642 Theater and Democracy (with James Shapiro)

In 1949, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces posited the existence of a "monomyth," a universal pattern that formed the basis of heroic tales in every culture. But although he maintained that more often than not the young heroes followed an archetypal journey--which in addition to ancient myths can be seen in everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter--Campbell acknowledged that heroines seemed to have a different story arc, but not one that he had taxonomies. In other words, female heroes could go on the same journey that male heroes did--but often they seemed to be doing something different. They too had a narrative arc, but it didn't quite fit the typical storytelling pattern. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Douglas Burton about his book The Heroine's Labyrinth: Archetypal Designs in Heroine-Led Fiction, which offers up a groundbreaking new paradigm for anyone interested in stories and how they're made. PLUS Doug sticks around to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. 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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Written in the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy has been an essential component of Western literature for more than 700 years. In this episode, Jacke talks to Joseph Luzzi about his book, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Biography, which gives an intimate portrait of the work that has challenged and inspired generations of readers. Additional listening: 131 Dante in Love (with Professor Ellen Nerenberg and Anthony Valerie) 589 Dante and Friendship (with Elizabeth Coggeshall) 327 Natalia Ginzburg The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. 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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a Literary Feast Day at the History of Literature Podcast! First, Jacke talks to old friend Mike Palindrome about his love for A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's late-in-life recollection of his salad days (Pernod days?) in Paris. Then Collin Jennings (Enlightenment Links: Theories of Mind and Media in Eighteenth-Century Britain) explains how his application of computational methods to eighteenth-century fiction, history, and poetry shed new light on the Enlightenment - and what it means for readers in a digital age. And finally, David L. Cooper (The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth) discusses his choice for the last book he will ever read. Additional listening suggestions: 355 Jean-Jacques Rousseau 525 Don DeLillo (with Jesse Kavadlo) 586 The Czech Manuscripts Hoax (with David Cooper)   The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.   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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Throughout the 1930s, Ernest Hemingway was in the public eye as a journalist, short story writer, activist, and one of the most famous writers on the planet. But his 1937 novel To Have and Have Not fell flat, and critics wondered if the Hemingway who could write a novel on the level of The Sun Also Rises (1926) or A Farewell to Arms (1929) still existed. All that changed with the publication in 1940 of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Widely read and widely acclaimed, the story of the idealist Robert Jordan in the Spanish Civil War has long been admired (and at times ridiculed) for its depiction of military heroism and wartime romance. But in spite of the criticism that continues to swirl around the novel, its prominence as one of the indispensable masterpieces of war literature has never been in doubt. In this episode, Jacke talks to editor Alex Vernon about his line-by-line analysis of For Whom the Bell Tolls for the Reading Hemingway series. PLUS Sandra Spanier (series editor of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway project) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read. Additional listening: 633 Hemingway's Letters (with Sandra Spanier) 627 Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (with Mark Cirino) 162 Ernest Hemingway The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.   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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Although their lives were filled with darkness and death, their love for stories and ideas led them into the bright realms of creative genius. They were the Brontes - Charlotte, Emily, and Anne - who lived with their brother Branwell in an unassuming 19th-century Yorkshire town called Haworth. Their house, a parsonage, sat on a hill, with the enticing but sometimes dangerous moors above and a cemetery, their father’s church, and the industrializing town below. It was a dark little home, with little more than a roof to keep out the rain, a fire to keep things warm at night, and books and periodicals arriving from Edinburgh and London to excite their imagination. And from this humble little town, these three sisters and their active, searching minds exerted an influence on English literature that can still be felt nearly two hundred years later. [This is an ENCORE presentation of an episode from our archives. The episode originally ran on September 9, 2019.] Additional listening: The Brontes' Secret Scandal (with Finola Austin) 508 Byron (with David Ellis) 78 Jane Eyre and Other Favorites (with Margot Livesey) 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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Music Credits: “Ashton Manor" and "Piano Between" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When he undertook his research on Harriet Jacobs and her brother John Swanson Jacobs, scholar Jonathan D.S. Schroeder wasn't expecting to find John's long lost autobiography. But there it was, buried in the archives of an Australian newspaper. Unknown for one hundred and sixty-nine years, the narrative bursts with fire and fury, filled with the energy (and intellectual freedom) of an ex-slave and ex-American writing from outside the United States. In this episode, Jacke talks to Jonathan about what it was like to make this incredible discovery - and what the narrative teaches us about the world of nineteenth-century literature and life. Book link: The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography (by John Swanson Jacobs (Author) and Jonathan D.S. Schroeder (Editor)) Additional listening suggestions: 300 Frederick Douglass 311 Frederick Douglass Learns to Read 485 Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Dr Tara Bynum)   The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.   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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Wright was one of those people," said poet Amiri Baraka, "who made me conscious of the need to struggle." In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Black American novelist and poet Richard Wright (1908-1960), author of Uncle Tom's Children, Native Son, Black Boy, and thousands of haiku. Born in Mississippi in desperate poverty to a schoolteacher mother and a sharecropper father (who were themselves the free children of formerly enslaved peoples), Wright had little formal education until he was 12, when he quickly demonstrated his intelligence and passion for reading. After high school, Wright traveled north to Chicago, where he set his most famous work, the fiery Dostoevskyan novel Native Son. Quickly achieving celebrity as one of America's most famous and successful Black writers, Wright moved to Paris, where he lived the rest of his life - and where he met a young James Baldwin, who accepted Wright's help before writing a pair of essays that strongly criticized Wright's fiction. Additional listening suggestions: Baldwin v. Faulkner James Baldwin, "Going to Meet the Man" 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.   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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critics didn't know quite what to make of twentieth-century American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), but readers had less difficulty. In spite of mixed reviews, On the Road (1957) quickly became a kind of bible for anyone hoping to squeeze more out of life. In this episode, Jacke talks to Steven Belletto, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac, about the continuing fascination with the Beat Generation and its most famous avatar. Additional listening: 339 Jack Kerouac 619 Novelist Fred Waitzkin Discusses Kerouac 283 Planes, Trains & Automobiles - Top 10 Literary Modes of Transportation (with Mike Palindrome) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.   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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aesop's fables - including such classics as "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Fox and the Grapes," and "The Ant and the Grasshopper" - are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. But who was Aesop? Why was he writing these stories - and what about the ones that weren't written for children? Renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, translator of Aesop's Fables: A New Translation, joins Jacke for a discussion of the legendary Aesop and his legendary tales. PLUS Tove Jansson biographer Boel Westin (Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read. Additional listening suggestions: 605 Tove Jansson, Creator of the Moomins (with Boel Westin) 377 The Brothers Grimm 531 Fairy Tales (with Jack Zipes) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.   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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's hard to imagine now, but the United States government wasn't always hostile or indifferent to the arts. In fact, from 1935 to 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal Government responded to the Great Depression by staging over a thousand theatrical productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. How did Roosevelt's administration come to hire over twelve thousand struggling artists, including Orson Welles and Arthur Miller? How successful were the plays? And what ultimately shut them down? James Shapiro (The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War) joins Jacke for a discussion of the Federal Theatre Project and its legacy. Additional listening suggestions: 548 Shakespeare in a Divided America (with James Shapiro) 374 Ancient Plays and Contemporary Theater (with Bryan Doerries) 624 Top 10 Great Performances (with Laurie Frankel) | My Last Book with James Shapiro The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.   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 thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices