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In Our Time

The Great Gatsby

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss F Scott Fitzgerald’s finest novel, published in 1925, one of the great American novels of the twentieth century. It is told by Nick Carraway, neighbour and friend of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby. In the age of jazz and prohibition, Gatsby hosts lavish parties at his opulent home across the bay from Daisy Buchanan, in the hope she’ll attend one of them and they can be reunited. They were lovers as teenagers but she had given him up for a richer man who she soon married, and Gatsby is obsessed with winning her back. The image above is of Robert Redford as Gatsby in a scene from the film 'The Great Gatsby', 1974. With Sarah Churchwell Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London Philip McGowan Professor of American Literature at Queen’s University, Belfast And William Blazek Associate Professor and Reader in American Literature at Liverpool Hope University Produced by Simon Tillotson and Julia Johnson

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:04.9

Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.

0:07.6

There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our programs

0:11.4

if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.

0:14.8

I hope you enjoyed the programs.

0:16.4

Hello, the great Gatsby is now seen as F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel and one of

0:21.1

the greatest of American novels.

0:23.4

There we find J. Gatsby newly-wealthy, obsessed with winning the love of Daisy Buchanan for

0:28.3

a second time, she had once given him up for a rich man and married him.

0:33.6

In an age of jazz and prohibition, Gatsby hosts the lavish parties that is opulent home

0:37.7

across the bay from hers in the hope she'll attend one and will pick up where they left

0:42.0

off when they were teenagers.

0:43.7

That would be his fairytale ending, but this is no fairytale.

0:47.2

We're here to discuss the great Gatsby art, Felix McGahn, Professor of American Literature

0:51.8

at Queen's University, Belfast.

0:54.6

William Blashek, Associate Professor and Reader in American Literature at Liverpool Hope

0:58.8

University, and Sarah Churchill, Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding

1:03.4

of the Humanities at the University of London.

1:06.5

Sarah Churchill, there are echoes of Fitzgerald's own life in the great Gatsby.

1:10.8

Can you tell me what they are?

1:12.4

It is certainly not an autobiographical novel, but it draws on many of his experiences

1:16.9

and particularly his emotional experiences.

...

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