Published On Jun 23, 2024
The broad theme of this series, truth and lies, was a favourite subject of Lucian of Samosata, the last of our Greek-language authors. A cosmopolitan and highly cultured Syrian subject of the Roman Empire in the second century CE, Lucian wrote in the classical Greek of fifth-century Athens. His razor-sharp satire was a model for Erasmus, Voltaire and Swift. Emily and Tom share some of their favourite excerpts from the Dialogues, ‘A True History’ and other works – with trips to the moon, boundary-pushing religious scepticism and wildly improbable but not technically untrue readings of Homer – and discuss why they still read as fresh and funny today.
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsyt
Get the book: https://lrb.me/luciancr
Further reading in the LRB:
Tim Whitmarsh: Target Practice
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n...
James Davidson: Stomach-Churning
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n...
Subscribe to the LRB and get up to 75% off the cover price: https://www.mylrb.co.uk/
ABOUT CLOSE READINGS
Close Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring.
Find more episodes here: • Close Readings
Running in 2024:
ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell
HUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards
AMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones
Plus two bonus series:
MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley
POLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford
Also included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of:
AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones
MEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley
THE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry
MODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry
ABOUT THE LRB
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.