YouTube does not have a "Literature" category. Yet. "Perhaps it can be argued that literature is "entertainment." But aligning literature with "entertainment" is disingenous. Literature is never merely "entertainment." [more inside]
posted by mattbucher on Apr 9, 2012 - 17 comments

R.M. Berry on Samuel Beckett's peculiar writing style: "It's as though the narrator's words were almost thoughtless, accidental, written by someone paying no attention to what he or she says." Beckett is best known for his play Waiting For Godot, in which "nothing happens, twice", but he was also an accomplished writer of prose, ranging from the relatively simple Three Novels to the extremely minimal Imagination Dead Imagine. Some of Beckett's more challenging short plays are available on YouTube: Play (pt. 2), Not I (the famous "mouth" play), and Come and Go, one of the shortest plays in the English language (ranging between 121 and 127 words, depending on translation). Once he interviewed John Lennon and found out who the eggman really was. Beckett's final creative work was his poem What Is the Word.
posted by Rory Marinich on Jun 25, 2011 - 41 comments

Suheir Hammad, a Palestinian-American poet and activist now based in New York, writes about being a Muslim immigrant and also a woman challenging conventions. Spotted by Russell Simmons for Def Poetry Jam, she has performed pieces about love in the time of war, exoticising beauty, and a touching ode to her father, among many others. Suheir has just produced and released her first feature film Salt of This Sea, up for the Cannes Films Festival and possibly an Oscar, and recently performed in Ramallah for the 2009 Palestinian Festival of Literature.
posted by divabat on Jul 7, 2009 - 5 comments

The Giving Tree (1973), animated short based on Shel Silverstein's 1964 children's story and narrated by the author. [more inside]
posted by the_bone on Mar 18, 2009 - 38 comments

It's almost as good as being at John Ashbery's home (bio) and there's more, including a preliminary inventory of his library* (search for "inventories" or scroll down). Ashbery's poetry is still very much invested in the reader's pleasure—more so than many supposedly "approachable" poets. You can hear him read his poems (more), watch him (here's -transcript- a brief taste and a half-hour video) or read a few of his poems. [more inside]
posted by ersatz on Jan 28, 2009 - 20 comments

The Guardian has compiled a list of their top fifty arts videos, the majority being from either rare or obscure sources and uploaded onto YouTube.
posted by djgh on Aug 30, 2008 - 13 comments

Vladimir Nabokov discusses Lolita with Lionel Trilling. [more inside]
posted by mattbucher on Apr 3, 2008 - 23 comments

A Wicked Deception (youtube). A fun look at (multi) round-trip machine translation. Sadly, it is a simple fattening of Verbindungsyoutube. Of course, humans, as Jules Verne might tell you, can have problems with translations too. [more inside]
posted by skynxnex on Sep 27, 2007 - 13 comments

Alasdair Gray 0-70 2004 BBC Artworks Scotland film made on the occasion of Glasgow artist and author's (best known for Lanark) seventieth birthday. Also a short clip and another film on his mural work as embedded Youtubery at his site. (Previously.)
posted by Abiezer on Jul 17, 2007 - 19 comments

Poets on YouTube: Bukowski; Dylan Thomas; Jim Morrison; Allen Ginsberg; Sylvia Plath; Billy Collins; Cookie Monster; and what the hell, even Jacques Brel.

But there's plenty of readings by amateurs as well: for example, lilcutiewithabooty06 reads e e cummings; Michael reads cummings really fast; Tom Waits and Bono read Bukowski; bearded men read Lewis Carroll and Shakespeare; and what if Emily Dickinson had a ukulele?

Mouseover links to see titles; feel free to add your favourites.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Mar 26, 2007 - 29 comments

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116: read firmly by Eleanor, skimmed through somewhat hurriedly by Megan, recited from memory by the cowboy hatted Bill, and delivered with a vaguely cockney accent by Will. There are others, as well.
posted by Iridic on Sep 27, 2006 - 10 comments