Literature

Ken Myers introduces listeners to four recently released lectures, courtesy of our Partners. The lecturers are Jennifer Frey, Gary Saul Morson, N. T. Wright, and Andrew Kern. (27 minutes)

Jennifer Frey explores Thomist elements in Flannery O’Connor’s theology and writing, with a particular emphasis on a Thomist understanding of art. (39 minutes)

George Grant recounts the fascinating history of Hernando Colón’s attempt in the 16th century to curate a universal library of the world’s knowledge. (41 minutes)

FROM VOL. 15 Poet Robert Pinsky discusses his translation of Dante’s Inferno. (9 minutes)

FROM VOL. 128 Rod Dreher recounts how he thought he was reading Dante’s Commedia, when in reality the poem was reading him. (18 minutes)

Jason Baxter explains how Dante includes a panoply of characters and creatures in his Comedia, offering a prismatic view of all of Creation in its glory. (20 minutes)

FROM VOL. 145 Jason Baxter discusses the great psychological subtlety in Dante’s Divine Comedy. (20 minutes)

FROM VOL. 155 Jason Baxter explains how reading medieval literature enabled C. S. Lewis to become a “naturalized citizen of the Middle Ages.” (25 minutes)

Katy Carl discusses Catholic novelist Graham Greene’s skill in portraying the struggle between spiritual belief and doubt. (27 minutes)

Katy Carl discusses novelist Graham Greene’s fiction and spiritual struggles in light of the concept of the Catholic imagination. (49 minutes)

Junius Johnson discusses the importance of teaching stories, particularly fairy stories, in classical education. (25 minutes)

FROM VOL. 70 Dana Gioia discusses the important role literary reading plays in society and the 2004 publication from the NEA about such reading. (13 minutes)

In honor of Flannery O’Connor’s 100th birthday, we have gathered here an aural feast of interviews with O’Connor scholars and aficionados discussing her life, work, and faith. (3 hours, 28 minutes)

In this lecture, Karen Swallow Prior examines the power of great literature to shape lives, nourish imaginations, and develop a vision of the good life. (43 minutes)

FROM VOL. 160 Jessica Hooten Wilson discusses her experience studying and organizing Flannery O’Connor’s unfinished third novel, Why Do the Heathen Rage? (27 minutes)

In this lecture, Daniel Gibbons compares and contrasts understandings of sacramental poetics proposed by Augustine, Aquinas, and Sydney. (36 minutes)

In this lecture from June 2019, classical educator Louis Markos examines Book II of The Aeneid to argue that Virgil had an eschatological view of history. (68 minutes)

Louis Markos shows how great literature like the Iliad links us to the human story and strengthens us to live fully and well. (65 minutes)

FROM VOL. 69 Daniel Ritchie discusses why great books programs survive mainly in Christian institutions while declining in secular ones. (13 minutes)

FROM VOL. 23 Daniel Ritchie provides a constructive alternative to the ideological captivity of literature and literary studies. (13 minutes)