Love and Death
LRB Audio
Podcasts and audiobooks from the London Review of Books.
A multi-series podcast subscription exploring different themes and periods of literature through selections of key works.
Discover the LRB’s new audiobook collections.
Our six-part series hosted by Andrew O'Hagan: listen to the full series with bonus material, including extended and additional interviews and clips.
Description
Philip Larkin was terrified of death from an early age; Thomas Hardy contemplated what the neighbours would say after he had gone; and Sylvia Plath imagined her own death in vivid and controversial ways. The genre of self-elegy, in which poets have reflected on their own passing, is a small but eloquent one in the history of English poetry.
In this episode, Seamus and Mark consider some of its most striking examples, including Chidiock Tichborne’s laconic lament on the night of his execution in 1586, Jonathan Swift’s breezy anticipation of his posthumous reception, and the more comfortless efforts of 20th-century poets confronting godless extinction.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrld
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsld
Read more in the LRB:
Jacqueline Rose on Plath:
David Runciman on Larkin and his father:
John Bayley on Larkin
Matthew Bevis on Hardy:
LRB Audiobooks
Discover audiobooks from the LRB: https://lrb.me/audiobooksld