London Review of Books (LRB)
London Review of Books (LRB)
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Among the Ancients II: Lucian
The broad theme of this series, truth and lies, was a favourite subject of Lucian of Samosata, the last of our Greek-language authors. A cosmopolitan and highly cultured Syrian subject of the Roman Empire in the second century CE, Lucian wrote in the classical Greek of fifth-century Athens. His razor-sharp satire was a model for Erasmus, Voltaire and Swift. Emily and Tom share some of their favourite excerpts from the Dialogues, ‘A True History’ and other works - with trips to the moon, boundary-pushing religious scepticism and wildly improbable but not technically untrue readings of Homer - and discuss why they still read as fresh and funny today.
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsyt
Get the book: lrb.me/luciancr
Further reading in the LRB:
Tim Whitmarsh: Target Practice
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n04/tim-whitmarsh/target-practice
James Davidson: Stomach-Churning
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n02/james-davidson/stomach-churning
Subscribe to the LRB and get up to 75% off the cover price: www.mylrb.co.uk/
ABOUT THE LRB
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail - from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Переглядів: 140

Відео

Medieval LOLs: The Second Shepherds' Pageant
Переглядів 25421 годину тому
In their quest for the medieval sense of humour Mary and Irina come to The Second Shepherds’ Pageant, a 15th-century reimagining of the nativity as domestic comedy that’s less about the birth of Jesus and more about sheep rustling, taxes, the weather and the frustrations of daily life. The pageant was part of a mystery cycle, a collection of plays that revealed religious mysteries through perfo...
Human Conditions: ‘The Intimate Enemy’ by Ashis Nandy
Переглядів 66514 днів тому
Ashis Nandy’s The Intimate Enemy is a study of the psychological toll of colonialism on both the coloniser and colonised, showing how Western conceptions of masculinity and adulthood served as tools of conquest. Using figures as disparate as Gandhi, Oscar Wilde and Aurobindo Ghosh, Nandy suggests ways in which alternative models of age and gender can provide compelling challenges to colonial au...
Forecasting D-Day: The story behind the most important weather forecast in history
Переглядів 1,1 тис.14 днів тому
The D-Day planners said that everything would depend on the weather. They needed 'a quiet day with not more than moderate winds and seas and not too much cloud for the airmen, to be followed by three more quiet days'. But who would make the forecast? The Meteorological Office? The US Air Force? The Royal Navy? In the event, it was all three. In this diary piece published in 1994, Lawrence Hogbe...
On Satire: 'The Dunciad' by Alexander Pope
Переглядів 25021 день тому
Nobody hated better than Alexander Pope. Despite his reputation as the quintessentially refined versifier of the early 18th century, he was also a class A, ultra-pure, surreal, visionary mega-hater, and The Dunciad is his monument to the hate he felt for almost all the other writers of his time. Written over fifteen years of burning fury, Pope’s mock-epic tells the story of the Empire of Dullne...
Political Poems: 'The Masque of Anarchy' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Переглядів 52521 день тому
Shelley’s angry, violent poem was written in direct response to the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819, in which a demonstration in favour of parliamentary reform was attacked by local yeomanry, leaving 18 people dead and hundreds injured. The ‘masque’ it describes begins with a procession of abstract figures - Murder, Fraud, Hypocrisy - embodied in members of the government, before eventu...
Among the Ancients II: Plato
Переглядів 493Місяць тому
Plato’s Symposium, his philosophical dialogue on love, or eros, was probably written around 380 BCE, but it’s set in 416, during the uneasy truce between Athens and Sparta in the middle of the Peloponnesian War. A symposium was a drinking party, though Socrates and his friends, having had a heavy evening the night before, decide to go easy on the wine and instead take turns making speeches in p...
Medieval LOLs: Dame Syrith
Переглядів 254Місяць тому
As discussed in the previous episode of Medieval LOLs, fabliaux had an enormous influence on Chaucer, but outside of his work, only one survives in Middle English. Dame Syrith, a story of lust, deception and a mustard-eating dog, is medieval humour at its silliest and most troubling. Mary and Irina explore the surprising representations of old women, magic and consent in fabliaux, the poem’s po...
Human Conditions: ‘A House for Mr Biswas' by V.S. Naipaul
Переглядів 497Місяць тому
In 'A House for Mr Biswas', his 1961 comic masterpiece, V.S. Naipaul pays tribute to his father and the vanishing world of his Trinidadian youth. Pankaj Mishra joins Adam Shatz in their first of four episodes to discuss the novel, a pathbreaking work of postcolonial literature and a particularly powerful influence on Pankaj himself. They explore Naipaul’s fraught relationship to modernity, and ...
On Satire: John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera'
Переглядів 295Місяць тому
In The Beggar’s Opera we enter a society turned upside down, where private vices are seen as public virtues, and the best way to survive is to assume the worst of everyone. The only force that can subvert this state of affairs is romantic love - an affection, we discover, that satire finds hard to cope with. John Gay’s 1727 smash hit ‘opera’, which ran for 62 performances in its first run, put ...
Political Poems: 'The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Переглядів 354Місяць тому
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s deeply disturbing 1847 poem about a woman escaping slavery and killing her child was written to shock its intended white female readership to the abolitionist cause. Browning was the direct descendant of slave owners in Jamaica and a fervent anti-slavery campaigner, and her dramatic monologue presents a searing attack on the hypocrisy of ‘liberty’ as enshrined in th...
Terry Eagleton: Where does culture come from?
Переглядів 11 тис.Місяць тому
The word ‘culture’ now drags the term ‘wars’ in its wake, but this is too narrow an approach to a concept with a much more capacious history. In the closing LRB Winter Lecture for 2024, Terry Eagleton examines various aspects of that history - culture and power, culture and ethics, culture and critique, culture and ideology - in an attempt to broaden the argument and understand where we are now...
Among the Ancients II: Pindar and Bacchylides
Переглядів 3112 місяці тому
In the fifth episode of Among the Ancients II we turn to Greek lyric, focusing on Pindar’s victory odes, considered a benchmark for the sublime since antiquity, and the vivid, narrative-driven dithyrambs of Bacchylides. Through close reading, Emily and Tom tease out allusions, lexical flourishes and formal experimentation, and explain the highly contextual nature of these tightly choreographed,...
A Series of Headaches: Shakespeare's First Folio meets the London Review of Books
Переглядів 4 тис.2 місяці тому
When Michael Dobson wrote about the printing of Shakespeare’s First Folio for the London Review of Books, he described it as a ‘series of headaches’. When we tried to replicate those 17th century methods to celebrate the anniversary of the First Folio with our own Shakespearean print, we discovered how true that was. In this film, letterpress printer Nick Hand pulls apart the whole process, fro...
Medieval LOLs: Fabliaux
Переглядів 5602 місяці тому
Fabliaux were short, witty tales originating in northern France between the 12th and 14th centuries, often featuring crafty characters in rustic settings and overwhelmingly concerned with money and sex. In this episode Irina and Mary look at two of these comic verses, both containing surprisingly explicit sexual language, and consider the ways in which they influenced Boccaccio, Chaucer and oth...
Hazel V. Carby: Remembering the Future
Переглядів 3352 місяці тому
Hazel V. Carby: Remembering the Future
'If God is a snail': Angela Carter on food in the London Review of Books
Переглядів 3,3 тис.2 місяці тому
'If God is a snail': Angela Carter on food in the London Review of Books
Human Conditions: ‘The Human Condition’ by Hannah Arendt
Переглядів 1,9 тис.2 місяці тому
Human Conditions: ‘The Human Condition’ by Hannah Arendt
On Satire: The Earl of Rochester
Переглядів 3832 місяці тому
On Satire: The Earl of Rochester
Political Poems: 'Easter 1916' by W.B. Yeats
Переглядів 1,2 тис.2 місяці тому
Political Poems: 'Easter 1916' by W.B. Yeats
Among the Ancients II: Herodotus
Переглядів 3473 місяці тому
Among the Ancients II: Herodotus
Medieval LOLs: Old English Riddles
Переглядів 3993 місяці тому
Medieval LOLs: Old English Riddles
Human Conditions: 'Black Skin, White Masks' by Frantz Fanon
Переглядів 1,7 тис.3 місяці тому
Human Conditions: 'Black Skin, White Masks' by Frantz Fanon
On Satire: Ben Jonson's 'Volpone'
Переглядів 7673 місяці тому
On Satire: Ben Jonson's 'Volpone'
Pankaj Mishra: The Shoah after Gaza
Переглядів 86 тис.3 місяці тому
Pankaj Mishra: The Shoah after Gaza
Political Poems: W.H. Auden's 'Spain 1937'
Переглядів 1,2 тис.3 місяці тому
Political Poems: W.H. Auden's 'Spain 1937'
Among the Ancients II: Aesop
Переглядів 3243 місяці тому
Among the Ancients II: Aesop
Medieval LOLs: The Colloquies of Aelfric Bata
Переглядів 5444 місяці тому
Medieval LOLs: The Colloquies of Aelfric Bata
Human Conditions: ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir
Переглядів 1,2 тис.4 місяці тому
Human Conditions: ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir
On Satire: John Donne's Satires
Переглядів 5214 місяці тому
On Satire: John Donne's Satires

КОМЕНТАРІ

  • @johnmarkey4862
    @johnmarkey4862 11 годин тому

    Very interesting

  • @scottcrosby-art5490
    @scottcrosby-art5490 2 дні тому

    The master of European sci-fi

  • @watcherofthewest8597
    @watcherofthewest8597 2 дні тому

    You know it's funny all these hard left marxists seem to really live living in western countries. Id have at least a little respect for someone if they went and lived under communism, instead of living comfortably in the free and west. F Hobsbawm and his nonsense.

  • @pauc9596
    @pauc9596 5 днів тому

    What a shame they couldn’t get a competent videographer for this programme.

  • @danielpincus221
    @danielpincus221 5 днів тому

    The Scherzo works over the material of the first movement so much that it seems unnatural for her it to come second.

  • @MC-bu6ez
    @MC-bu6ez 6 днів тому

    Great translation BUT still cannot pronounce Greek words and names correctly sorry, but it will NOT do, for 50 years I have been listening to wrongly pronounced Greek. People only now are beggining to pronounce my name almost correctly. Achilles Pelias? Please....

  • @JasonPhippsProducer
    @JasonPhippsProducer 6 днів тому

    Is there a collection or compendium of her writings in LRB?

    • @londonreviewofbooks
      @londonreviewofbooks 5 днів тому

      You can find all Angela Carter's essays for the LRB here on her contributor page: www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/angela-carter

  • @sera2775
    @sera2775 7 днів тому

    A rob byrdon impersonator😂

  • @ginabataille1796
    @ginabataille1796 10 днів тому

    Well, the British are demonising all the Russian artists today.

  • @joostvandenbrink8122
    @joostvandenbrink8122 10 днів тому

    I notice that several people in the comments mention that they have a hard time understanding Spinoza. No shame in that, because Spinoza is not easy. This video is very nice and it's done very well. If anyone wants to discuss Spinoza with someone in order to learn more, feel free to contact me. I am deeply into Spinoza and I gladly help those who want to learn.

  • @robertocatrone715
    @robertocatrone715 11 днів тому

    Brilliant

  • @Baskerville993
    @Baskerville993 11 днів тому

    What a bunch of (semiotically and, more generally, culturally) anachronistic, incongruous, conformist, ideologized, and prejudiced stereotypes one happens to find in a prestigious journal like the London Review of Books… 🤔🙋🏻‍♂

  • @michaelmccullough1144
    @michaelmccullough1144 13 днів тому

    Close Reading in the Age of Social Media, love it

  • @myytchanneldinakoha8498
    @myytchanneldinakoha8498 13 днів тому

    Yes.

  • @londonreviewofbooks
    @londonreviewofbooks 13 днів тому

    Read Lethem's essay on Lem here: lrb.me/lemyt

  • @pastiche9
    @pastiche9 14 днів тому

    40:00 , You're crying, I'm not crying.☘️ 😭

  • @wordscapes5690
    @wordscapes5690 14 днів тому

    I grew up reading her poems. She and Auden are my favorite British poets from whom I derive the most pleasure and joy.

  • @explorerelka
    @explorerelka 14 днів тому

    I find Mr.Self very condescending towards the Czech.

  • @antigone3567
    @antigone3567 16 днів тому

    Stephen Dillane's voice and narration, sublime

  • @M-T-123
    @M-T-123 17 днів тому

    Thank goodness we can all have our opinions!

  • @wordscapes5690
    @wordscapes5690 18 днів тому

    Sign up? I can’t afford it… I am a poet.

  • @wordscapes5690
    @wordscapes5690 18 днів тому

    Wonderful poet.

  • @rockytoptom
    @rockytoptom 19 днів тому

    I'd love to hear Christopher Clark and Michael Neiberg talk about anything they want to discuss, for 5 hours

  • @brynmorjames3642
    @brynmorjames3642 19 днів тому

    Thanks for this. Marvellous.

  • @wendychandler8304
    @wendychandler8304 20 днів тому

    I absolutely love 'The Uncommon Reader' - recommending it, re-reading it and now, unable to read, listening to the matchless Bennett's audio version. Like Gallico's 'Snow Goose' a book giving endless pleasure. Thank you Alan Bennett for your readings.

  • @richarddelanet
    @richarddelanet 21 день тому

    _Trinidad Village_ by H & F Herskovits, 1947. _Behold the West Indies_ Amy Oakley, 1941. _A Brighter Sun_ by Samuel Selvon, 1952 (a novel set in 1940).

  • @Simpaulme
    @Simpaulme 22 дні тому

    Good give and take between the two presenters 👍

  • @crussellmorg
    @crussellmorg 22 дні тому

    listen closely-- it's fast and complicated, but hear it like some combination of philosophy and poetry-- or better, just listen the playfulness in the ideas. And for all the ideas too difficult, or given too fast, to comprehend, just enjoy the voice, the words, the sounds. Like all of Phillip's talks, there is so much to learn, if given the chance.

  • @coreolis7
    @coreolis7 23 дні тому

    Sir Terry Eagleton singing "Raglan Road," irish folk song @ 40 mins :D !!!

  • @R0bl0xg1irls
    @R0bl0xg1irls 25 днів тому

    I thought I saw SZA😂

  • @Erginartesia
    @Erginartesia 27 днів тому

    Listening to Juliet and Tobias read this beautiful translation of Emily’s gave me the same chills that I get when listening to opera (or maybe EDM).

  • @SSNewberry
    @SSNewberry 27 днів тому

    The Masque of Anarchy is still a powerful read because the syllables themselves need to be free.

  • @Cmr_5vifail
    @Cmr_5vifail 28 днів тому

    One would wonder when someone say ,patriarchy etc ,equal share of what ? ,colonial loot or labourors sweat or illegals vote ?

  • @dodgyg3697
    @dodgyg3697 28 днів тому

    Incredibly moving. I spend a lot of time in the East End, it's not change, it's self destruction. Slow suicide, witnessed.

  • @elainestern7337
    @elainestern7337 29 днів тому

    Ii

  • @selina9091
    @selina9091 Місяць тому

    Wasn't she the inspiration for the song Lady Writer by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits?

  • @findbridge1790
    @findbridge1790 Місяць тому

    observations on america ignorant and absurd

  • @TheGarrymoore
    @TheGarrymoore Місяць тому

    Spinoza does not equate the God with the Universe. The Universe is just one expression of God. Said differently, the Universe is an infinitely small subset of the God. Spinoza's God has much more attributes than the Universe. So, Spinoza's Nature is not equal to the Universe we inhabit, as it is often interpreted. Also, the immortality of soul is a derivation within Spinoza's philosophy, which for modern science is a tabu. There are many other differences between what modern science claims and Spinoza's philosophy.

  • @hughiedavies6069
    @hughiedavies6069 Місяць тому

    I love the way Will Self makes the interpreter look a bit redundant, i didn't hear her say anything other than the kind of crap they usually have to tell tourists who want to hear banal facts. I noticed she left after the first hour or so, I think he'd be a better tour guide if he spoke the language 😆

  • @user-jl3ex4ik1t
    @user-jl3ex4ik1t Місяць тому

    Okay, this is totally encompassing. Just add Bestine. ❤️

  • @mfranssens
    @mfranssens Місяць тому

    A brilliant man Mr Clark

  • @findbridge1790
    @findbridge1790 Місяць тому

    influence of st John Perse still present

  • @jpknijff
    @jpknijff Місяць тому

    It may be of interest that an earlier (presumably) version of the story exists in Petrus Alfonsi's Disciplina clericalis. (The version in the Gesta Romanorum, clearly based on the former, may be contemporary with the English fabliau.)

  • @MrCeora
    @MrCeora Місяць тому

    For the record, one of his neighbors described him as having as "a man with black complexion and curly hair curly hair"...

  • @niva0809
    @niva0809 Місяць тому

    Russian band king and schut

  • @Walter10065
    @Walter10065 Місяць тому

    Be a sheep it’s all the same to me

  • @liallhristendorff5218
    @liallhristendorff5218 Місяць тому

    It’s sad to see him unwell.

  • @annishilcock4587
    @annishilcock4587 Місяць тому

    Should we abolish the BBC? Is the calibre of question yoi get at the LRB?

  • @addammadd
    @addammadd Місяць тому

    35:08 what a legend this guy is.

  • @rosskinghorn
    @rosskinghorn Місяць тому

    Thanks for this, such an interesting thinker, hope he recovers soon.