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The Artifice of Eternity in Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium” (Part 2)

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Yeats’s "Sailing to Byzantium," and whether creativity can help us transcend mortality, and how artists should conceive of their relationships to nature and posterity.

. 41min 53sec

The Artifice of Eternity in Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”

Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium” begins and ends with the concept of reproduction. In the first stanza, this reproduction is natural and sexual, and in the final stanza is entirely a matter of artifice. The living songbird is transformed into both product and producer, with a ... Show more

. 41min 39sec

The Evil of Banality in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) – Part 2

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Roman Polanski’s 1968 classic, and why it is that Satanic evil, when confronted with life’s very frightening realities—including pregnancy itself—turns out to be so banal.

. 38min 1sec

The Evil of Banality in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968)

On the surface, “Rosemary’s Baby” is a horror film about a woman who gets taken advantage of by a satanic cult and impregnated by the Devil. In the end, it seems to be a satire on the competing entrapments of domesticity and ambition, and the boring conventionality of people who ... Show more

. 42min 6sec

“Where the Meanings Are” – Four Poems by Emily Dickinson – Part 4

Erin & Wes continue their discussion of four of Dickinson’s best-loved poems, whose little rooms contain some of the definitive poetic statements on grief, pain, violence, death, reason, identity, and encounters with the divine.

. 34min 36sec