Episoder
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the great French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) in London, initially in 1870 and then from 1899. He spent his first visit in poverty, escaping from war in France, while by the second he had become so commercially successful that he stayed at the Savoy Hotel. There, from his balcony, he began a series of almost a hundred paintings that captured the essence of this dynamic city at that time, with fog and smoke almost obscuring the bridges, boats and Houses of Parliament. The pollution was terrible for health but the diffraction through the sooty droplets offered an ever-changing light that captivated Monet, and he was to paint the Thames more than he did his water lilies or haystacks or Rouen Cathedral. On his return to France, Monet appeared to have a new confidence to explore an art that was more abstract than impressionist.
With
Karen SerresSenior Curator of Paintings at the Courtauld Gallery, LondonCurator of the exhibition 'Monet and London. Views of the Thames'
Frances FowleProfessor of Nineteenth-Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator of French Art at the National Galleries of Scotland
And
Jackie WullschlĂ€gerChief Art Critic for the Financial Times and author of âMonet, The Restless Visionâ
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Producer: Simon TillotsonStudio production: John Goudie
Reading list:
Caroline Corbeau Parsons, Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904 (Tate Publishing, 2017)
Frances Fowle, Monet and French Landscape: VĂ©theuil and Normandy (National Galleries of Scotland, 2007), especially the chapter âMaking Money out of Monet: Marketing Monet in Britain 1870-1905â
Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge, Monet (Harry N. Abrams, 1983)
Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the â90s: The Series Paintings (Yale University Press, 1990)
Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the 20th Century (Yale University Press, 1998)
Katharine A. Lochnan, Turner, Whistler, Monet (Tate Publishing, 2005)
Nicholas Reed, Monet and the Thames: Paintings and Modern Views of Monetâs London (Lilburne Press, 1998)
Grace Seiberling, Monet in London (High Museum of Art, 1988)
Karen Serres, Frances Fowle and Jennifer A. Thompson, Monet and London: Views of the Thames (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2024 â catalogue to accompany Courtauld Gallery exhibition)
Charles Stuckey, Monet: A Retrospective (Random House, 1985)
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: The Triumph of Impressionism (first published 1996; Taschen, 2022)
Jackie WullschlÀger, Monet: The Restless Vision (Allen Lane, 2023)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss "The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling" (1749) by Henry Fielding (1707-1754), one of the most influential of the early English novels and a favourite of Dickens. Coleridge wrote that it had one of the 'three most perfect plots ever planned'. Fielding had made his name in the theatre with satirical plays that were so painful for their targets in government that, from then until the 1960s, plays required approval before being staged; seeking other ways to make a living, Fielding turned to law and to fiction. 'Tom Jones' is one of the great comic novels, with the tightness of a farce and the ambition of a Greek epic as told by the finest raconteur. While other authors might present Tom as a rake and a libertine, Fielding makes him the hero for his fundamental good nature, so offering a caution not to judge anyone too soon, if ever.
With
Judith HawleyProfessor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
Henry PowerProfessor of English Literature at the University of Exeter
And
Charlotte RobertsAssociate Professor of English Literature at University College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Reading list:
Martin C. Battestin with Ruthe R. Battestin, Henry Fielding: A Life (Routledge, 1989)
J. M. Beattie, The First English Detectives: The Bow Street Runners and the Policing of London, 1750â1840 (Oxford University Press, 2012) S. Dickie, Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
J.A. Downie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Henry Fielding (ed. John Bender and Simon Stern), The History of Tom Jones (Oxford University Press, 2008)
Henry Fielding (ed. Tom Keymer), The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (Penguin Classics, 1996)
Ronald Paulson, The Life of Henry Fielding: A Critical Biography (Wiley Blackwell, 2000)
Henry Power, Epic into Novel: Henry Fielding, Scriblerian Satire, and the Consumption of Classical Literature (Oxford University Press, 2015)
Claude Rawson, Henry Fielding and the Augustan Ideal under Stress (first published 1972; Routledge, 2021)
Claude Rawson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Henry Fielding (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the greatest poet of his age', Thomas Wyatt (1503 -1542), who brought the poetry of the Italian Renaissance into the English Tudor world, especially the sonnet, so preparing the way for Shakespeare and Donne. As an ambassador to Henry VIII and, allegedly, too close to Anne Boleyn, he experienced great privilege under intense scrutiny. Some of Wyatt's poems, such as They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek, are astonishingly fresh and conversational and yet he wrote them under the tightest constraints, when a syllable out of place could have condemned him to the Tower.
With
Brian Cummings50th Anniversary Professor of English at the University of York
Susan BrigdenRetired Fellow at Lincoln College, University of Oxford
And
Laura AsheProfessor of English Literature at the University of Oxford
Producer: Simon TillotsonIn Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Reading list:
Thomas Betteridge and Suzannah Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance (Routledge, 2016)
Susan Brigden, Thomas Wyatt: The Heartâs Forest (Faber, 2012)
Nicola Shulman, Graven with Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt: Courtier, Poet, Assassin, Spy (Short Books, 2011)
Chris Stamatakis, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Rhetoric of Rewriting (Oxford University Press, 2012)
Patricia Thomson (ed.), Thomas Wyatt: The Critical Heritage (Routledge, 1995)
Greg Walker, Writing Under Tyranny: English Literature and the Henrician Reformation (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Thomas Wyatt (ed. R. A. Rebholz), The Complete Poems (Penguin, 1978)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest European playwrights of the twentieth century. The aim of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was to make the familiar âstrangeâ: with plays such as Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle he wanted his audience not to sit back but to engage, observe and discover the contradictions in life, and act on what they learnt. He developed this approach in turbulent times, from Weimar Germany to the rise of the Nazis, to exile in Scandinavia and America and then post-war life in East Berlin, and he has since inspired dramatists around the world.
With
Laura BradleyProfessor of German and Theatre at the University of Edinburgh
David BarnettProfessor of Theatre at the University of York
And
Tom KuhnProfessor of Twentieth Century German Literature, Emeritus Fellow of St Hugh's College, University of Oxford
Producer: Simon TillotsonIn Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production
Reading list:
David Barnett, Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014)
David Barnett, A History of the Berliner Ensemble (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Laura Bradley and Karen Leeder (eds.), Brecht and the GDR: Politics, Culture, Posterity (Camden House, 2015)
Laura Bradley, âTraining the Audience: Brecht and the Art of Spectatorshipâ (The Modern Language Review, 111, 2016)
Bertolt Brecht (ed. Marc Silberman, Tom Kuhn and Steve Giles), Brecht on Theatre (Bloomsbury, 2014)
Bertolt Brecht (ed. Tom Kuhn, Steve Giles and Marc Silberman), Brecht on Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014)
Bertolt Brecht (trans. Tom Kuhn and David Constantine), The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht (Norton Liveright, 2018) which includes the poem âSpring 1938â read by Tom Kuhn in this programme
Stephen Brockmann (ed.), Bertolt Brecht in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
Meg Mumford, Bertolt Brecht (Routledge, 2009)
Stephen Parker, Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life (Bloomsbury, 2014)
Ronald Speirs, Brechtâs Poetry of Political Exile (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
David Zoob, Brecht: A Practical Handbook (Nick Hern Books, 2018)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristophanes' comedy in which the women of Athens and Sparta, led by Lysistrata, secure peace in the long-running war between them by staging a sex strike. To the men in the audience in 411BC, the idea that peace in the Peloponnesian War could be won so easily was ridiculous and the thought that their wives could have so much power over them was even more so. However Aristophanes' comedy also has the women seizing the treasure in the Acropolis that was meant to fund more fighting in an emergency, a fund the Athenians had recently had to draw on. They were in a perilous position and, much as they might laugh at Aristophanes' jokes, they knew there were real concerns about the actual cost of the war in terms of wealth and manpower.
With
Paul CartledgeAG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge
Sarah MilesAssociate Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University
And
James RobsonProfessor of Classical Studies at the Open University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Lysistrata (Oxford University Press, 1987)
Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Three Plays by Aristophanes: Staging Women (Routledge, 2010)
Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Birds; Lysistrata; Women at the Thesmophoria (Loeb Classical Library series, Harvard University Press, 2014)
Aristophanes (ed. Alan H. Sommerstein), Lysistrata and Other Plays: The Acharnians; The Clouds; Lysistrata (Penguin, 2002)
Aristophanes (ed. Alan H. Sommerstein), Lysistrata (Aris & Phillips, 1998)
Paul Cartledge, Aristophanes and his Theatre of the Absurd (Bristol Classical Press, 1999)
Kenneth Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (University of California Press, 1972)
Germaine Greer, Lysistrata: The Sex Strike: After Aristophanes (Aurora Metro Press, 2000)
Tony Harrison, The Common Chorus: A Version of Aristophanesâ Lysistrata (Faber & Faber, 1992)
Douglas M. MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays (Oxford University Press, 1995)
S. Douglas Olson (ed.), Ancient Comedy and Reception: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Henderson (De Gruyter, 2013), especially 'She (Don't) Gotta Have It: African-American reception of Lysistrata' by Kevin Wetmore
James Robson, Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Bloomsbury ancient comedy companions (Bloomsbury, 2023)
James Robson, Aristophanes: An Introduction (Duckworth, 2009)
Ralph M. Rosen and Helene P. Foley (eds.), Aristophanes and Politics. New Studies (Brill, 2020)
Donald Sells, Parody, Politics and the Populace in Greek Old Comedy (Bloomsbury, 2018)
David Stuttard (ed.), Looking at Lysistrata: Eight Essays and a New Version of Aristophanes' Provocative Comedy (Bristol Classical Press, 2010)
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Finnish epic poem that first appeared in print in 1835 in what was then the Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Russian Empire and until recently part of Sweden. The compiler of this epic was a doctor, Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), who had travelled the land to hear traditional poems about mythical heroes being sung in Finnish, the language of the peasantry, and writing them down in his own order to create this landmark work. In creating The Kalevala, Lönnrot helped the Finns realise they were a distinct people apart from Sweden and Russia, who deserved their own nation state and who came to demand independence, which they won in 1917.
With
Riitta ValijÀrviAssociate Professor in Finnish and Minority Languages at University College London
Thomas DuboisThe Halls-Bascom Professor of Scandinavian Folklore and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
And
Daniel AbondoloFormerly Reader in Hungarian at University College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Nigel Fabb, What is Poetry? Language and Memory in the Poems of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Frog, Satu GrĂŒnthal, Kati Kallio and Jarkko Niemi (eds), Versification: Metrics in Practice (Finnish Literature Society, 2021)
Riho GrĂŒnthal et al., âDrastic demographic events triggered the Uralic spreadâ (Diachronica, Volume 39, Issue 4, Aug 2022)
Lauri Honko (ed.), The Kalevala and the World's Traditional Epics (Finnish Literature Society, 2002)
The Kalevala Heritage: Archive Recordings of Ancient Finnish Songs. Online Catalogue no. ODE8492.
Mauri Kunnas, The Canine Kalevala (Otava Publishing, 1992)
Kuusi, Matti, et al. (eds.), Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic (Finnish Literature Society, 1977)
Elias Lönnrot (trans. John Martin Crawford), Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland (first published 1887; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017)
Elias Lönnrot (trans. W. F. Kirby), Kalevala: The Land of the Heroes (first published by J.M. Dent & Sons, 1907, 2 vols.; â Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2000)
Elias Lönnrot (trans. Francis Peabody Magoun Jr.), The Kalevala, or Poems of the Kaleva District (Harvard University Press, 1963)
Elias Lönnrot (trans. Eino Friberg), The Kalevala: Epic of the Finnish People (Otava Publishing, 1988)
Elias Lönnrot (trans. Keith Bosley), The Kalevala: An Epic Poem after Oral Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1989)
Kirsti MĂ€kinen, Pirkko-Liisa Surojegin, Kaarina Brooks, An Illustrated Kalevala: Myths and Legends from Finland (Floris Books, 2020)
Sami Makkonen, Kalevala: The Graphic Novel (Ablaze, 2024)
Juha Y. PentikÀinen (trans. Ritva Poom), Kalevala Mythology, (Indiana University Press, 1999)
Tina K. Ramnarine, Ilmatarâs Inspirations: Nationalism, Globalization and the Changing Soundscapes of Finnish Folk Music (University of Chicago Press, 2003) Jonathan Roper (ed.), Alliteration in Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), especially chapter 12 âAlliteration in (Balto-) Finnic Languagesâ by Frog and Eila Stepanova
Karl Spracklen, Metal Music and the Re-imagining of Masculinity, Place, Race and Nation (Emerald Publishing, 2020), especially the chapter âFinnish Folk Metal: Raising Drinking Horns in Mainstream Metalâ
Leea Virtanen and Thomas A. DuBois, Finnish Folklore: Studia Fennica Folkloristica 9 (Finnish Literature Society, 2000)
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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, âHow the Waltz was Won: Transmutations and the Acquisition of Style in Early English Modern Ballroom Dancing. Part One: Waltzing Under Attackâ (Dance Research, 36/1, 2018); âPart Two: The Waltz Regainedâ (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, âThe Waltz in England, c. 1790-1820â (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 âDancing Out of Time: The Forgotten Boston of Edwardian Englandâ 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 âWaltzâ 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 âA Revolution on the Dance Floor, a Revolution in Musical Style: The Viennese Waltzâ
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? Youâre 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 Childrenâs 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 Childrenâs 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 Shakespeareâs 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 otherâs 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, Shakespeareâs Festive Comedies: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom (first published 1959; Princeton University Press, 2011)
Simone Chess, âQueer Residue: Boy Actorsâ Adult Careers in Early Modern Englandâ (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 âDisrupting Sexual Difference: Meaning and Gender in the Comediesâ by Catherine Belsey
Bart van Es, Shakespeareâs 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 ââI am all the daughters of my fatherâs house, and all the brothers tooâ: Genderfluid Potentiality in As You Like It and Twelfth Nightâ by Eric Brinkman
Ezra Horbury, âTransgender Reassessments of the Cross-Dressed Page in Shakespeare, Philaster, and The Honest Manâs Fortuneâ (Shakespeare Quarterly 73, 2022)
Jean Howard, âCrossdressing, the theatre, and gender struggle in early modern Englandâ (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, Shakespeareâs 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 Goghâs Finale: Auvers and the Artistâs 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 Goghâs 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, âEdgar Allan Poe in the Great Dismal Swampâ (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 â 1549), author of the HeptamĂ©ron, a major literary landmark in the French Renaissance. Published after her death, The HeptamĂ©ron features 72 short stories, many of which explore relations between the sexes. However, Margueriteâs 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 Kingâs 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 Navarreâs 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 âHeptamĂ©ronâ 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. GisĂšle Mathieu-Castellani), LâHeptamĂ©ron (Libraririe gĂ©nĂ©rale française, 1999)
Jonathan A. Reid, Kingâs Sister â Queen of Dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her Evangelical Network (Brill, 2009)
Paula Sommers, âThe Mirror and its Reflections: Marguerite de Navarreâs Biblical Feminismâ (Tulsa Studies in Womenâs 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 Americaâs 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 âThe Savage Society of Thorstein Veblenâ
Ken McCormick, Veblen in Plain English: A Complete Introduction to Thorstein Veblenâs 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 Zolaâs 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 âNaturalismâ 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, âCoal politics: receiving Emile Zola's Germinalâ (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 canât 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), Sundayâs 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 Mannâs most famous â and infamous - novella.Published in 1912, itâs about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young boyâs beauty becomes sexual obsession.It explores the link between creativity and self-destruction, and by the end Aschenbachâs 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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Sophoclesâ play Oedipus Rex begins with a warning: the murderer of the old king of Thebes, Laius, has never been identified or caught, and heâs 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 Laiusâ 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 Sophoclesâ plays that didnât win first prize at Athensâ annual drama festival. But itâs 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 Hildaâs 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 natureâs working, has cast beneath his feet all fear and fateâs implacable decree, and the howl of insatiable Death. But happy too is he who knows the rural godsâŠ
Theyâre from his poem the Georgics, a detailed account of farming life in the Italy of the time. âGeorgicsâ means âagricultural thingsâ, and itâs 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. Itâs also a philosophical reflection on humanityâs relationship with the natural world, the ravages of time, and the politics of Virgilâs day.
Itâs 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: âAll 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 unsolvedâ.
These lectures formed the basis of a book she published the following year, and Woolf chose A Room Of Oneâs Own for its title. It is a text that set the scene for the study of womenâs writing for the rest of the 20th century. Arguably, it initiated the discipline of womenâs 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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