Discoveries: Essays in Literary Criticism


Read by Jim Locke

Introductory Note: I have called these essays and lectures by a title that some people may think presumptuous: first, because it is the title of a book by Ben Jonson, and second, because it could be interpreted as meaning that I think there is something final in the results of these explorations of mine.
For the first, I believe the fine ghost of Ben Jonson will forgive me. For the second, I do not believe there is anything final in criticism, But I wanted my title to contain a suggestion of the curious elation which criticism sometimes brings to me. " To me," I insist, because I subscribe wholeheartedly to the famous dictum of Anatole France that criticism is the adventures of a man's soul among books and more criticism appears to me to be an intensely personal affair. Every honest critic and by an honest critic I mean a man who builds his schemes and classifications solely on the basis of his own reactions makes a great cross-section of the universe of literature in accordance with his temperament. What he is and believes is more surely reflected in his criticism than in his direct professions of faith. The more he can lose himself in the object, the more himself he is. And the excitement of losing oneself in exploration, the elation of being possessed by the very process of discovery, is the most precious thing I have found in criticism. (Summary by author) (6 hr 32 min)

Chapters

The Nature of Poetry 46:45 Read by Jim Locke
The Significance of Russian Literature 49:58 Read by Jim Locke
Anton Tchehov 30:14 Read by Jim Locke
Marcel Proust 30:22 Read by Jim Locke
The Break-Up of the Novel 34:23 Read by Jim Locke
English Poetry in the Eighteenth Century 30:46 Read by Jim Locke
A Note on the Madness of Christopher Smart 11:12 Read by Jim Locke
Poe's Poetry 13:07 Read by Jim Locke
Matthew Arnold the Poet 13:11 Read by Jim Locke
English Prose in the Nineteenth Century 13:52 Read by Jim Locke
The Creation of Falstaff 48:14 Read by Jim Locke
Coriolanus 30:36 Read by Jim Locke
Flaubert and Flaubart 39:59 Read by Jim Locke