Occasion of the Season: The Shepheardes Calender Podcast

May Episode

Dear all,

Welcome to Occasion of the Season: The Shepheards Calender Podcast - a year-long series in 12 episodes, taking us through Edmund Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender (1579) month by month from May to April. 

I am very happy to share Episode One: May, just in time for the end of the month:

My interlocutor this month was Joe Moshenska, from University College, Oxford University. There are two bonus recordings: a recording of the eclogue read by myself and Joseph Minden, and the full version Natasha Allden’s poetic reinterpretation of the eclogue, from the borderlands of Scotland.

I hope you enjoy this first foray into The Shepheardes Calender, the perennial question of sheep and goats, the use of all such contrasts, and so much else. Please do write to me with thoughts and ideas, or updates on the unfolding of the season wherever you are, and subscribe to this substack to get the new episode in your inbox each month.

My heartiest thanks to Anna Schwartz for describing May’s woodcut, to Joe Moshenska for such a fun conversation, to Seamus McDavey, coming through from the outer Hebrides to share a fondness for goats and a defence of sheep, to Natasha Allden for her poetic reinterpretation of the May eclogue spliced with the flora and fauna of the scottish borderlands, to Joseph Minden for playing the part of Piers, and to Femi Oriogun-Williams for producing the beautiful music for this podcast, for mixing and mastering it, and for invaluable advice on getting started.