Poetry For All
Finding Our Way Into Great Poems
We found 10 episodes of Poetry For All with the tag “17th century”.
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Episode 64: Shakespeare, Sonnet 29
September 22nd, 2023 | Season 6 | 19 mins 51 secs
17th century, friendship, hope, loneliness, love, rhymed verse, sonnet
Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 opens a world of comparison and despair, but also the deep joy of a dear friend that lifts one from disgrace. In our discussion, we consider present-day concerns about social media, the Surgeon General's warning about an epidemic of loneliness in this country, and a long-term Harvard study of happiness.
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Episode 52: Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
October 24th, 2022 | Season 5 | 19 mins 18 secs
17th century, aging, autumn, intimacy, love, night, rhymed verse, sonnet
This sonnet reflects on the autumn of life and an intimate love, and it turns on that love growing stronger in and through its age, even as the body decays.
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Episode 45: Ben Jonson, On My First Son
March 23rd, 2022 | Season 4 | 21 mins 18 secs
17th century, children, christianity, elegy, grief and loss, loneliness, rhymed verse
In this episode, we look at Ben Jonson's elegy for his son who died of the plague at the age of 7. This poem is so brief, and yet, it manages to cross a lot of emotional terrain as Jonson struggles to understand the profundity of his loss.
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Episode 40: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
February 9th, 2022 | Season 4 | 25 mins 58 secs
17th century, lgbtqia month, love, rhymed verse, sonnet
In this episode, we provide a close reading of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, which allows us to consider the poem's definition of a love that is enduring. In addition, though, we consider a reading of the poem which foregrounds a disappointed poetic speaker who can see the love's transience, too. We also pay special attention to rhythm and sound, and we even get to learn a bit about the Great Vowel Shift from Professor Kristin Van Engen, a linguist at Washington University in St. Louis.
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Episode 20: Hester Pulter, View But This Tulip
March 29th, 2021 | Season 2 | 25 mins 44 secs
17th century, christianity, guest on the show, hope, rhymed verse, science and medicine, spirituality
Wendy Wall joins us to discuss an extraordinary poet whose works went unknown for over three hundred years. Hester Pulter brought together science, religion, poetic traditions and so much more. Her 120 remarkable poems are now available at the award-winning Pulter Project website.
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Episode 16: John Milton, When I Consider How My Light is Spent
February 15th, 2021 | Season 2 | 15 mins 57 secs
17th century, aging, anger, body in pain, christianity, grief and loss, hope, rhymed verse, sonnet, surprise
The episode explores Milton's great sonnet spun from the difficulties of middle age and new disappointments. We consider how he pulls consolation from his sense of defeat and near despair. Faced with his coming blindness, he hears the voice of Patience giving him the strength to wait.
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Episode 14: George Herbert, The Collar
February 1st, 2021 | Season 2 | 18 mins 24 secs
17th century, anger, christianity, narrative, restlessness, rhymed verse, spirituality, surprise
In this episode, we look at "The Collar"--a famous single-stanza poem, playing with meter, rhythm, and rhyme by the seventeenth-century priest and poet, George Herbert.
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Episode 9: Anne Bradstreet, In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet
October 27th, 2020 | Season 1 | 14 mins 52 secs
17th century, anger, children, christianity, elegy, grief and loss, repetition or refrain, rhymed verse, sonnet, surprise, women's history month
This week we read Anne Bradstreet's elegy for her grandchild Elizabeth and draw out the multiple voices (both faith and doubt, both grief and consolation) and the tensions and deep emotions in the work of this talented Puritan poet--the first woman from British North America to publish a book of poems.
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Episode 7: John Donne, Holy Sonnet 14
October 14th, 2020 | Season 1 | 15 mins 54 secs
17th century, christianity, intimacy, restlessness, rhymed verse, sonnet
This week we look at one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets from the seventeenth century. This famous poem (#14, "Batter my heart") turns a poetic tradition of love and longing to religious ends, earnestly seeking God and questioning whether union with God will ever be achieved.
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Episode 4: Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
September 22nd, 2020 | Season 1 | 16 mins 12 secs
17th century, eros and desire, love, rhymed verse, sonnet, summer
In this episode we introduce listeners to one of the most resilient forms in English-language poetry: the sonnet. And we do it with one of the most famous sonnets Shakespeare wrote.