Kalpish Ratna and Sjowall & Wahloo on Amazon. 92. Memories and Things — Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 93. Ashad ka Ek Din -- Mohan Rakesh. 94. Anna Karenina -- Leo Tolstoy (translated by Constance Garnett). 95. Gordon Lish: ‘Had I not revised Carver, would he be paid the attention given him? Baloney!' -- Christian Lorentzen.. 96. Sooraj Barjatya and Yash Chopra. 97. The Life and Times of Mrinal Pande — Episode 263 of The Seen and the Unseen. 98. Don't think too much of yourself. You're an accident — Amit Varma. 99. Phineas Gage. 100. Georges Simenon on Amazon and Wikipedia.. 101. The Interpreter -- Amit Varma on Michael Gazzaniga's iconic neuroscience experiment. 102. The Life and Times of Abhinandan Sekhri — Episode 254 of The Seen and the Unseen.. 103. Madame Bovary -- Gustave Flaubert. 104. Self-Portrait — AK Ramanujan. 105. Ivan Turgenev, Ryu Murakami and Patricia Highsmith on Amazon. 106. A Clockwork Orange -- Anthony Burgess. 107. On Exactitude in Science — Jorge Luis Borges. 110. Playwright at the Centre: Marathi Drama from 1843 to the Present — Shanta Gokhale. 111. Kubla Khan -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 112. Girish Shahane, Naresh Fernandes, Suketu Mehta, David Godwin and Kiran Desai. 113. The Count of Monte Cristo -- Alexandre Dumas. 114. Pedro Almodóvar and Yasujirō Ozu. 115. The Art of Translation — Episode 168 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha). 116. The Lives of the Poets -- Samuel Johnson. 117. Lives of the Women -- Various authors, edited by Jerry Pinto. 118. Lessons from an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister — Amit Varma. 119. On Bullshit — Harry Frankfurt. 120. The Facts Do Not Matter — Amit Varma. 121. Beware of the Useful Idiots — Amit Varma. 122. Modi's Lost Opportunity — Episode 119 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Salman Soz). 123. Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala. 124. The Importance of Data Journalism — Episode 196 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rukmini S). 125. Rukmini Sees India's Multitudes — Episode 261 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rukmini S). 126. Pramit Bhattacharya Believes in Just One Ism — Episode 256 of The Seen and the Unseen. 127. Listen, The Internet Has SPACE -- Amit Varma.. 128. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 129. The Reflections of Samarth Bansal — Episode 299 of The Seen and the Unseen. 130. The Saturdays -- Elizabeth Enwright. 131. Summer of My German Soldier -- Bette Greene. 132. I am David -- Anne Holm. 133. Tove Jannson and Beatrix Potter on Amazon. 134. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings -- JRR Tolkien. 135. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness -- William Styron. 136. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness -- Kay Redfield Jamison. 137. Searching for Swadesh -- Nirupama Dutt.. 138. Parsai Rachanawali -- Harishankar Parsai. 139. Not Dark Yet (official) (newly released outtake) -- Bob Dylan.. 140. How This Nobel Has Redefined Literature -- Amit Varma on Dylan winning the Nobel Prize.. 141. The New World Upon Us — Amit Varma. 142. PG Wodehouse on Amazon and Wikipedia. 143. I Heard the Owl Call My Name -- Margaret Craven. 144. 84, Charing Cross Road -- Helen Hanff. 145. Great Expectations, Little Dorrit and Bleak House -- Charles Dickens. 146. Middlemarch -- George Eliot. 147. The Pillow Book -- Sei Shonagon. 148. The Diary of Lady Murasaki -- Murasaki Shikibu. 149. My Experiments With Truth -- Mohandas Gandhi. 150. Ariel -- Sylvia Plath. 151. Jejuri -- Arun Kolatkar. 152. Missing Person -- Adil Jussawalla. 153. All About H Hatterr -- GV Desani. 154. The Ground Beneath Her Feet -- Salman Rushdie. 155. A Fine Balance -- Rohinton Mistry. 156. Tales from Firozsha Baag -- Rohinton Mistry. 157. Amores Perros -- Alejandro G Iñárritu. 158. Samira Makhmalbaf on Wikipedia and IMDb. 159. Ingmar Bergman on Wikipedia and IMDb. 160. The Silence, Autumn Sonata and Wild Strawberries - Ingmar Bergman. 161. The Mahabharata. 162. Yuganta — Irawati Karve. 163. Kalyug -- Shyam Benegal. 164. The Hungry Tide -- Amitav Ghosh. 165. On Hinduism and The Hindus -- Wendy Doniger. 166. I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd — Lal Dĕd (translated by Ranjit Hoskote). 167. The Essential Kabir -- Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. 168. The Absent Traveller -- Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. 169. These My Words: The Penguin Book of Indian Poetry -- Edited by Eunice de Souza and Melanie Silgardo. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Episode art: ‘He is Reading' by Simahina.

In 1983, ten years after W. H. Auden's death, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a series of readings and discussions of his work. In this episode from the Vault, Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, moderates a discussion between Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In 1983, ten years after W. H. Auden's death, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a series of readings and discussions of his work. In this episode from the Vault, Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, moderates a discussion between Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1983, ten years after W. H. Auden's death, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a series of readings and discussions of his work. In this episode from the Vault, Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, moderates a discussion between Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In 1983, ten years after W. H. Auden's death, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a series of readings and discussions of his work. In this episode from the Vault, Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, moderates a discussion between Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

In 1983, ten years after W. H. Auden's death, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a series of readings and discussions of his work. In this episode from the Vault, Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, moderates a discussion between Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In 1983, ten years after W. H. Auden's death, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a series of readings and discussions of his work. In this episode from the Vault, Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, moderates a discussion between Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

In 1983, ten years after W. H. Auden's death, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a series of readings and discussions of his work. In this episode from the Vault, Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, moderates a discussion between Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

A passage from poet Stephen Spender's autobiography is an example of a familiar tension: How do we stay open to constructive criticism and direction, yet also hold fast to our own creative vision? Get in touch: @gretchenrubin; @elizabethcraft; podcast@gretchenrubin.com Get in touch on Instagram: @GretchenRubin & @LizCraft Get the podcast show notes by email every week here: http://gretchenrubin.com/#newsletter Leave a voicemail message on: 774-277-9336 For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to happiercast.com/sponsors Want to be happier in 2022? Order Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project to see how she approached the question, “How can I be happier?” and start a Happiness Project of your own. Happier with Gretchen Rubin is part of ‘The Onward Project,' a family of podcasts brought together by Gretchen Rubin—all about how to make your life better. Check out the other Onward Project podcasts—Do The Thing, Side Hustle School, Happier in Hollywood and Everything Happens with Kate Bowler. If you liked this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and tell your friends! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems (though its contents were different) was published, that Auden was established as the leading voice of a new generation.Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information. He had a remarkable wit, and often mimicked the writing styles of other poets such as Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, and Henry James. His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.He visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. His own beliefs changed radically between his youthful career in England, when he was an ardent advocate of socialism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and his later phase in America, when his central preoccupation became Christianity and the theology of modern Protestant theologians. A prolific writer, Auden was also a noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. Generally considered the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, his work has exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of poets on both sides of the Atlantic. W. H. Auden served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973, and divided most of the second half of his life between residences in New York City and Austria. He died in Vienna on September 29, 1973.From https://poets.org/poet/w-h-auden.For more information about W. H. Auden:Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:Garnette Cadogan about Auden, at 16:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-101-garnette-cadoganRuha Benjamin about Auden, at 13:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-129-ruha-benjamin“W. H. Auden, The Art of Poetry No. 17”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3970/the-art-of-poetry-no-17-w-h-auden“W. H. Auden”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden“The Messy Genius of W. H. Auden”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/feature/the-messy-genius-w-h-auden

Our very special collaboration with the Stephen Spender Prize! The Stephen Spender Trust runs an annual competition for poetry in translation, doing very important work promoting translation in the UK. Give this episode a listen to hear the winning poem from the 2021 Open category winner, Harry Man, as well as interviews with Harry and the original Norwegian poet, Endre Ruset, and with judge Khairani Barokka, for an insight into what it is like behind the scenes of the biggest poetry translation competition in the UK.

Three poems by Sir Stephen Spender."Hamburg, 1929""An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum""I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great"

Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems (though its contents were different) was published, that Auden was established as the leading voice of a new generation.Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information. He had a remarkable wit, and often mimicked the writing styles of other poets such as Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, and Henry James. His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.He visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. His own beliefs changed radically between his youthful career in England, when he was an ardent advocate of socialism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and his later phase in America, when his central preoccupation became Christianity and the theology of modern Protestant theologians. A prolific writer, Auden was also a noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. Generally considered the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, his work has exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of poets on both sides of the Atlantic. W. H. Auden served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973, and divided most of the second half of his life between residences in New York City and Austria. He died in Vienna on September 29, 1973.From https://poets.org/poet/w-h-auden.For more information about W. H. Auden:Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:Garnette Cadogan about Auden, at 16:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-101-garnette-cadoganRuha Benjamin about Auden, at 13:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-129-ruha-benjamin“The Messy Genius of W. H. Auden”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/feature/the-messy-genius-w-h-auden“Remembering W. H. Auden”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1975/01/20/remembering-wystan-h-auden-who-died-in-the-night-of-the-twenty-eighth-of-september-1973

This episode contains a reading of the poem, "After the Wrestling," by Stephen Spender.

This episode contains Valerie A. Smith's reading of Stephen Spender's poem, "Auden's Funeral."

This episode contains Valerie A. Smith's reading of Stephen Spender's poem, "An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum."

This episode contains Valerie A. Smith's reading of Stephen Spender's poem, "Farewell to My Student."

This episode contains Valerie A. Smith's reading of Stephen Spender's poem, "As I Sit Staring Out of My Window."

This episode contains Valerie A. Smith's reading of Stephen Spender's poem, "Doing Anything and Everything Is a Drug."

This episode contains Valerie A. Smith's reading of Stephen Spender's poem, "The Marginal Field."

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *Who is the Greatest?* for Sunday, 19 September 2021; book review by Dan Clendenin: *The Gospel of "It's a Wonderful Life"* by James Dillon (2021); film review by Dan Clendenin: *It's a Wondeful Life* (1946); poem selected by Dan Clendenin: *I think of those who were truly great* by Stephen Spender.

Today's Quotation is care of W. H. Auden.Listen in!Subscribe to the Quarantine Tapes at quarantinetapes.com or search for the Quarantine Tapes on your favorite podcast app!Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems (though its contents were different) was published, that Auden was established as the leading voice of a new generation.Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information. He had a remarkable wit, and often mimicked the writing styles of other poets such as Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, and Henry James. His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.He visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. His own beliefs changed radically between his youthful career in England, when he was an ardent advocate of socialism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and his later phase in America, when his central preoccupation became Christianity and the theology of modern Protestant theologians. A prolific writer, Auden was also a noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. Generally considered the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, his work has exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of poets on both sides of the Atlantic. W. H. Auden served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973, and divided most of the second half of his life between residences in New York City and Austria. He died in Vienna on September 29, 1973.From https://poets.org/poet/w-h-auden. For more information about W. H. Auden:Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:Garnette Cadogan about Auden, at 16:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-101-garnette-cadoganRuha Benjamin about Auden, at 13:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-129-ruha-benjamin“The Messy Genius of W. H. Auden”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/feature/the-messy-genius-w-h-auden“Remembering W. H. Auden”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1975/01/20/remembering-wystan-h-auden-who-died-in-the-night-of-the-twenty-eighth-of-september-1973

Federico García Lorca is Spain's best known and perhaps most beloved poet of the 20th century. Born in 1898, Lorca formed friendships in Madrid with a pleiade of young creators in the 1920s at the Residencia de Estudiantes, al of whom would become very influential in Spanish culture. He was killed by Nacionalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War when he was only 38 years old. Christopher Maurer, professor or Spanish at Boston University introduces in this podcast this major figure in Spanish culture. Recording of Federico García Lorca's ‘Pensamiento poético' by Michael Alec Rose. Books and publications about Federico García Lorca Hernández, Mario, Line of Light and Shadow. The Drawings of Federico García Lorca, Madrid, Tabapress-Fundación Federico García Lorca, 1990. Roberts, Stephen, Deep Song. The Life and Work of Federico García Lorca, London, Reaktion Books, 2020. Stainton, Leslie, Lorca. A Dream of Life, New York, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999. Books and publications by Federico García Lorca Poetry Collected Poems, 2nd bilingual edition, revised. edition by Christopher Maurer, translation by Catherine Brown, Cola Franzen, Will Kirkland, William Bryant Logan, Robert Nasatir, Jerome Rothenberg, Greg Simon, & Steven F. White and Alan S. Trueblood, New York, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2013. Poet in Spain, translation by Sarah Arvio, New York, Knopf, 2017. Poet in New York, revised bilingual edition, translation by Greg Simon and Steven F. White. New York, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2013. Gypsy Ballads, translation by Jane Duran and Gloria García Lora, London, Enitharmon Editions, 2011. Sonnets of Dark Love/The Tamarit Divan, translation by Jane Duran and Gloria García Lorca, London, Enitharmon Editions, 2016. Lectures Deep Song and Other Prose, translation by Christopher Maurer, New York, New Directions, 1981. In Search of Duende, translation by Norman di Giovanni, Edwin Honig, Langston Hughes, Lysander Kemp, C. Maurer, W.S. Merwin, Stephen Spender and J.L. Gili, New York: New Directions, 1998. Letters Selected Letters, translation by David Gershator, New York, New Directions, 1984. Federico García Lorca and Salvador Dalí. Sebastian's Arrows. Letters and Mementos, translation by Christopher Maurer, Chicago, Swan Isle Press, 2004.

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *Greatly Perplexed* for Sunday, 11 July 2021; book review by Dan Clendenin: *A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith* by Timothy Egan (2019); film review by Dan Clendenin: *Taylor Swift: Miss Americana* (2020); poem selected by Debie Thomas: *I think of those who were truly great* by Stephen Spender.

Frederico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) (Translated by Stephen Spender and J.L Gill) For those outside Spain, who read no Spanish, Lorca is probably the most famous Spanish poet of the twentieth century. This is a very different poem to the ones I've previously read on the podcast. It helps, listening to this poem or reading it, to remember Lorca was friends with Dali and Bunuel. There is a story that when those two were making 'Un Chien Andalou', their ground breaking surrealist film, one would sketch scenes and the other would say, no, that means something, throw it out. ‘Avant Garde' or ‘Surrealist' are terms that might be useful as pathways to approach this poem without necessarily being definitive or even accurate as labels. For a long time I used this poem as an example of what happens when readers are confronted with work they find initially incomprehensible. Read it, I'd say, then come back and tell me what you think it means. The answers were often ingenious. They varied greatly. They were all interesting. So what does it mean they'd ask. It means what it says. Images that link without narrative, suggesting narrative, cohering because they linked in the writer's mind at the time of writing. The links are not made explicit. But the images sing together. Yes, but what does it mean? Wrong question. This is taken from ‘The Selected poems of Federico Garcia Lorca' edited by Francisco Garcia Lorca and Donald m. Allen. A New Directions paperback 1985.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Stephen Spender, The Pylons. "The secret of these hills was stone, and cottages Of that stone made..." From the show: Isaiah, 1:7 On this day: 8th June, 1949 – George Orwell publishes his novel of technological totalitarianism, 1984 On this day: 8th June, 1955 – Sir Tim Berners-Lee OM, inventor of the worldwide web, is born in London Music to wake you up – Poor Wayfaring Stranger by The Hillbilly Thomists Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message. If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me. Have a lovely day. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message

Explaining An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum by Stephen Spender.

As the 30th anniversary of the Berlin wall falling is marked on November 9th we rummage for stories amid the rubble. What were school teachers in Berlin pre-occupied with when the checkpoints were overrun? What would happen to the dogs of British forces families if the Cold War kicked off? Why was the poet Stephen Spender tasked with the ‘de-Nazification’ of German universities? And how does any of this relate to a 90s techno club in an air raid shelter? Our host, New Generation Thinker Dr Tom Charlton, weaves together new research on different aspects of post-war and post-wall Germany. Professor Lara Feigel from Kings College London is the Principal Investigator of Beyond Enemy Lines – a project looking at British and American writers and filmmakers involved in the reconstruction of Germany, 1945-49. The project is supported by the European Research Council http://beyondenemylines.co.uk/ Dr Grace Huxford from the University of Bristol is leading an oral history project on British military communities in Germany (1945-2000), exploring the experiences of service personnel, families and support workers living in bases. In 2019-20, Grace is leading the project as an AHRC Leadership Fellow (early career) https://britishbasesingermany.blog/ Dr Tom Smith from the University of St Andrews is currently exploring experiences of marginalisation in Germany’s techno scene. The first stage of the project is entitled Afrogermanic? Cultural Exchange and Racial Difference in the Aesthetic Products of the Early Techno Scenes in Detroit and Berlin. The first stage of the project has been funded by a Research Incentive Grant from the Carnegie Trust. Tom is also a New Generation Thinker https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/modlangs/people/german/smith/ This episode is one of a series of conversations - New Thinking - produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation. New Generation Thinkers is an annual scheme to showcase academic research in radio and podcasts. You can find more information on the Arts and Humanities Research Council website https://ahrc.ukri.org Producer: Karl Bos

This week on The Literary Life, Cindy and Angelina discuss Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Garden Party.” Before starting today’s episode, we want to encourage you to register for the Back to School online conference coming up on August 26-29, 2019! After a great chat over their commonplace quotes, Angelina and Cindy dig into this week’s short story, “The Garden Party.” They start with how Cindy found this story and the connections she was making to Little Women. Angelina gives a brief biographical sketch of Katherine Mansfield and highlights how Mansfield’s own illness and death give us insight into how she deals with death in this story. Angelina walks us through how she looks at the use of figurative language and images, such as the Garden of Eden. They also touch on “The Garden Party” having the same structure of moving toward a moment of epiphany that we saw in “Araby.” Cindy brings up the disconnect between the world of the women at home and the working people outside the home, as well as between the classes in this story. They talk about the importance of Laura’s new hat as a symbol of one type of person she can become. Another image that Angelina and Cindy take a look at is the descent from the garden into darkness. They discuss the parallels from the beginning of the story and the end of the story, as well as Laura’s movement from innocence to experience, from blindness to sight. Summer of the Short Story: Ep 14: “Adventures of a Shilling” by Joseph Addison Ep 15: “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant Ep 16: “Why I Write” by George Orwell Ep 17: “The Celestial Omnibus” by E. M. Forster Ep 18: “Vulture on War” by Samuel Johnson The Truly Great by Stephen Spender I think continually of those who were truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns, Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire, Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song. And who hoarded from the Spring branches The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms. What is precious, is never to forget The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth. Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light Nor its grave evening demand for love. Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit. Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields, See how these names are fêted by the waving grass And by the streamers of white cloud And whispers of wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour. Copyright © 1955 by Stephen Spender. Source: Collected Poems 1928-1953 Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: Find Angelina at  https://angelinastanford.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/ Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

"One" by Stephen Spender read aloud --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/truthbeautyandpoetry/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/truthbeautyandpoetry/support

Fifty-four years ago today, a very special programme premiered. From the 50th anniversary in 2013, Toby Hadoke - comedian, actor and TV expert - has been providing free podcast and download interviews with a rich variety of its cast and crew. Here's the very latest!

Author and sculptor Matthew Spender talks about the friendship between his father, Stephen Spender, and Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, from the late 1920s until Auden and Isherwood emigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. He focuses on the intense relationships between these three British writers, their homeland, and Nazi Germany. This talk is part of the Isherwood-Bachardy Lecture Series at The Huntington.

Author and sculptor Matthew Spender talks about the friendship between his father, Stephen Spender, and Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, from the late 1920s until Auden and Isherwood emigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. He will focus on the intense relationships between these three British writers, their homeland, and Nazi Germany. This talk is part of the Isherwood-Bachardy Lecture series at The Huntington. Recorded September 25, 2017.

It’s our last show of 2015, but before we head off into the frozen waste we discuss the plagiarism scandal in poetry’s Stephen Spender prize, Morrissey’s retort at winning the Bad Sex award, a U.S. school’s ban on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and more. And since it’s Christmas, we take a look at book covers with one letter missing or different. #LiteraryLoitering #TheGeekShow #Books #Novels #Arts #Theatre #News #Reviews #Podcasts

This week on StoryWeb: T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” T.S. Eliot isn’t for everyone. His poetry is notoriously difficult to read – dense, packed, allusive, and elusive. I wrote my master’s thesis on his later-in-life series of poems, Four Quartets, and at the time, I reveled in the density, the opaqueness of his poetry. I can remember reading – sweating over, agonizing over – The Waste Land the first time I encountered it in graduate school. What to make of this puzzling – but absolutely central and defining – poem of the modernist movement? But there’s something more accessible about “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – and maybe part of its accessibility is that there’s a hint of a story in this lyric – or at least there’s a character. Once you’ve read “Prufrock” and certainly once you’ve studied it, you find that it is eminently quotable. I can recite numerous lines from “Prufrock”: “Let us go then, you and I,” “in the room, the women come and go / talking of Michelangelo,” “there will be time,” “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” and most compelling to me, “Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” You probably have your own favorite line. And at this time of year, I can’t help but think of Eliot’s wonderful description of an October night, which appears near the poem’s opening: The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,  The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,  Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,  Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,  Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,  Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,  And seeing that it was a soft October night,  Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.  “Prufrock” is often held up as a prime example of modernist alienation, and many people equate modernism with the pain and loss of World War I and its aftermath. (See Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time for stunning examples of post-World War I modernist literature.) But Eliot actually began writing “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in 1910, and it was published in 1915, just a year after the war began. Even in the early 1910s, cultural observers like T.S. Eliot were sensing the despair, the sense of meaninglessness in twentieth-century Western civilization that would ultimately erupt in the Great War. Prufrock notices the “lonely men in shirt-sleeves” and says “I should have been a pair of ragged claws / scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” One of the real treats for literary nerds like me is to hear Eliot read his own poetry, and nowhere is he better than in reading “Prufrock.” When you listen to him read (as you can at thestoryweb.com/eliot), you can be forgiven for thinking he is a Brit, to the manner born. But despite that affected accent, he actually hailed from St. Louis, Missouri, my hometown. I can assure you that no one in St. Louis has ever spoken like T.S. Eliot, not even his famous grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, the founding minister of First Unitarian Church of St. Louis and the founder of Washington University. So where did Eliot acquire this accent? After some university study in Europe, he moved to London in 1914 at age 25 and became a British citizen at age 39 in 1927, when he also renounced his American citizenship. Later in life, as seen most notably in Four Quartets, he made a kind of tentative peace with America and with his forebears, but he always saw himself as British. In fact, Eliot is considered by many (like me) to be an American writer but by many others (including Eliot himself) as a British writer. After working as a banker at Lloyd’s of London, Eliot eventually took a position as an editor at Faber and Faber, where he published the likes of W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Ted Hughes. Now Faber and Faber hosts an extensive interactive website on T.S. Eliot, including a beautifully annotated version of “Prufrock.” For an ingenious take on J. Alfred Prufrock as the prototype of the modern hipster, visit the Atlantic Monthly. Poet Donald Hall interviewed Eliot in 1959: the results are definitely worth your time. And you won’t want to miss Julian Peters’s treatment of the poem as a series of comics! To explore Eliot’s amazing collection of work (poetry, plays, and essays), check out The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950, T.S. Eliot: Collected Poems, 1909-1962, and Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot. Eliot was recognized for his huge contribution to modern literature when he won the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1965 in London and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Visit thestoryweb.com/eliot for links to all these resources and to listen as T.S. Eliot reads “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Ben Robbins considers queer cosmopolitanism in the work of Anglophone writers who lived in Berlin during the era of the Weimar Republic. This paper analyses a selection of Anglophone literature set in Weimar Berlin by the American and British writers Robert McAlmon, W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, John Lehmann, and Stephen Spender. Not only were these writers themselves queer expatriates in Berlin during the 1920s and early 1930s, but they produced narratives of queer expatriation. I argue that these texts should be treated as a common literature that collectively explores a form of ‘queer cosmopolitanism’ in which sexual minorities disconnect from primary national identifications in order to form new international communities of belonging. As such, within this literature traditional definitions of the cosmopolitan are reformulated and resignified to accommodate the experience of oppressed minorities, whose transnational movements are catalysed under great social pressure.

The author of "A House in St. John's Wood: In Search of My Parents," sculptor Matthew Spender talks with Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson about growing up as the son of famous parents.  His father was the celebrated English poet from the 1930s, Stephen Spender, and his mother was the pianist, Natasha Litvin.  Writers W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood were fixtures of his childhood.

Institute of English Studies New Life in Life Writing? Sarah Bakewell, Sir Michael Holroyd, Wendy Moffat, Max Saunders. Panel Discussion hosted by the Stephen Spender Trust in conjunction with the Centre for Life-Writing Research, King’s Col...

Institute of English Studies New Life in Life Writing? Sarah Bakewell, Sir Michael Holroyd, Wendy Moffat, Max Saunders. Panel Discussion hosted by the Stephen Spender Trust in conjunction with the Centre for Life-Writing Research, King’s Col...

Institute of English Studies Stephen Spender in Germany, 1945. In 1945 Stephen Spender spent six months in occupied Germany helping with the reconstruction of universities and libraries. His mission was partly political (he wanted to mediate be...

Institute of English Studies Stephen Spender in Germany, 1945. In 1945 Stephen Spender spent six months in occupied Germany helping with the reconstruction of universities and libraries. His mission was partly political (he wanted to mediate be...

In this week's Desert Island Discs, one of the most eminent English poets of this century, Sir Stephen Spender, talks to Sue Lawley about his radical and often flamboyant past, and his friendships with such notable literary figures as Christopher Isherwood, WH Auden and Virginia Woolfe.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: String Quartet in A Minor by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust Luxury: Painting or sculpture & photograph of daughter

In this week's Desert Island Discs, one of the most eminent English poets of this century, Sir Stephen Spender, talks to Sue Lawley about his radical and often flamboyant past, and his friendships with such notable literary figures as Christopher Isherwood, WH Auden and Virginia Woolfe. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: String Quartet in A Minor by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust Luxury: Painting or sculpture & photograph of daughter

Roy Plomley's castaway is poet Stephen Spender. Favourite track: String Quartet No 15 in A Minor (Opus 132) by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: History of the Renaissance by Jacob Burckhardt Luxury: Painting materials