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Some of our best poets have the greatest range: think of Shakespeare, in all his wild permutations, or Edna St. Vincent Millay boomeranging from heartbreak to revelry. Or T. S. Eliot, who captured our bruised souls in \u201cThe Waste Land,\u201d itemized the neuroses of unrequited love in \u201cPrufrock, and then turned around and set to verse the antics of cats like Growltiger and Rumpleteazer. You could say that the same range exists in the best of actors\u2014like Jeremy Irons, who\u2019s played everyone from starry-eyed Charles Ryder to Humbert Humbert himself. Irons\u2019s iconic voice has lent itself to animated lions and audiobooks before, but now, he joins us to talk about perhaps his most ambitious project yet: narrating the poems of T. S. Eliot.

Go beyond the episode:

• Jeremy Irons reads The Poems of T. S. Eliot from Faber & Faber and BBC Radio 4
• Read more about T. S. Eliot\u2019s life at the Poetry Foundation
• May we suggest Juliet Stevenson\u2019s portfolio of Jane Austen\u2019s novels for your next road trip?
• Listen for yourself: T. S. Eliot reads \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock\u201dand \u201cThe Waste Land\u201d
• On the other hand, we love W. H. Auden\u2019s reading of \u201cAs I Walked Out One Evening\u201d (and his collaboration on the Night Mail documentary)

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

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Have suggestions for projects you\u2019d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. Excerpt of \u201cThe Rum Tum Tugger\u201d used courtesy the BBC, which owns the production copyright.

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