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Medieval LOLs: The Second Shepherds' Pageant
Season 9 Episode 6
In their quest for the medieval sense of humour Mary and Irina come to The Second Shepherds’ Pageant, a 15th-century reimagining of the nativity as d…
1 year, 11 months ago
Human Conditions: ‘The Intimate Enemy’ by Ashis Nandy
Season 8 Episode 6
Ashis Nandy’s The Intimate Enemy is a study of the psychological toll of colonialism on both the coloniser and colonised, showing how Western concept…
1 year, 11 months ago
On Satire: 'The Dunciad' by Alexander Pope
Season 7 Episode 6
Nobody hated better than Alexander Pope. Despite his reputation as the quintessentially refined versifier of the early 18th century, he was also a cl…
1 year, 11 months ago
Political Poems: 'The Masque of Anarchy' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Season 11 Episode 5
Shelley’s angry, violent poem was written in direct response to the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819, in which a demonstration in favour of pa…
1 year, 11 months ago
Among the Ancients II: Plato
Season 10 Episode 5
Plato’s Symposium, his philosophical dialogue on love, or eros, was probably written around 380 BCE, but it’s set in 416, during the uneasy truce bet…
2 years ago
Medieval LOLs: Dame Syrith
Season 9 Episode 5
As Mary and Irina discussed in the previous episode of Medieval LOLs, fabliaux had an enormous influence on Chaucer, but outside of his work, only on…
2 years ago
Human Conditions: ‘A House for Mr Biswas’ by V.S. Naipaul
Season 8 Episode 5
In A House for Mr Biswas, his 1961 comic masterpiece, V.S. Naipaul pays tribute to his father and the vanishing world of his Trinidadian youth. Panka…
2 years ago
On Satire: John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera'
Season 7 Episode 5
In The Beggar’s Opera we enter a society turned upside down, where private vices are seen as public virtues, and the best way to survive is to assume…
2 years ago
Political Poems: 'The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Season 11 Episode 4
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s deeply disturbing 1847 poem about a woman escaping slavery and killing her child was written to shock its intended white…
2 years ago
Among the Ancients II: Pindar and Bacchylides
Season 10 Episode 4
In the fifth episode of Among the Ancients II we turn to Greek lyric, focusing on Pindar’s victory odes, considered a benchmark for the sublime since…
2 years, 1 month ago