Episodes
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the dance which, from when it reached Britain in the early nineteenth century, revolutionised the relationship between music, literature and people here for the next hundred years. While it may seem formal now, it was the informality and daring that drove its popularity, with couples holding each other as they spun round a room to new lighter music popularised by Johann Strauss, father and son, such as The Blue Danube. Soon the Waltz expanded the creative world in poetry, ballet, novellas and music, from the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev to Moon River and Are You Lonesome Tonight.
With
Susan JonesEmeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford
Derek B. ScottProfessor Emeritus of Music at the University of Leeds
And
Theresa BucklandEmeritus Professor of Dance History and Ethnography at the University of Roehampton
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Egil Bakka, Theresa Jill Buckland, Helena Saarikoski, and Anne von Bibra Wharton (eds.), Waltzing Through Europe: Attitudes towards Couple Dances in the Long Nineteenth Century, (Open Book Publishers, 2020)
Theresa Jill Buckland, ‘How the Waltz was Won: Transmutations and the Acquisition of Style in Early English Modern Ballroom Dancing. Part One: Waltzing Under Attack’ (Dance Research, 36/1, 2018); ‘Part Two: The Waltz Regained’ (Dance Research, 36/2, 2018)
Theresa Jill Buckland, Society Dancing: Fashionable Bodies in England, 1870-1920 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
Erica Buurman, The Viennese Ballroom in the Age of Beethoven (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Paul Cooper, ‘The Waltz in England, c. 1790-1820’ (Paper presented at Early Dance Circle conference, 2018)
Sherril Dodds and Susan Cook (eds.), Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Dance and Music (Ashgate, 2013), especially ‘Dancing Out of Time: The Forgotten Boston of Edwardian England’ by Theresa Jill Buckland
Zelda Fitzgerald, Save Me the Waltz (first published 1932; Vintage Classics, 2001)
Hilary French, Ballroom: A People's History of Dancing (Reaktion Books, 2022)
Susan Jones, Literature, Modernism, and Dance (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Mark Knowles, The Wicked Waltz and Other Scandalous Dances: Outrage at Couple Dancing in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries (McFarland, 2009)
Rosamond Lehmann, Invitation to the Waltz (first published 1932; Virago, 2006)
Eric McKee, Decorum of the Minuet, Delirium of the Waltz: A Study of Dance-Music Relations in 3/4 Time (Indiana University Press, 2012)
Eduard Reeser, The History of the Walz (Continental Book Co., 1949)
Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. 27 (Macmillan, 2nd ed., 2000), especially ‘Waltz’ by Andrew Lamb
Derek B. Scott, Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th-Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris and Vienna (Oxford University Press, 2008), especially the chapter ‘A Revolution on the Dance Floor, a Revolution in Musical Style: The Viennese Waltz’
Joseph Wechsberg, The Waltz Emperors: The Life and Times and Music of the Strauss Family (Putnam, 1973)
Cheryl A. Wilson, Literature and Dance in Nineteenth-century Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out (first published 1915; William Collins, 2013)
Virginia Woolf, The Years (first published 1937; Vintage Classics, 2016)
David Wyn Jones, The Strauss Dynasty and Habsburg Vienna (Cambridge University Press, 2023)
Sevin H. Yaraman, Revolving Embrace: The Waltz as Sex, Steps, and Sound (Pendragon Press, 2002)
Rishona Zimring, Social Dance and the Modernist Imagination in Interwar Britain (Ashgate Press, 2013)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lewis Carroll's book which first appeared in print in 1865 with illustrations by John Tenniel. It has since become one of the best known works in English, captivating readers who follow young Alice as she chases a white rabbit, pink eyed, in a waistcoat with pocket watch, down a rabbit hole that becomes a well and into wonderland. There she meets the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the March Hare, the Mock Turtle and more, all the while growing smaller and larger, finally outgrowing everyone at the trial of Who Stole the Tarts from the Queen of Hearts and exclaiming 'Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards!'
With
Franziska KohltLeverhulme Research Fellow in the History of Science at the University of Leeds and the Inaugural Carrollian Fellow of the University of Southern California
Kiera VaclavikProfessor of Children’s Literature and Childhood Culture at Queen Mary, University of London
And
Robert Douglas-FairhurstProfessor of English Literature at Magdalen College, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Kate Bailey and Simon Sladen (eds), Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser (V&A Publishing, 2021)
Gillian Beer, Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (University of Chicago Press, 2016)
Will Brooker, Alice's Adventures: Lewis Carroll and Alice in Popular Culture (Continuum, 2004)
Humphrey Carpenter, Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (first published 1985; Faber and Faber, 2009)
Lewis Carroll (introduced by Martin Gardner), The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000)
Gavin Delahunty and Christoph Benjamin Schulz (eds), Alice in Wonderland Through the Visual Arts (Tate Publishing, 2011)
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland (Harvill Secker, 2015)
Colleen Hill, Fairy Tale Fashion (Yale University Press, 2016)
Franziska Kohlt, Alice through the Wonderglass: The Surprising Histories of a Children's Classic (Reaktion, forthcoming 2025) Franziska Kohlt and Justine Houyaux (eds.), Alice: Through the Looking-Glass: A Companion (Peter Lang, forthcoming 2024)
Charlie Lovett, Lewis Carroll: Formed by Faith (University of Virginia Press, 2022)
Elizabeth Sewell, The Field of Nonsense (first published 1952; Dalkey Archive Press, 2016)
Kiera Vaclavik, 'Listening to the Alice books' (Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 26, Issue 1, January 2021)
Diane Waggoner, Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood (Princeton University Press 2020)
Edward Wakeling, The Man and his Circle (IB Tauris, 2014)
Edward Wakeling, The Photographs of Lewis Carroll: A Catalogue Raisonné (University of Texas Press, 2015)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare’s great comedies, which plays in the space between marriage, love and desire. By convention a wedding means a happy ending and here there are three, but neither Orsino nor Viola, Olivia nor Sebastian know much of each other’s true character and even the identities of the twins Viola and Sebastian have only just been revealed to their spouses to be. These twins gain some financial security but it is unclear what precisely the older Orsino and Olivia find enduringly attractive in the adolescent objects of their love. Meanwhile their hopes and illusions are framed by the fury of Malvolio, tricked into trusting his mistress Olivia loved him and who swears an undefined revenge on all those who mocked him.
With
Pascale AebischerProfessor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Performance Studies at the University of Exeter
Michael DobsonProfessor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham
And
Emma SmithProfessor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford
Produced by Simon Tillotson, Victoria Brignell and Luke Mulhall
Reading list:
C.L. Barber, Shakespeare’s Festive Comedies: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom (first published 1959; Princeton University Press, 2011)
Simone Chess, ‘Queer Residue: Boy Actors’ Adult Careers in Early Modern England’ (Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 19.4, 2020)
Callan Davies, What is a Playhouse? England at Play, 1520-1620 (Routledge, 2023)
Frances E. Dolan, Twelfth Night: Language and Writing (Bloomsbury, 2014)
John Drakakis (ed.), Alternative Shakespeares (Psychology Press, 2002), especially ‘Disrupting Sexual Difference: Meaning and Gender in the Comedies’ by Catherine Belsey
Bart van Es, Shakespeare’s Comedies: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Sonya Freeman Loftis, Mardy Philippian and Justin P. Shaw (eds.), Inclusive Shakespeares: Identity, Pedagogy, Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), especially ‘”I am all the daughters of my father’s house, and all the brothers too”: Genderfluid Potentiality in As You Like It and Twelfth Night’ by Eric Brinkman
Ezra Horbury, ‘Transgender Reassessments of the Cross-Dressed Page in Shakespeare, Philaster, and The Honest Man’s Fortune’ (Shakespeare Quarterly 73, 2022)
Jean Howard, ‘Crossdressing, the theatre, and gender struggle in early modern England’ (Shakespeare Quarterly 39, 1988)
Harry McCarthy, Boy Actors in Early Modern England: Skill and Stagecraft in the Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Stephen Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare's England (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
William Shakespeare (eds. Michael Dobson and Molly Mahood), Twelfth Night (Penguin, 2005)
William Shakespeare (ed. Keir Elam), Twelfth Night (Arden Shakespeare, 2008)
Emma Smith, This is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright (Pelican, 2019)
Victoria Sparey, Shakespeare’s Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture (Manchester University Press, 2024)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dutch artist famous for starry nights and sunflowers, self portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over, and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) painted them and around 900 others in the last decade of his short, brilliant life and, famously, in that lifetime he made only one recorded sale. Yet within a few decades after his death these extraordinary works, with all their colour and life, became the most desirable of all modern art, propelled in part by the story of Vincent van Gogh's struggle with mental health.
With
Christopher RiopelleThe Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery
Martin BaileyA leading Van Gogh specialist and correspondent for The Art Newspaper
And
Frances FowleProfessor of Nineteenth Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator at National Galleries Scotland
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Martin Bailey, Living with Vincent Van Gogh: The Homes and Landscapes that shared the Artist (White Lion Publishing, 2019)
Martin Bailey, Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln, 2021)
Martin Bailey, Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln, 2021)
Nienke Bakker and Ella Hendriks, Van Gogh and the Sunflowers: A Masterpiece Examined (Van Gogh Museum, 2019)
Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Teio Meedendorp and Louis van Tilborgh (eds), Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months (Thames & Hudson, 2023)
Frances Fowle, Van Gogh's Twin: The Scottish Art Dealer Alexander Reid, 1854-1928 (National Galleries of Scotland, 2010)
Bregje Gerritse, The Potato Eaters: Van Gogh’s First Masterpiece (Van Gogh Museum, 2021)
Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2012)
Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2009)
Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh, A Life in Letters (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2020)
Hans Luitjen, Jo van Gogh Bonger: The Woman who Made Vincent Famous Bloomsbury, 2022
Louis van Tilborgh, Martin Bailey, Karen Serres (ed.), Van Gogh Self-Portraits (Courtauld Institute, 2022)
Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger, Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings (Taschen, 2022)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Poe (1809-1849), the American author who is famous for his Gothic tales of horror, madness and the dark interiors of the mind, such as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-Tale Heart. As well as tapping at our deepest fears in poems such as The Raven, Poe pioneered detective fiction with his character C. Auguste Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. After his early death, a rival rushed out a biography to try to destroy Poe's reputation but he has only become more famous over the years as a cultural icon as well as an author.
With
Bridget BennettProfessor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds
Erin ForbesSenior Lecturer in 19th-century African American and US Literature at the University of Bristol
And
Tom WrightReader in Rhetoric at the University of Sussex
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Peter Ackroyd, Poe: A Life Cut Short (Vintage, 2009)
Amy Branam Armiento and Travis Montgomery (eds.), Poe and Women: Recognition and Revision (Lehigh University Press, 2023)
Joan Dayan, Fables of Mind: An Inquiry into Poe's Fiction (Oxford University Press, 1987)
Erin Forbes, ‘Edgar Allan Poe in the Great Dismal Swamp’ (Modern Philology, 2016)
Kevin J. Hayes (ed.), Edgar Allan Poe in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
J. Gerald Kennedy and Scott Peeples (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Jill Lepore, 'The Humbug: Poe and the Economy of Horror' (The New Yorker, April 20, 2009)
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark (Vintage, 1993)
Scott Peeples and Michelle Van Parys, The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City (Princeton University Press, 2020)
Edgar Allan Poe, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin, 2006)
Shawn Rosenhelm and Stephen Rachman (eds.), The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Marguerite, Queen of Navarre (1492 – 1549), author of the Heptaméron, a major literary landmark in the French Renaissance. Published after her death, The Heptaméron features 72 short stories, many of which explore relations between the sexes. However, Marguerite’s life was more eventful than that of many writers. Born into the French nobility, she found herself the sister of the French king when her brother Francis I came to the throne in 1515. At a time of growing religious change, Marguerite was a leading exponent of reform in the Catholic Church and translated an early work of Martin Luther into French. As the Reformation progressed, she was not afraid to take risks to protect other reformers.
With
Sara Barker Associate Professor of Early Modern History and Director of the Centre for the Comparative History of Print at the University of Leeds
Emily Butterworth Professor of Early Modern French at King’s College London
And
Emma HerdmanLecturer in French at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Giovanni Boccaccio (trans. Wayne A. Rebhorn), The Decameron (Norton, 2013)
Emily Butterworth, Marguerite de Navarre: A Critical Companion (Boydell &Brewer, 2022)
Patricia Cholakian and Rouben Cholakian, Marguerite de Navarre: Mother of the Renaissance (Columbia University Press, 2006)
Gary Ferguson, Mirroring Belief: Marguerite de Navarre’s Devotional Poetry (Edinburgh University Press, 1992)
Gary Ferguson and Mary B. McKinley (eds.), A Companion to Marguerite de Navarre (Brill, 2013)
Mark Greengrass, The French Reformation (John Wiley & Sons, 1987)
R.J. Knecht, The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France (Fontana Press, 2008)
R.J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
John D. Lyons and Mary B. McKinley (eds.), Critical Tales: New Studies of the ‘Heptaméron’ and Early Modern Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993)
Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Paul Chilton), The Heptameron (Penguin, 2004)
Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Rouben Cholakian and Mary Skemp), Selected Writings: A Bilingual Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2008)
Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Hilda Dale), The Coach and The Triumph of the Lamb (Elm Press, 1999)
Marguerite de Navarre (trans. Hilda Dale), The Prisons (Whiteknights, 1989)
Marguerite de Navarre (ed. Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani), L’Heptaméron (Libraririe générale française, 1999)
Jonathan A. Reid, King’s Sister – Queen of Dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her Evangelical Network (Brill, 2009)
Paula Sommers, ‘The Mirror and its Reflections: Marguerite de Navarre’s Biblical Feminism’ (Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 5, 1986)
Kathleen Wellman, Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France (Yale University Press, 2013)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder that all that glisters is not gold. He picked on traits of the waning landed class of Americans and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways that led to greater waste throughout society. He called these conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption and he developed a critique of a system that favoured profits for owners without regard to social good. The Theory of the Leisure Class was a best seller and funded Veblen for the rest of his life, and his ideas influenced the New Deal of the 1930s. Since then, an item that becomes more desirable as it becomes more expensive is known as a Veblen good.
With
Matthew WatsonProfessor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick
Bill WallerProfessor of Economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York
And
Mary WrennSenior Lecturer in Economics at the University of the West of England
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Charles Camic, Veblen: The Making of an Economist who Unmade Economics (Harvard University Press, 2021)
John P. Diggins, Thorstein Veblen: Theorist of the Leisure Class (Princeton University Press, 1999)
John P. Diggins, The Bard of Savagery: Thorstein Veblen and Modern Social Theory (Seabury Press, 1978)
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Penguin, 1999) Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers (Penguin, 2000), particularly the chapter ‘The Savage Society of Thorstein Veblen’
Ken McCormick, Veblen in Plain English: A Complete Introduction to Thorstein Veblen’s Economics (Cambria Press, 2006)
Sidney Plotkin and Rick Tilman, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen (Yale University Press, 2012)
Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need (William Morrow & Company, 1999)
Juliet B. Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2005)
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (first published 1899; Oxford University Press, 2009)
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise (first published 1904; Legare Street Press, 2022)
Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America (first published 2018; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)
Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America (first published 1923; Routledge, 2017)
Thorstein Veblen, Conspicuous Consumption (Penguin, 2005)
Thorstein Veblen, The Complete Works (Musaicum Books, 2017)
Charles J. Whalen (ed.), Institutional Economics: Perspective and Methods in Pursuit of a Better World (Routledge, 2021)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's greatest literary success, his thirteenth novel in a series exploring the extended Rougon-Macquart family. The relative here is Etienne Lantier, already known to Zola’s readers as one of the blighted branch of the family tree and his story is set in Northern France. It opens with Etienne trudging towards a coalmine at night seeking work, and soon he is caught up in a bleak world in which starving families struggle and then strike, as they try to hold on to the last scraps of their humanity and the hope of change.
With
Susan HarrowAshley Watkins Chair of French at the University of Bristol
Kate GriffithsProfessor in French and Translation at Cardiff University
And
Edmund BirchLecturer in French Literature and Director of Studies at Churchill College & Selwyn College, University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
David Baguley, Naturalist Fiction: The Entropic Vision (Cambridge University Press, 1990)
William Burgwinkle, Nicholas Hammond and Emma Wilson (eds.), The Cambridge History of French Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2011), particularly ‘Naturalism’ by Nicholas White
Kate Griffiths, Emile Zola and the Artistry of Adaptation (Legenda, 2009)
Kate Griffiths and Andrew Watts, Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio, and Print (University of Wales Press, 2013)
Anna Gural-Migdal and Robert Singer (eds.), Zola and Film: Essays in the Art of Adaptation (McFarland & Co., 2005)
Susan Harrow, Zola, The Body Modern: Pressures and Prospects of Representation (Legenda, 2010)
F. W. J. Hemmings, The Life and Times of Emile Zola (first published 1977; Bloomsbury, 2013)
William Dean Howells, Emile Zola (The Floating Press, 2018)
Lida Maxwell, Public Trials: Burke, Zola, Arendt, and the Politics of Lost Causes (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Brian Nelson, Emile Zola: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Brian Nelson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Emile Zola (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Sandy Petrey, Realism and Revolution: Balzac, Stendhal, Zola, and the Performances of History (Cornell University Press, 1988)
Arthur Rose, ‘Coal politics: receiving Emile Zola's Germinal’ (Modern & contemporary France, 2021, Vol.29, 2)
Philip D. Walker, Emile Zola (Routledge, 1969)
Emile Zola (trans. Peter Collier), Germinal (Oxford University Press, 1993)
Emile Zola (trans. Roger Pearson), Germinal (Penguin Classics, 2004)
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In the 1000th edition of In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss arguably the most celebrated film of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). It begins with an image that, once seen, stays with you for the rest of your life: the figure of Death playing chess with a Crusader on the rocky Swedish shore. The release of this film in 1957 brought Bergman fame around the world. We see Antonius Block, the Crusader, realising he can’t beat Death but wanting to prolong this final game for one last act, without yet knowing what that act might be. As he goes on a journey through a plague ridden world, his meeting with a family of jesters and their baby offers him some kind of epiphany.
With
Jan HolmbergDirector of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, Stockholm
Claire ThomsonProfessor of Cinema History and Director of the School of European Languages, Culture and Society at University College London
And
Laura HubnerProfessor of Film at the University of Winchester
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Alexander Ahndoril (trans. Sarah Death), The Director (Granta, 2008)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Marianne Ruuth), Images: My Life in Film (Faber and Faber, 1995)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Joan Tate), The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography (Viking, 1988)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Joan Tate), The Best Intentions (Vintage, 2018)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Joan Tate), Sunday’s Children (Vintage, 2018)
Ingmar Bergman (trans. Joan Tate), Private Confessions (Vintage, 2018)
Stig Björkman, Torsten Manns and Jonas Sima (trans. Paul Britten Austin), Bergman on Bergman: Interviews with Ingmar Bergman (Da Capo Press, 1993)
Melvyn Bragg, The Seventh Seal: BFI Film Classics (British Film Institute, 1993)
Paul Duncan and Bengt Wanselius (eds.), The Ingmar Bergman Archives (Taschen/Max Ström, 2018)
Erik Hedling (ed.), Ingmar Bergman: An Enduring Legacy (Lund University Press, 2021)
Laura Hubner, The Films of Ingmar Bergman: Illusions of Light and Darkness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
Daniel Humphrey, Queer Bergman: Sexuality, Gender, and the European Art Cinema (University of Texas Press, 2013)
Maaret Koskinen (ed.), Bergman Revisited: Performance, Cinema, and the Arts (Wallflower Press, 2008)
Selma Lagerlöf (trans. Peter Graves), The Phantom Carriage (Norvik Press, 2011)
Mariah Larsson and Anders Marklund (eds.), Swedish Film: An Introduction and Reader (Nordic Academic Press, 2010)
Paisley Livingston, Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Art (Cornell University Press, 2019)
Birgitta Steene (ed.), Focus on The Seventh Seal (Prentice Hall, 1972)
Birgitta Steene, Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide (Amsterdam University Press, 2014)
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Death in Venice is Thomas Mann’s most famous – and infamous - novella.Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young boy’s beauty becomes sexual obsession.It explores the link between creativity and self-destruction, and by the end Aschenbach’s humiliation is complete, dying on a deckchair in the act of ogling. Aschenbach's stalking of the boy and dreaming of pederasty can appal modern readers, even more than Mann expected.
With
Karolina Watroba, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Modern Languages at All Souls College, University of Oxford
Erica Wickerson, a Former Research Fellow at St Johns College, University of Cambridge
Sean Williams, Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield
Sean Williams' series of Radio 3's The Essay, Death in Trieste, can be found here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lzd4
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Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex begins with a warning: the murderer of the old king of Thebes, Laius, has never been identified or caught, and he’s still at large in the city. Oedipus is the current king of Thebes, and he sets out to solve the crime.
His investigations lead to a devastating conclusion. Not only is Oedipus himself the killer, but Laius was his father, and Laius’ wife Jocasta, who Oedipus has married, is his mother.
Oedipus Rex was composed during the golden age of Athens, in the 5th century BC. Sophocles probably wrote it to explore the dynamics of power in an undemocratic society. It has unsettled audiences from the very start: it is the only one of Sophocles’ plays that didn’t win first prize at Athens’ annual drama festival. But it’s had exceptionally good write-ups from the critics: Aristotle called it the greatest example of the dramatic arts. Freud believed it laid bare the deepest structures of human desire.
With:
Nick Lowe, Reader in Classical Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
Fiona Macintosh, Professor of Classical Reception and Fellow of St Hilda’s College at the University of Oxford
Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Durham University
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In the year 29 BC the great Roman poet Virgil published these lines: Blessed is he who has succeeded in learning the laws of nature’s working, has cast beneath his feet all fear and fate’s implacable decree, and the howl of insatiable Death. But happy too is he who knows the rural gods…
They’re from his poem the Georgics, a detailed account of farming life in the Italy of the time. ‘Georgics’ means ‘agricultural things’, and it’s often been read as a farming manual. But it was written at a moment when the Roman world was emerging from a period of civil war, and questions of land ownership and management were heavily contested. It’s also a philosophical reflection on humanity’s relationship with the natural world, the ravages of time, and the politics of Virgil’s day.
It’s exerted a profound influence on European writing about agriculture and rural life, and has much to offer environmental thinking today.
With
Katharine Earnshaw Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter;
Neville Morley Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter
and
Diana SpencerProfessor of Classics at the University of Birmingham
Producer: Luke Mulhall
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the highly influential American poet Walt Whitman.
In 1855 Whitman was working as a printer, journalist and property developer when he published his first collection of poetry. It began:
I celebrate myself,And what I assume you shall assumeFor every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
The book was called Leaves of Grass. In it, Whitman set out to break away from European literary forms and traditions. Using long lines written in free verse, he developed a poetry meant to express a distinctively American outlook.
Leaves of Grass is full of verse that celebrates both the sovereign individual, and the deep fellowship between individuals. Its optimism about the American experience was challenged by the Civil War and its aftermath, but Whitman emerged as a celebrity and a key figure in the development of American culture.
With
Sarah ChurchwellProfessor of American Literature and the Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London
Peter Riley Lecturer in 19th Century American Literature at the University of Exeter and
Mark FordProfessor of English and American Literature at University College London
Producer Luke Mulhall
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Virginia Woolf's highly influential essay on women and literature, which considers both literary history and future opportunity.
In 1928 Woolf gave two lectures at Cambridge University about women and fiction. In front of an audience at Newnham College, she delivered the following words: “All I could do was offer you an opinion upon one minor point - a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved”.
These lectures formed the basis of a book she published the following year, and Woolf chose A Room Of One’s Own for its title. It is a text that set the scene for the study of women’s writing for the rest of the 20th century. Arguably, it initiated the discipline of women’s history too.
With
Hermione LeeEmeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford
Michele Barrett Emeritus Professor of Modern Literary and Cultural Theory at Queen Mary, University of London
and
Alexandra HarrisProfessor of English at the University of Birmingham
Producer Luke Mulhall
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic which is regarded as one of the greatest works of world literature. Its importance in Indian culture has been compared to that of the Iliad and Odyssey in the West, and it’s still seen as a sacred text by Hindus today.
Written in Sanskrit, it tells the story of the legendary prince and princess Rama and Sita, and the many challenges, misfortunes and choices that they face. About 24,000 verses long, the Ramayana is also one of the longest ancient epics. It’s a text that’s been hugely influential and it continues to be popular in India and elsewhere in Asia. With
Jessica Frazier Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Lancaster University
and
Naomi AppletonSenior Lecturer in Asian Religions at the University of Edinburgh
The image above shows Rama, Sita, Hanuman, Lakshmana and devotees, from the Shree Jalaram Prarthana Mandal, Leicester.
Producer Luke Mulhall
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In 1957 Stevie Smith published a poetry collection called Not Waving But Drowning – and its title poem gave us a phrase which has entered the language.
Its success has overshadowed her wider work as the author of more than half a dozen collections of poetry and three novels, mostly written while she worked as a secretary. Her poems, printed with her pen and ink sketches, can seem simple and comical, but often beneath the surface lurk themes of melancholy, loneliness, love and death.
With Jeremy Noel-TodAssociate Professor in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia
Noreen Masud Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature at the University of Bristol
and
Will May Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of Southampton
The photograph above shows Stevie Smith recording her story Sunday at Home, a finalist in the BBC Third Programme Short Story competition in 1949.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Donne (1573-1631), known now as one of England’s finest poets of love and notable in his own time as an astonishing preacher. He was born a Catholic in a Protestant country and, when he married Anne More without her father's knowledge, Donne lost his job in the government circle and fell into a poverty that only ended once he became a priest in the Church of England. As Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, his sermons were celebrated, perhaps none more than his final one in 1631 when he was plainly in his dying days, as if preaching at his own funeral.
The image above is from a miniature in the Royal Collection and was painted in 1616 by Isaac Oliver (1565-1617)
With
Mary Ann LundAssociate Professor in Renaissance English Literature at the University of Leicester
Sue WisemanProfessor of Seventeenth Century Literature at Birkbeck, University of London
And
Hugh AdlingtonProfessor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen’s last complete novel, which was published just before Christmas in 1817, five months after her death. It is the story of Anne Elliot, now 27 and (so we are told), losing her bloom, and of her feelings for Captain Wentworth who she was engaged to, 8 years before – an engagement she broke off under pressure from her father and godmother. When Wentworth, by chance, comes back into Anne Elliot's life, he is still angry with her and neither she nor Austen's readers can know whether it is now too late for their thwarted love to have a second chance.
The image above is from a 1995 BBC adaptation of the novel, with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds
With
Karen O’BrienVice-Chancellor of Durham University
Fiona StaffordProfessor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford
And
Paddy BullardAssociate Professor of English Literature and Book History at the University of Reading
Producer: Simon Tillotson
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' film, released in 1941, which is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, films yet made. Welles plays the lead role of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper magnate, and Welles directed, produced and co-wrote this story of loneliness at the heart of a megalomaniac. The plot was partly inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, who then used the power of his own newspapers to try to suppress the film’s release. It was to take some years before Citizen Kane reached a fuller audience and, from that point, become so celebrated.
The image above is of Kane addressing a public meeting while running for Governor.
With
Stella BruzziProfessor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London
Ian ChristieProfessor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London
And
John David RhodesProfessor of Film Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Song of the Nibelungs, a twelfth century German epic, full of blood, violence, fantasy and bleakness. It is a foundational work of medieval literature, drawing on the myths of Scandinavia and central Europe. The poem tells of two couples, Siegfried and Kriemhild and Gunther and Brunhilda, whose lives are destroyed by lies and revenge. It was extremely popular in its time, sometimes rewritten with happier endings, and was rediscovered by German Romantics and has since been drawn from selectively by Wagner, Fritz Lang and, infamously, the Nazis looking to support ideas on German heritage.
The image above is of Siegfried seeing Kriemhild for the first time, a miniature from the Hundeshagenschen Code manuscript dating from 15th Century.
With
Sarah BowdenReader in German and Medieval Studies at King’s College London
Mark ChincaProfessor of Medieval German and Comparative Literature at the University of Cambridge
And
Bettina BildhauerProfessor of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson
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