Close reading is a central value and key skill for all students of English literature.

"Readings in the Parlor" is a lunchtime series of reading events designed for those interested in the art of reading well.

As Ian Watt and other literary historians have emphasized, the rise of reading for pleasure coincided with the modern rise of leisure time and the new creation of leisure spaces designed both for solitary reading and literate conversation. Although reading predates parlors, reading and parlors are natural friends. What better way, then, to use our Parlor than to read--and read closely and convivially--in it together.

No Readings in the Parlor scheduled at this time.

New Web Feature: Readings in the Parlor video archive.
If you missed any of the previous readings, or attended but wish to revisit all or a segment of the reading, watch the video while examining the text.

*RealPlayer required (free download)

• Prologue, Henry Roth's Call it Sleep, read by Werner Sollors. March 13, 2006. Video Text.

• Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, read by Elaine Scarry. Thursday, November 10, 2005. Video Text.

• "Henry James in Piazza San Marco and E.M. Forster in Piazza Signoria:  A Comparison of Chapter 27 of The Wings of the Dove with Chapter 4 of A Room With a View," read by Bob Kiely, Thursday, October 13, 2005. Video Text.
Note: The brief introduction was not on microphone and is difficult to hear.

• E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime, read by J. D. Connor, Thursday, April 14, 2005.

• Lycidas by John Milton, read by Gordon Teskey, Tuesday, March 1, 2005.

• "Extraterrestrial Poems," read by Daniel Albright, Wednesday, November 17, 2004.

• “Six Sonnets,” read by Seamus Heaney, Monday, October 18, 2004.

• "Beginnings in Jane Austen," read by Lynn Festa, Thursday, April 29, 2004.

• "How to Love a Poem," read by Erik Gray, Thursday, February 26, 2004.

• "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style." Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita read by Leland de la Durantaye, November 20, 2003. Text

• Making Stories Out of Facts: Shakespeare's "Sonnet 94" & Blake's "Lamb" read by Helen Vendler, Tuesday, October 7, 2003.

• How Novels Begin read by Philip Fisher, Thursday, April 24, 2003. Text

• Lycidas by John Milton, read by Gordon Teskey, Tuesday, February 25, 2003.

• The Bean-Field by Ralph Waldo Emerson, read by Elisa New, December 9, 2002. Text

• WHAT DO WE SAY ABOUT THIS? Poems by Wordsworth, Hardy, and Dickinson, read by Seamus Heaney, October 30, 2002. Text

• The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe, read by Ann Rowland, March 18, 2002. 

• Geoffrey Chaucer's "Truth, Balade de Bon Conseyl," read by Nicholas Watson, February 21, 2002. Text

• Chops and Tomato-sauce; or, How to Close-Read (Parts of) a Novel, presented by Leah Price, Dec. 3, 2001.

• Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson, read by Lawrence Buell -  November 6th, 2001. Text

• "The Riverman" by Elizabeth Bishop, read by Peter Sacks -  October 25th, 2001.