The Keats-Shelley Podcast

Is this how John Keats would have sounded reading his great sonnet Bright Star?

Dr Ranjan Sen has a better idea than most. A scholar specialising in phonology and phonetics at the University of Sheffield, Ranjan researched how English was spoken in the early 19th century (not least ----more----by a London Cockney) for the cyber-resurrection of John Keats organised by Oxford's Institute of Digital Archaelogy in 2021. 

Read Bright Star here.

The full conversation will be posted in the coming days. For now, listen to this trailer in which Ranjan reads Bright Star as he believes Keats would have. Enormous thanks to Ranjan. 

Listen to James Kidd read and discuss Bright Star here.

In the second part of our conversation with Fiona Sampson, who chaired 2022's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes, we discuss the joys and the challenges of reading Shelley, Keats and the Romantics in general in 2023. ----more----

Read 2022's Keats-Shelley Prize shortlists

Read 2022's Young Romantics Prize shortlists

Fiona also continues her discussion of her favourite Shelley poem Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and how it inspired her new book, Starlight Wood. She ends by revisiting her highly-praised biography of Mary Shelley. 

Read more about Fiona Sampson here.

Buy a copy of Starlight Wood here.

The winner of 2022's Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize is 'December Moth outside a care-home window' by Susan Holland. 

Fiona Sampson writes: ‘This poem is full of linguistic relish and brilliant imagery, with some really exceptional phrase-making including the last line’s ‘glowing impassable threshold.’ Intense, almost forensic observation creates a rich study of will and intention.’

Susan lives on Kintyre, where she wrote the poem. She kindly agreed to to read the poem down the phone, which I hope only adds to its poignancy and power. 

Read 2022's Keats-Shelley Prize shortlists

Read 2022's Young Romantics Prize shortlists

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Listen to an audio version of Fiona Sampson announcing the winners of 2022's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes.----more----

Enormous thanks to Fiona for all her work - and for recording the announcement while recovering from Covid. 

Read 2022's Keats-Shelley Prize shortlists

Read 2022's Young Romantics Prize shortlists

Our guest on this episode of the Keats-Shelley Podcast is the poet, biographer and critic Fiona Sampson - who is also Chair of 2022's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes. 

Read 2022's Keats-Shelley Prize shortlists

Read 2022's Young Romantics Prize shortlists

Our conversation begins with Fiona reading her favourite Shelley poem, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty - which inspired the title of Fiona's new book, Starlight Wood. This forms the basis of our discussion, which roams freely to ponder issues including: the importance of reading aloud; what is 'Intellectual Beauty'; and what does it mean for an atheist like Shelley to write a hymn? Fiona Sampson the poet unravels the sound patterns of Shelley's verse and compares the 'Hymn' to its sister-poem, Mont Blanc. Fiona Sampson the biographer tells the story of the poem's composition and the infamous summer without a summer of 1816, which also inspired Mary Shelley to begin Frankenstein. 

Part 2 of the conversation will follow.

Read more about Fiona Sampson here.

Buy a copy of Starlight Wood here.