Episode
792 Death and Decay in Early Modern Lyric Poetry (with Eileen Sperry) | My Last Book with Bruce Gordon
- Podcast
- The History of Literature
- Published
- Apr 13, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3691
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-history-of-literature-743083/episodes/792-death-and-decay-in-early-modern-lyric-poetry-with-eileen-sperry-my-last-book-with-bruce-gordon/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-history-of-literature-743083/792-death-and-decay-in-early-modern-lyric-poetry-with-eileen-sperry-my-last-book-with-bruce-gordon.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
In this episode, Jacke talks to author Eileen Sperry about her book This Body of Death: Form and Decay in Early Modern Lyric, which examines how the lyric poetry of Shakespeare and his contemporaries shaped our understanding of what it means to be mortal. PLUS a skeleton discovered under a collapsed church floor in the Netherlands might answer a longstanding literary mystery. AND Biblical scholar Bruce Gordon discusses his choice for the last book he will ever read. The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate . The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices