The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Books, Arts

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2020

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was a successful administrator and general man-about-town in Restoration London. As a devoted theatergoer, a capable bureaucrat, and a privileged witness of the King and his court, he saw firsthand many of the most important developments of the 1660s, including events like the Great Plague of London (1665) and the Great Fire of London (1666). And he was one of the world's great diarists, carefully recording his daily life and general observations in a work he kept secret from all eyes but his own. For over a hundred years his name was little known, until the publication of the diary shocked a nineteenth-century audience. Here was a previous London brought to life - a city rich with intrigue and packed with sexual escapades and scandals - and here too was an unassuming narrator, whose descriptions of food and fashion and activity and his own marriage and many infidelities, proved a perfect guide to transport readers to another era. Pepys's diary became a perfect bedside book, readable even today for its fascinating detail, wry good humor, joy and heartbreak, and insight into the human condition. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to [email protected]. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	Hello. A scholar observed that in some ways Samuel Pepys is to the diary what montane is to the essay,
0:16.6	for his balance of interior and public comment, variety of subject matter, and the apparent
0:21.7	simplicity of accounting become models for the journal.
0:26.0	Samuel Pepys has become famous as a writer.
0:29.0	Like Aunt Frank or Marco Polo, his diaries have propelled him into the literary pantheon.
0:35.9	But this fame as a writer was extremely unlikely.
0:40.6	Peeps was known in his day not as a diarist, not even as an amateur writer or occasional poet, but as an administrator, a fact totem, a very successful one, but a bureaucrat, nevertheless.
0:53.5	He was the Secretary of the Admiralty, working tirelessly for his kings, Charles II and James
0:59.6	the Second.
1:00.6	Charles II was the first of the Restoration Kings and for those of you not steeped in English history
1:06.7	That means we are in the years of the 1660s in the immediate aftermath of the Commonwealth
1:14.4	Led by Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan who had led the ouster of Charles I and become the Lord Protector.
1:19.9	Cromwell died and his son Richard took over for a while but he was not very experienced
1:25.4	militarily and at a hard time gaining the respect or support of the army that was ensuring
1:30.8	the Commonwealth's power. Eventually he resigned and fled to France,
1:35.4	leading the way for Charles II to take over. Charles II was not a strong king.
1:41.7	He himself had some personal problems, personal failings, shall we say,
1:45.8	with debauchery competing for foreign policy ineptitude in the list of things for which
1:50.8	he was and is criticized. His 25 years on the throne were
1:55.0	beset by problems including the great plague of 1665 and the great fire of
2:01.0	London in 1666. But he lasted long enough to become stable and he presided
	...

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