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Love and Death: Milton's 'Lycidas'
Season 14 Episode 2
Milton wrote ‘Lycidas’ in 1637, at the age of 29, to commemorate the drowning of the poet Edward King. As well as a great pastoral elegy, it is a den…
1 year, 4 months ago
Fiction and the Fantastic: ‘The Thousand and One Nights’
Season 13 Episode 2
The Thousand and One Nights is an ‘infinite text’: it has no fixed shape or length, no known author and is transformed with each new translation. In …
1 year, 4 months ago
Conversations in Philosophy: 'Fear and Trembling' by Søren Kierkegaard
Season 12 Episode 2
The series begins with Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (1843), an exploration of faith through the story of Abraham and Isaac. Like most of Ki…
1 year, 4 months ago
Introducing ‘Novel Approaches’
Season 15 Episode 1
Clare Bucknell and Thomas Jones introduce their new Close Readings series, Novel Approaches. Joined by a variety of contemporary novelists and critic…
1 year, 4 months ago
Introducing ‘Love and Death’
Season 14 Episode 1
Mark Ford and Seamus Perry introduce Love and Death, a new Close Readings series on elegy from the Renaissance to the present day. They discuss why t…
1 year, 4 months ago
Introducing ‘Fiction and the Fantastic’
Season 13 Episode 1
Marina Warner is joined by Anna Della Subin to introduce Fiction and the Fantastic, a new Close Readings series running through 2025. Marina describe…
1 year, 4 months ago
Introducing 'Conversations in Philosophy'
Season 12 Episode 1
James Wood and Jonathan Rée introduce their new Close Readings series, Conversations in Philosophy, running throughout 2025. They explain the title o…
1 year, 4 months ago
Political Poems: ‘Little Gidding’ by T.S. Eliot
Season 11 Episode 12
In the final episode of Political Poems, Mark and Seamus discuss ‘Little Gidding’, the fourth poem of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Emerging out of Eli…
1 year, 4 months ago
Among the Ancients II: Marcus Aurelius
Season 10 Episode 12
For their final conversation Among the Ancients, Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones turn to the contradictions of the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher …
1 year, 5 months ago
Medieval LOLs: Gwerful Mechain’s ‘Ode to the Vagina’
Season 9 Episode 12
For the final episode of their series in search of the medieval sense of humour Irina and Mary look at one of the most remarkable women authors of th…
1 year, 5 months ago