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Essay/Short nonfiction, History
Chapter: 12 | Listen: 2

Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. The preface was added in 1875. Arnold’s famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, “Culture […] is a study of perfection”. He further wrote that: “[Culture] seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light […]”. His often quoted phrase “[culture is] the best which has been thought and said” comes from the Preface to Culture and Anarchy: The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. [chương_files]

23/07/2024

Mark Twain’s Speeches

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Literature
Chapter: 105 | Listen: 1

Spanning the time between 1872 and the year before he died, this collection of after-dinner speeches, random thoughts to “the press”, etc. clearly documents, once again, the truly eclectic mind of Samuel Clemens. It also demonstrates how he dealt with adulation, compliments and notoriety…head on! This collection is a treasure-trove of Twain sayings, witticisms and pronouncements on a huge galaxy of issues and concerns in his life. [chương_files]

‘Twixt Earth and Stars

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Poetry
Chapter: 81 | Listen: 5

This is a volume of poetry by Radclyffe Hall. The poet and novelist led a highly scandalous lifestyle for the norms of her contemporary society, living openly lesbian in Germany and England. Some of the poems in this volume are also love poems to other women, a fact which was not generally known at the time the book was published. – Summary by Carolin [chương_files]

Songs, Merry and Sad

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Poetry
Chapter: 59 | Listen: 4

This is the only volume of poetry published during John Charles McNeill’s lifetime, containing 59 of his 400+ poems. McNeill was considered the unofficial poet laureate of his home state North Carolina until this position was established officially after World War II. His poetry enjoys enduring popularity, and is favoured by teachers and students for its accessibility. – Summary by Carolin [chương_files]

Fly Leaves

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Poetry
Chapter: 33 | Listen: 2

This is a volume of poetry by the English poet Charles Stuart Calverley. Calverley was considered quite a wit during his life time, and this disposition shines through in some of these poems as well. – Summary by Carolin [chương_files]

Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces

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Poetry, Single Author
Chapter: 107 | Listen: 5

Published in 1914, this is a compilation of 107 poems by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), who is probably better known as the author of such famous novels as Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. Similar to his novels, the underlying themes of the majority of the poems in this collection are death, departure and unfulfilled love, while the central piece is comprised of the 15 short “Satires of Circumstance,” funny poems with a bittersweet touch. The poems have been recorded by our trio of readers John Burlinson, Tomas Peter and Sonia. As an interesting touch, some poems can be considered short dramatic readings, and as such have been performed as dialogues. [chương_files]

23/07/2024

A Problem in Modern Ethics

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Fiction, Literature, Non-fiction, Politics, Psychology, Science
Chapter: 22 | Listen: 4

“Society lies under the spell of ancient terrorism and coagulated errors. Science is either wilfully hypocritical or radically misinformed.” John Addington Symonds struck many an heroic note in this courageous (albeit anonymously circulated) essay. He is a worthy Virgil guiding the reader through the Inferno of suffering which emerging medico-legal definitions of the sexually deviant were prepared to inflict on his century and on the one which followed. Symonds pleads for sane human values in a world of Urnings, Dionings, Urano-Dionings and Uraniasters – in short, the whole paraphernalia of Victorian taxonomies and undigested Darwinism which, superimposed on the “terrorism” of religion, labelled and to some extent created the specimen “homosexual.” A discussion of the “manly love” poems of Walt Whitman leads the author to speculate on a better future for the criminalised mutual passions of men; yet he is obliged to defer the dream, for “the world cannot be invited to entertain it.” (Introduction by Martin Geeson) [chương_files]

Vigils

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Poetry
Chapter: 30 | Listen: 1

This is a volume of poetry by American poet Aline Murray Kilmer, widow of the poet Joyce Kilmer. These poems have been published several years after Joyce Kilmer’s death in 1918 while he was deployed in France, and their daughter Rose’s death in 1917. Many of the poems in this collection thus also center around a motive of grief and loss, and set these emotions into poetry of heartbreaking beauty. – Summary by Carolin [chương_files]

Poems of Pleasure

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Poetry
Chapter: 77 | Listen: 2

This is another volume in Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s famous series of poetry. This volume bears the topic “pleasure”. – Summary by Carolin [chương_files]

23/07/2024

Not That It Matters

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Fiction, Short Stories
Chapter: 45 | Listen: 5

More of the witty, wry, and deliciously wicked essays and articles written by Milne. Most people know him as the creator of Winnie The Pooh, but he worked for many years as editor of Punch Magazine and these are some of his best. Not That It Matters is a collection of over 40 of these short stories and articles. Not That It Matters collects his columns for Punch, which include poems, essays and short stories, from 1912 to 1920. Most of his writing pokes fun, both gentle and not so gentle at a variety of topics. They vary greatly in length so there should be something for everyone. Milne wrote in a thoroughly British atmosphere and for a thoroughly British audience so some of his references may need a bit of research for those ‘not of the Empire’ (like me) to understand. [chương_files]