SERGEANT: Today the professor is here to talk to us about Keats. I bet none of you ignorant bastards even knows what a Keat is.
Today, with the rise of podcasts, there's no excuse for such ignorance. Here are three good podcast episodes on 19th-century literature.
The first line of John Mullan's book The Artful Dickens asks: "What is so good about Dickens's novels?" This is just the sort of question that modern literary theory disapproves of, but they are wonderfully good. In an interview on the National Centre for Writing podcast, Mullan emphasises that Charles Dickens was not just an inventor of eccentric characters but also an endlessly innovative technician.
A recent edition of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time dealt with Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I am another of those men who haven't read it, actually, but the way this podcast explains its place in American culture and history makes me want to.
Dickens: A Brain on Fire has a great edition on Oliver Twist. Emily Bell reminds us what an astonishing book it is - far from the genteel Sunday afternoon entertainment it is sometimes in danger of becoming. Someone said that Oliver himself needed a song in the second half of Lionel Bart's Oliver! so he can tell us how he's feeling, and that's true of the novel too.
Finally, here's a tribute to Timothy West and a reminder that Dickens wrote the Four Yorkshiremen sketch.
Happy 90th birthday to the incredible Timothy West. I spent the best part of a year writing a book with Tim and his generosity knows no bounds. He can act a bit too. Here he is in full flow as Josiah Bounderby in Hard Times.
— James Hogg (@JamesAHogg2) October 20, 2024
Happy birthday Tim x pic.twitter.com/B6glpzMAZl
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