Herta Müller’s Nobel Lecture: Text Here

in Literature | December 8th, 2009

A quick note: Her­ta Müller, who won the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, deliv­ered her lec­ture in Stock­holm yes­ter­day. You can now read the full text online; the video should be com­ing soon.

My grand­fa­ther had been a sol­dier in the First World War. He knew what he was talk­ing about when he said, often and embit­tered, in ref­er­ence to his son Matz: When the flags start to flut­ter, com­mon sense slides right into the trum­pet. This warn­ing also applied to the fol­low­ing dic­ta­tor­ship, which I expe­ri­enced. Every day you could see the com­mon sense of the prof­i­teers, both big and lit­tle, slid­ing right into the trum­pet. The trum­pet I decid­ed not to blow.

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T.S. Eliot Reads The Waste Land

in Literature, Poetry | November 26th, 2009

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem, The Waste Land, is often con­sid­ered one of the great poems of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Above, you can lis­ten to Eliot him­self read­ing his mod­ernist mas­ter­piece (text here). And, if you want more, how about Eliot read­ing The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, anoth­er major work, against the back­drop of Por­tishead? Sac­ri­lege, I know.

You can find both poems in our exten­sive Free Audio Book col­lec­tion, which con­tains hun­dreds of clas­sic works. Fic­tion, non-fic­tion, and poet­ry. It’s all there, and all free.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Joyce Read­ing from Finnegans Wake

Tchaikovsky’s Voice Cap­tured on an Edi­son Cylin­der (1899)

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The American Novel Since 1945: A Free Online Course from Yale University

in Literature, Yale | November 23rd, 2009

The video above is the first of 26 lec­tures mak­ing up a free Yale course called The Amer­i­can Nov­el Since 1945. Taught by Amy Hunger­ford, the course intro­duces you to the nov­els of Amer­i­ca’s finest post-war writ­ers — Nabokov (émi­gré), Salinger, Ker­ouac, and Pyn­chon, and also Philip Roth, Toni Mor­ri­son, Cor­mac McCarthy and Jonathan Safran Foer. You can watch all lec­tures in the fol­low­ing for­mats: YouTube – iTunes Audio – iTunes Video. Yale also offers the files as mp3s/movs here. For more full-fledged cours­es from oth­er top uni­ver­si­ties (includ­ing many oth­ers from Yale), vis­it our col­lec­tion of Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

You can stream all of the lec­tures, from start to fin­ish, below:

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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Free, Rare, Early Shakespeare Digital Archive

in Literature | November 19th, 2009

New­ly launched: The Shake­speare Quar­tos Archive is a new dig­i­tal col­lec­tion that fea­tures pre-1642 edi­tions of William Shake­speare’s plays. Here, for exam­ple, you will find rare ear­ly edi­tions of Ham­let, includ­ing all 32 exist­ing quar­to copies of the play in one place. An online first. Thanks Jere­my for the tip…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pla­gia­rism Soft­ware Dis­cov­ers New Shake­speare Play

Free Shake­speare on the iPhone

Goethe and Shake­speare on Google

What Did Shake­speare Real­ly Look Like

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Nabokov’s Last

in Books, Literature | November 16th, 2009

Vladimir Nabokov want­ed his last unfin­ished nov­el destroyed (learn more about it here). But, 32 years after his death, the book is being pub­lished. You can buy The Orig­i­nal of Lau­ra start­ing Tues­day. Mean­while, you can also read through a few excerpts thanks to the Times Online.

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World War I Remembered in Second Life

in History, Literature | November 9th, 2009

Excel­lent find by Stephen Grant… You can now expe­ri­ence the bat­tle lines of World War I in Sec­ond Life, thanks to The First World War Poet­ry Dig­i­tal Archive and the Learn­ing Tech­nolo­gies Group at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty. WWI shocked the West­ern world with its land­scape-chang­ing war­fare and high tech car­nage. Remem­brances of “The Great War” live on in some remark­able poet­ry and lit­er­a­ture. And now Sec­ond Life too. Find more infor­ma­tion on this project here.

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Jonathan Lethem on Art & The Digital Future

in Books, Literature | November 9th, 2009

Jonathan Lethem, the writer behind Moth­er­less Brook­lyn (one of my faves) and Fortress of Soli­tude, has a new book out, Chron­ic City. Above, he talks about the sur­re­al qual­i­ty of his work, the future of dig­i­tal books, and the per­son­al guide­lines that deter­mine what he writes, and won’t write. With­in this last point, you will find a good les­son for all of us. Find your unique tal­ent, ded­i­cate your­self to it, avoid the work com­mon­ly done by oth­ers, and you can achieve some­thing notable and worth­while.

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Wallace Stevens Reads His Own Poetry

in Literature, Poetry | October 23rd, 2009

This lit­tle col­lec­tion gives you access to Wal­lace Stevens (1879–1955), one of Amer­i­ca’s great poets, read­ing his own poet­ry. Among the poems, you will hear “The Idea of Order at Key West,” “The Poem that Took the Place of a Moun­tain,” “Vacan­cy in the Park,” and “To an Old Philoso­pher in Rome.” For more, you should see our pre­vi­ous post, Lis­ten­ing to Famous Poets Read­ing Their Own Work, and then below watch the clip below of ever-pro­lif­ic Yale lit­er­a­ture pro­fes­sor Harold Bloom recit­ing Stevens’ “Tea at the Palace of Hoon.”

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