In Our Time: Culture

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential novella of John Polidori (1795-1821) published in 1819 and attributed first to Lord Byron (1788-1824) who had started a version of it in 1816 at the Villa Diodati in the Year Without A Summer. There Byron, his personal physician Polidori, Mary and Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont had whiled away the weeks of miserable weather by telling ghost stories, famously giving rise to Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. Emerging soon after, 'The Vampyre' thrilled readers with its aristocratic Lord Ruthven who glutted his thirst with the blood of his victims, his status an abrupt change from the stories of peasant vampires of eastern and central Europe that had spread in the 18th Century with the expansion of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The connection with Lord Byron gave the novella a boost, and soon 'The Vampyre' spawned West End plays, penny dreadfuls such as 'Varney the Vampire', Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula', F.W Murnau's film 'Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror', and countless others.The image above is of Bela Lugosi (1882-1956) as Count Mora in Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's 'Vampires of Prague' (1935)With Nick Groom Professor of Literature in English at the University of MacauSamantha George Associate Professor of Research in Literature at the University of HertfordshireAnd Martyn Rady Professor Emeritus of Central European History at University College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the astonishing work of Michelangelo (1477-1564) in this great chapel in the Vatican, firstly the ceiling with images from Genesis (of which the image above is a detail) and later The Last Judgement on the altar wall. For the Papacy, Michelangelo's achievement was a bold affirmation of the spiritual and political status of the Vatican, of Rome and of the Catholic Church. For the artist himself, already famous as the sculptor of David in Florence, it was a test of his skill and stamina, and of the potential for art to amaze which he realised in his astonishing mastery of the human form.WithCatherine Fletcher Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan UniversitySarah Vowles The Smirnov Family Curator of Italian and French Prints and Drawings at the British MuseumAndMatthias Wivel The Aud Jebsen Curator of Sixteenth-Century Italian Paintings at the National GalleryProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what is reputedly the most performed of all Greek tragedies. Antigone, by Sophocles (c496-c406 BC), is powerfully ambiguous, inviting the audience to reassess its values constantly before the climax of the play resolves the plot if not the issues. Antigone is barely a teenager and is prepared to defy her uncle Creon, the new king of Thebes, who has decreed that nobody should bury the body of her brother, a traitor, on pain of death. This sets up a conflict between generations, between the state and the individual, uncle and niece, autocracy and pluralism, and it releases an enormous tragic energy that brings sudden death to Antigone, her fiance Haemon who is also Creon's son, and to Creon's wife Eurydice, while Creon himself is condemned to a living death of grief.WithEdith Hall Professor of Classics at Durham UniversityOliver Taplin Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of OxfordAndLyndsay Coo Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek Language and Literature at the University of BristolProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Shakespeare's famous tragedy, written in the early 1590s after a series of histories and comedies. His audience already knew the story of the feuding Capulets and Montagues in Verona and the fate of the young lovers from their rival houses, but not how Shakespeare would tell it and, with his poetry and plotting, he created a work so powerful and timeless that his play has shaped the way we talk of love, especially young love, ever since.The image above is of Mrs Patrick Campbell ('Mrs Pat') as Juliet and Johnson Forbes-Robinson as Romeo in a scene from the 1895 production at the Lyceum Theatre, LondonWithHelen Hackett Professor of English Literature at University College LondonPaul Prescott Professor of English and Theatre at the University of California MercedAndEmma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the outstanding French writers of the twentieth century. The novels of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 - 1954) always had women at their centre, from youth to mid-life to old age, and they were phenomenally popular, at first for their freshness and frankness about women’s lives, as in the Claudine stories, and soon for their sheer quality as she developed as a writer. Throughout her career she intrigued readers by inserting herself, or a character with her name, into her works, fictionalising her life as a way to share her insight into the human experience.With Diana Holmes Professor of French at the University of LeedsMichèle Roberts Writer, novelist, poet and Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East AngliaAndBelinda Jack Fellow and Tutor in French Literature and Language at Christ Church, University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has selected just six that capture the huge range and depth of the subjects he and his experts have tackled. In this second of his choices, we hear Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss one of his favourite poets.Their topic is Thomas Hardy (1840 -1928) and his commitment to poetry, which he prized far above his novels. In the 1890s, once he had earned enough from his fiction, Hardy stopped writing novels altogether and returned to the poetry he had largely put aside since his twenties. He hoped that he might be ranked one day alongside Shelley and Byron, worthy of inclusion in a collection such as Palgrave's Golden Treasury which had inspired him. Hardy kept writing poems for the rest of his life, in different styles and metres, and he explored genres from nature, to war, to epic. Among his best known are what he called his Poems of 1912 to 13, responding to his grief at the death of his first wife, Emma (1840 -1912), who he credited as the one who had made it possible for him to leave his work as an architect's clerk and to write the novels that made him famous.WithMark Ford Poet, and Professor of English and American Literature, University College London.Jane Thomas Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Hull and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of LeedsAnd Tim Armstrong Professor of Modern English and American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian-born film director Fritz Lang (1890-1976), who was one of the most celebrated film-makers of the 20th century. He worked first in Weimar Germany, creating a range of films including the startling and subversive Mabuse the Gambler and the iconic but ruinously expensive Metropolis before arguably his masterpiece, M, with both the police and the underworld hunting for a child killer in Berlin, his first film with sound. The rise of the Nazis prompted Lang's move to Hollywood where he developed some of his Weimar themes in memorable and disturbing films such as Fury and The Big Heat. With Stella Bruzzi Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College LondonJoe McElhaney Professor of Film Studies at Hunter College, City University of New YorkAndIris Luppa Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the Division of Film and Media at London South Bank UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' novella, written in 1843 when he was 31, which has become intertwined with his reputation and with Christmas itself. Ebenezer Scrooge is the miserly everyman figure whose joyless obsession with money severs him from society and his own emotions, and he is only saved after recalling his lonely past, seeing what he is missing now and being warned of his future, all under the guidance of the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet To Come. Redeemed, Scrooge comes to care in particular about one of the many minor characters in the story who make a great impact, namely Tiny Tim, the disabled child of the poor and warm-hearted Cratchit family, with his cry, "God bless us, every one!"WithJuliet John Professor of English Literature and Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at City, University of LondonJon Mee Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of YorkAndDinah Birch Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Cultural Engagement and Professor of English Literature at the University of LiverpoolProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the British phase of a movement that spread across Europe in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Influenced by Charles Baudelaire and by Walter Pater, these Decadents rejected the mainstream Victorian view that art needed a moral purpose, and valued instead the intense sensations art provoked, celebrating art for art’s sake. Oscar Wilde was at its heart, Aubrey Beardsley adorned it with his illustrations and they, with others, provoked moral panic with their supposed degeneracy. After burning brightly, the movement soon lost its energy in Britain yet it has proved influential.The illustration above, by Beardsley, is from the cover of the first edition of The Yellow Book in April 1894.WithNeil Sammells Professor of English and Irish Literature and Deputy Vice Chancellor at Bath Spa UniversityKate Hext Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of ExeterAndAlex Murray Senior Lecturer in English at Queen’s University, BelfastProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an early masterpiece of French epic poetry, from the 12th Century. It is a reimagining of Charlemagne’s wars in Spain in the 8th Century in which Roland, his most valiant knight, chooses death before dishonour, guarding the army’s rear from a pagan ambush as it heads back through the Roncesvalles Pass in the Pyrenees. If he wanted to, Roland could blow on his oliphant, his elephant tusk horn, to summon help by calling back Charlemagne's army, but according to his values that would bring shame both on him and on France, and he would rather keep killing pagans until he is the last man standing and the last to die.The image above is taken from an illustration of Charlemagne finding Roland after the Battle of Roncevaux/Roncesvalles, from 'Les Grandes Chroniques de France', c.1460 by Jean Fouquet, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Ms Fr 6465 f.113 With Laura Ashe Professor of English Literature and Fellow in English at Worcester College, University of OxfordMiranda Griffin Assistant Professor of Medieval French at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Murray Edwards CollegeAndLuke Sunderland Professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham UniversityStudio producer: John Goudie

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999). In her lifetime she was most celebrated for her novels such as The Bell and The Black Prince, but these are now sharing the spotlight with her philosophy. Responding to the horrors of the Second World War, she argued that morality was not subjective or a matter of taste, as many of her contemporaries held, but was objective, and good was a fact we could recognize. To tell good from bad, though, we would need to see the world as it really is, not as we want to see it, and her novels are full of characters who are not yet enlightened enough to do that.WithAnil Gomes Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, University of OxfordAnne Rowe Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester and Emeritus Research Fellow with the Iris Murdoch Archive Project at Kingston UniversityAndMiles Leeson Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre and Reader in English Literature at the University of ChichesterProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's second novel, published in 1848, which is now celebrated alongside those of her sisters but which Charlotte Bronte tried to suppress as a 'mistake'. It examines the life of Helen, who has escaped her abusive husband Arthur Huntingdon with their son to live at Wildfell Hall as a widow under the alias 'Mrs Graham', and it exposes the men in her husband's circle who gave her no choice but to flee. Early critics attacked the novel as coarse, as misrepresenting male behaviour, and as something no woman or girl should ever read; soon after Anne's death, Charlotte suggested the publisher should lose it for good. In recent decades, though, its reputation has climbed and it now sits with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights as one of the great novels by the Bronte sisters.The image above shows Tara Fitzgerald as Helen Graham in a 1996 BBC adaptation.WithAlexandra Lewis Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle (Australia)Marianne Thormählen Professor Emerita in English Studies, Lund UniversityAndJohn Bowen Professor of Nineteenth Century Literature at the University of YorkProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer known as the father of histories, dubbed by his detractors as the father of lies. Herodotus (c484 to 425 BC or later) was raised in Halicarnassus in modern Turkey when it was part of the Persian empire and, in the years after the Persian Wars, set about an inquiry into the deep background to those wars. He also aimed to preserve what he called the great and marvellous deeds of Greeks and non-Greeks, seeking out the best evidence for past events and presenting the range of evidence for readers to assess. Plutarch was to criticise Herodotus for using this to promote the least flattering accounts of his fellow Greeks, hence the 'father of lies', but the depth and breadth of his Histories have secured his reputation from his lifetime down to the present day.WithTom Harrison Professor of Ancient History at the University of St AndrewsEsther Eidinow Professor of Ancient History at the University of BristolAndPaul Cartledge A. G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon Tillotson

To celebrate Melvyn Bragg’s 27 years presenting In Our Time, some well-known fans of the programme have chosen their favourite episodes. Historian and broadcaster Simon Schama has selected the episode on Shakespeare’s Sonnets and recorded an introduction to it. (This introduction will be available on BBC Sounds and the In Our Time webpage shortly after the broadcast and will be longer than the one broadcast on Radio 4). In 1609 Thomas Thorpe published a collection of poems entitled Shakespeare’s Sonnets, “never before imprinted”. Yet, while some of Shakespeare's other poems and many of his plays were often reprinted in his lifetime, the Sonnets were not a publishing success. They had to make their own way, outside the main canon of Shakespeare’s work: wonderful, troubling, patchy, inspiring and baffling, and they have appealed in different ways to different times. Most are addressed to a man, something often overlooked and occasionally concealed; one early and notorious edition even changed some of the pronouns. With:Hannah Crawforth Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at King’s College LondonDon Paterson Poet and Professor of Poetry at the University of St AndrewsAndEmma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, OxfordProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Stephen Booth, Shakespeare's Sonnets (first published 1978; Yale University Press, 2000)Hannah Crawforth and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (eds.), On Shakespeare’s Sonnets: A Poets’ Celebration (Arden, 2016)Hannah Crawforth, Elizabeth Scott-Baumann and Clare Whitehead (eds.), Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The State of Play (Arden, 2018)Katherine Duncan-Jones, Shakespeare's Sonnets (The Arden Shakespeare, 1997)Patricia Fumerton, ‘”Secret” Arts: Elizabethan Miniatures and Sonnets’ (Representations 15, summer 1986, University of California Press)Kim Hall, Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England (Cornell University Press, 1995), especially chapter 2, ‘Fair Texts/Dark Ladies: Renaissance Lyric and the Poetics of Color’John Kerrigan, The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint (Penguin Classics, 1986)Jane Kingsley-Smith, The Afterlife of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Cambridge University Press, 2019)Don Paterson, Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Faber, 2010)Oscar Wilde (ed. John Sloan), The Complete Short Stories (Oxford World’s Classics), especially ‘The Portrait of Master W.H.’This episode was first broadcast in June 2021.Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the people, ideas, events and discoveries that have shaped our worldIn Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of one of the great historians, best known for his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published 1776-89). According to Gibbon (1737-94) , the idea for this work came to him on 15th of October 1764 as he sat musing amidst the ruins of Rome, while barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter. Decline and Fall covers thirteen centuries and is an enormous intellectual undertaking and, on publication, it became a phenomenal success across Europe. The image above is of Edward Gibbon by Henry Walton, oil on mahogany panel, 1773.WithDavid Womersley The Thomas Wharton Professor of English Literature at St Catherine’s College, University of OxfordCharlotte Roberts Lecturer in English at University College LondonAnd Karen O’Brien Professor of English Literature at the University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great novels of China’s Ming era, and perhaps the most loved. Written in 1592, it draws on the celebrated travels of a real monk from China to India a thousand years before, and on a thousand years of retellings of that story, especially the addition of a monkey as companion who, in the novel, becomes supersimian. For most readers the monk, Tripitaka, is upstaged by this irrepressible Monkey with his extraordinary powers, accompanied by the fallen but recovering deities, Pigsy and Sandy.The image above, from the caricature series Yoshitoshi ryakuga or Sketches by Yoshitoshi, is of Monkey creating an army by plucking out his fur and blowing it into the air, and each hair becomes a monkey-warrior.With Julia Lovell Professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of LondonChiung-yun Evelyn Liu Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, TaiwanAndCraig Clunas Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at Trinity College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43BC-17/18AD) who, as he described it, was destroyed by 'carmen et error', a poem and a mistake. His works have been preserved in greater number than any of the poets of his age, even Virgil, and have been among the most influential. The versions of many of the Greek and Roman myths we know today were his work, as told in his epic Metamorphoses and, together with his works on Love and the Art of Love, have inspired and disturbed readers from the time they were created. Despite being the most prominent poet in Augustan Rome at the time, he was exiled from Rome to Tomis on the Black Sea Coast where he remained until he died. It is thought that the 'carmen' that led to his exile was the Art of Love, Ars Amatoria, supposedly scandalising Augustus, but the 'error' was not disclosed.With Maria Wyke Professor of Latin at University College LondonGail Trimble Brown Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Trinity College at the University of OxfordAnd Dunstan Lowe Senior Lecturer in Latin Literature at the University of KentProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Euripides' great tragedy, which was first performed in Athens in 405 BC when the Athenians were on the point of defeat and humiliation in a long war with Sparta. The action seen or described on stage was brutal: Pentheus, king of Thebes, is torn into pieces by his mother in a Bacchic frenzy and his grandparents condemned to crawl away as snakes. All this happened because Pentheus had denied the divinity of his cousin Dionysus, known to the audience as god of wine, theatre, fertility and religious ecstasy. The image above is a detail of a Red-Figure Cup showing the death of Pentheus (exterior) and a Maenad (interior), painted c. 480 BC by the Douris painter. This object can be found at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.With Edith Hall Professor of Classics at King’s College LondonEmily Wilson Professor of Classical Studies at the University of PennsylvaniaAndRosie Wyles Lecturer in Classical History and Literature at the University of KentProducer: Simon Tillotson

In this 900th edition of the programme, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the best known and most influential of the poems of the Romantic movement. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in 1798 after discussions with his friend Wordsworth. He refined it for the rest of his life, and it came to define him, a foreshadowing of his opium-addicted, lonely wandering and deepening sense of guilt. The poem tells of a sailor compelled to tell and retell the story of a terrible voyage in his youth, this time as guests are heading to a wedding party, where he stoppeth one of three.The image above is from Gustave Doré's illustration of the mariner's shooting of the albatross, for an 1877 German language edition of the poemWithSir Jonathan Bate Professor of Environmental Humanities at Arizona State UniversityTom Mole Professor of English Literature and Book History at the University of EdinburghAnd Rosemary Ashton Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most famous museum objects in the world, shown in the image above in replica, and dating from around 196 BC. It is a damaged, dark granite block on which you can faintly see three scripts engraved: Greek at the bottom, Demotic in the middle and Hieroglyphs at the top. Napoleon’s soldiers found it in a Mamluk fort at Rosetta on the Egyptian coast, and soon realised the Greek words could be used to unlock the hieroglyphs. It was another 20 years before Champollion deciphered them, becoming the first to understand the hieroglyphs since they fell out of use 1500 years before and so opening up the written culture of ancient Egypt to the modern age.With Penelope Wilson Associate Professor of Egyptian Archaeology at Durham UniversityCampbell Price Curator of Egypt and Sudan at the Manchester MuseumAndRichard Bruce Parkinson Professor of Egyptology and Fellow of The Queen’s College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss F Scott Fitzgerald’s finest novel, published in 1925, one of the great American novels of the twentieth century. It is told by Nick Carraway, neighbour and friend of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby. In the age of jazz and prohibition, Gatsby hosts lavish parties at his opulent home across the bay from Daisy Buchanan, in the hope she’ll attend one of them and they can be reunited. They were lovers as teenagers but she had given him up for a richer man who she soon married, and Gatsby is obsessed with winning her back.The image above is of Robert Redford as Gatsby in a scene from the film 'The Great Gatsby', 1974. WithSarah Churchwell Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of LondonPhilip McGowan Professor of American Literature at Queen’s University, BelfastAndWilliam Blazek Associate Professor and Reader in American Literature at Liverpool Hope UniversityProduced by Simon Tillotson and Julia Johnson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Portuguese poet Pessoa (1888-1935) who was largely unknown in his lifetime but who, in 1994, Harold Bloom included in his list of the 26 most significant western writers since the Middle Ages. Pessoa wrote in his own name but mainly in the names of characters he created, each with a distinctive voice and biography, which he called heteronyms rather than pseudonyms, notably Ricardo Reis, Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos and one who was closer to Pessoa's own identity, Bernardo Soares. Most of Pessoa's works were unpublished at his death, discovered in a trunk; as more and more was printed and translated, his fame and status grew.WithCláudia Pazos-Alonso Professor of Portuguese and Gender Studies and Senior Research Fellow at Wadham College, University of OxfordJuliet Perkins Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Portuguese Studies at King’s College LondonAndPaulo de Medeiros Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of WarwickProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) who achieved fame throughout Europe for the power of his images. These range from his woodcut of a rhinoceros, to his watercolour of a young hare, to his drawing of praying hands and his stunning self-portraits such as that above (albeit here in a later monochrome reproduction) with his distinctive A D monogram. He was expected to follow his father and become a goldsmith, but found his own way to be a great artist, taking public commissions that built his reputation but did not pay, while creating a market for his prints, and he captured the timeless and the new in a world of great change.With Susan Foister Deputy Director and Curator of German Paintings at the National GalleryGiulia Bartrum Freelance art historian and Former Curator of German Prints and Drawings at the British MuseumAndUlinka Rublack Professor of Early Modern European History and Fellow of St John’s College, University of CambridgeStudio production: John Goudie

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Langland's poem, written around 1370, about a man called Will who fell asleep on the Malvern Hills and dreamed of Piers the Plowman. This was a time between the Black Death and The Peasants’ Revolt, when Christians wanted to save their souls but doubted how best to do it - and had to live with that uncertainty. Some call this the greatest medieval poem in English, one offering questions not answers, and it can be as unsettling now as it was then.WithLaura Ashe Professor of English Literature at Worcester College, University of OxfordLawrence Warner Professor of Medieval English at King’s College LondonAnd Alastair Bennett Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. When three witches prophesy that Macbeth will be king one day, he is not prepared to wait and almost the next day he murders King Duncan as he sleeps, a guest at Macbeth’s castle. From there we explore their brutal world where few boundaries are distinct – between safe and unsafe, friend and foe, real and unreal, man and beast – until Macbeth too is slaughtered.The image above shows Nicol Williamson as Macbeth in a 1983 BBC TV adaptation.With:Emma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of OxfordKiernan Ryan Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonAnd David Schalkwyk, Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of Global Shakespeare at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

In a programme first broadcast in May 2019, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's (1797-1851) Gothic story of a Swiss natural philosopher, Victor Frankenstein, and the creature he makes from parts of cadavers and which he then abandons, horrified by his appearance, and never names. Rejected by all humans who see him, the monster takes his revenge on Frankenstein, killing those dear to him. Shelley started writing Frankenstein when she was 18, prompted by a competition she had with Byron and her husband Percy Shelley to tell a ghost story while they were rained in in the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva.The image of Mary Shelley, above, was first exhibited in 1840.WithKaren O'Brien Professor of English Literature at the University of OxfordMichael Rossington Professor of Romantic Literature at Newcastle UniversityAnd Jane Thomas Professor of Victorian and Early 20th Century Literature at the University of HullProducer: Simon TillotsonThis programme is a repeat

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works and life of one of the most popular writers in Europe in C19th, Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1804-1876) who wrote under the name George Sand. When she wrote her first novel under that name, she referred to herself as a man. This was in Indiana (1832), which had the main character breaking away from her unhappy marriage. It made an immediate impact as it overturned the social conventions of the time and it drew on her own early marriage to an older man, Casimir Dudevant. Once Sand's identity was widely known, her works became extremely popular in French and in translation, particularly her rural novels, outselling Hugo and Balzac in Britain, perhaps buoyed by an interest in her personal life, as well as by her ideas on the rights and education of women and strength of her writing.With Belinda Jack Fellow and Tutor in French at Christ Church, University of OxfordAngela Ryan Senior Lecturer in French at University College CorkAndNigel Harkness Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of French at Newcastle UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Catullus (c84-c54 BC) who wrote some of the most sublime poetry in the late Roman Republic, and some of the most obscene. He found a new way to write about love, in poems to the mysterious Lesbia, married and elusive, and he influenced Virgil and Ovid and others, yet his explicit poems were to blight his reputation for a thousand years. Once the one surviving manuscript was discovered in the Middle Ages, though, anecdotally as a plug in a wine butt, he inspired Petrarch and the Elizabethan poets, as he continues to inspire many today.The image above is of Lesbia and her Sparrow, 1860, artist unknownWithGail Trimble Brown Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Trinity College at the University of OxfordSimon Smith Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Kent, poet and translator of CatullusandMaria Wyke Professor of Latin at University College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and poetry of WH Auden (1907-1973) up to his departure from Europe for the USA in 1939. As well as his personal life, he addressed suffering and confusion, and the moral issues that affected the wider public in the 1930s and tried to unpick what was going wrong in society and to understand those times. He witnessed the rise of totalitarianism in the austerity of that decade, travelling through Germany to Berlin, seeing Spain in the Civil War and China during its wars with Japan, often collaborating with Christopher Isherwood. In his lifetime his work attracted high praise and intense criticism, and has found new audiences in the fifty years since his death, sometimes taking literally what he meant ironically. With Mark Ford Poet and Professor of English at University College LondonJanet Montefiore Professor Emerita of 20th Century English Literature at the University of KentAnd Jeremy Noel-Tod Senior Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East AngliaProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the novel written by Dostoevsky and published in 1866, in which Raskolnikov, a struggling student, justifies his murder of two women, as his future is more valuable than their lives. He thinks himself superior, above the moral laws that apply to others. The police have little evidence against him but trust him to confess, once he cannot bear the mental torture of his crime - a fate he cannot avoid, any more than he can escape from life in St Petersburg and his personal failures.The image above is from a portrait of Dostoevsky by Vasili Perov, 1872.WithSarah Hudspith Associate Professor in Russian at the University of LeedsOliver Ready Lecturer in Russian at the University of Oxford, Research Fellow at St Antony’s College and a translator of this novelAnd Sarah Young Associate Professor in Russian at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the man who, in his lifetime, was called The Caledonian Bard and whose fame and influence was to spread around the world. Burns (1759-1796) was born in Ayrshire and his work as a tenant farmer earned him the label The Ploughman Poet, yet it was the quality of his verse that helped his reputation endure and grow. His work inspired other Romantic poets and his personal story and ideas combined with that, giving his poems a broad strength and appeal - sung by revolutionaries and on Mao's Long March, as well as on New Year's Eve and at Burns Suppers.WithRobert Crawford Professor of Modern Scottish Literature and Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Poetry at the University of St AndrewsFiona Stafford Professor of English at the University of Oxfordand Murray Pittock Bradley Professor of English Literature and Pro Vice Principal at the University of GlasgowProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas explored in HG Wells' novella, published in 1895, in which the Time Traveller moves forward to 802,701 AD. There he finds humanity has evolved into the Eloi and Morlocks, where the Eloi are small but leisured fruitarians and the Morlocks live below ground, carry out the work and have a different diet. Escaping the Morlocks, he travels millions of years into the future, where the environment no longer supports humanity.The image above is from a painting by Anton Brzezinski of a scene from The Time Machine, with the Time Traveller meeting the EloiWith Simon Schaffer Professor of History of Science at Cambridge UniversityAmanda Rees Historian of science at the University of YorkAndSimon James Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), author of Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba, who mixed the traditions of Andalusia with the avant-garde. He found his first major success with his Gypsy Ballads, although Dali, once his close friend, mocked him for these, accusing Lorca of being too conservative. He preferred performing his poems to publishing them, and his plays marked a revival in Spanish theatre. He was captured and killed by Nationalist forces at the start of the Civil War, his body never recovered, and it's been suggested this was punishment for his politics and for being openly gay. He has since been seen as the most important Spanish playwright and poet of the last century.WithMaria Delgado Professor of Creative Arts at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of LondonFederico Bonaddio Reader in Modern Spanish at King’s College LondonAndSarah Wright Professor of Hispanic Studies and Screen Arts at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the range, depth and style of Browne (1605-82) , a medical doctor whose curious mind drew him to explore and confess his own religious views, challenge myths and errors in science and consider how humans respond to the transience of life. His Religio Medici became famous throughout Europe and his openness about his religion, in that work, was noted as rare when others either kept quiet or professed orthodox views. His Pseudodoxia Epidemica challenged popular ideas, whether about the existence of mermaids or if Adam had a navel, and his Hydriotaphia or Urn Burial was a meditation on what matters to humans when handling the dead. In 1923, Virginia Woolf wrote, "Few people love the writings of Sir Thomas Browne, but those that do are the salt of the earth." He also contributed more words to the English language than almost anyone, such as electricity, indigenous, medical, ferocious, carnivorous ambidextrous and migrant.With Claire Preston Professor of Renaissance Literature at Queen Mary University of LondonJessica Wolfe Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel HillAndKevin Killeen Professor of English at the University of YorkProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare's most popular works, written c1595 in the last years of Elizabeth I. It is a comedy of love and desire and their many complications as well as their simplicity, and a reflection on society's expectations and limits. It is also a quiet critique of Elizabeth and her vulnerability and on the politics of the time, and an exploration of the power of imagination.With Helen Hackett Professor of English Literature and Leverhulme Research Fellow at University College LondonTom Healy Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Sussexand Alison Findlay Professor of Renaissance Drama at Lancaster University and Chair of the British Shakespeare AssociationProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of Hopkins (1844-89), a Jesuit priest who at times burned his poems and at others insisted they should not be published. His main themes are how he, nature and God relate to each other. His friend Robert Bridges preserved Hopkins' poetry and, once printed in 1918, works such as The Windhover, Pied Beauty and As Kingfishers Catch Fire were celebrated for their inventiveness and he was seen as a major poet, perhaps the greatest of the Victorian age. WithCatherine Phillips R J Owens Fellow in English at Downing College, University of CambridgeJane Wright Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bristoland Martin Dubois Assistant Professor in Nineteenth Century Literature at Durham UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, works, context and legacy of Antarah (525-608AD), the great poet and warrior. According to legend, he was born a slave; his mother was an Ethiopian slave, his father an elite Arab cavalryman. Antarah won his freedom in battle and loved a woman called Abla who refused him, and they were later celebrated in the saga of Antar and Abla. One of Antarah's poems was so esteemed in pre-Islamic Arabia that it is believed it was hung up on the wall of the Kaaba in Mecca. With James Montgomery Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at the University of CambridgeMarlé Hammond Senior Lecturer in Arabic Popular Literature and Culture at SOAS, University of LondonAnd Harry Munt Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of YorkProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how artists from the Middle Ages onwards have been inspired by the Bible story of the widow who killed an Assyrian general who was besieging her village, and so saved her people from his army and from his master Nebuchadnezzar. A symbol of a woman's power and the defiance of political tyranny, the image of Judith has been sculpted by Donatello, painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and, in the case of Caravaggio, Liss and Artemisia Gentileschi, been shown with vivid, disturbing detail. What do these interpretations reveal of the attitudes to power and women in their time, and of the artists' own experiences? The image of Judith, above is from a tapestry in the Duomo, Milan, by Giovanni or Nicola Carcher, 1555With Susan Foister Curator of Early Netherlandish, German and British Painting at the National GalleryJohn Gash Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of AberdeenAnd Ela Nutu Hall Research Associate at the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, at the University of SheffieldProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989), who lived in Paris and wrote his plays and novels in French, not because his French was better than his English, but because it was worse. In works such as Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Molloy and Malone Dies, he wanted to show the limitations of language, what words could not do, together with the absurdity and humour of the human condition. In part he was reacting to the verbal omnipotence of James Joyce, with whom he’d worked in Paris, and in part to his experience in the French Resistance during World War 2, when he used code, writing not to reveal meaning but to conceal it.WithSteven Connor Professor of English at the University of CambridgeLaura Salisbury Professor of Modern Literature at the University of ExeterAnd Mark Nixon Associate Professor in Modern Literature at the University of Reading and co-director of the Beckett International FoundationProducer: Simon Tillotson

In a programme first broadcast in 2018, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the jewels of medieval English poetry. It was written c1400 by an unknown poet and then was left hidden in private collections until the C19th when it emerged. It tells the story of a giant green knight who disrupts Christmas at Camelot, daring Gawain to cut off his head with an axe if he can do the same to Gawain the following year. Much to the surprise of Arthur's court, who were kicking the green head around, the decapitated body reaches for his head and rides off, leaving Gawain to face his promise and his apparently inevitable death the following Christmas.The illustration above is ©British Library Board Cotton MS Nero A.x, article 3, ff.94v95With Laura Ashe Professor of English Literature at Worcester College, University of OxfordAd Putter Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of BristolAnd Simon Armitage Poet and Professor of Poetry at the Universities of Leeds and OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Horace (65-8BC), who flourished under the Emperor Augustus. He was one of the greatest poets of his age and is one of the most quoted of any age. Carpe diem, nil desperandum, nunc est bibendum – that’s Horace. He was the son of a freedman from southern Italy and, thanks to his talent, achieved high status in Rome despite fighting on the losing side in the civil wars. His Odes are widely thought his most enduring works, yet he also wrote his scurrilous Epodes, some philosophical Epistles and broad Satires. He’s influenced poets ever since, including those such as Wilfred Owen who rejected his line: ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’.With Emily Gowers Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St John’s CollegeWilliam Fitzgerald Professor of Latin Language and Literature at King’s College Londonand Ellen O’Gorman Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of BristolProducer: Simon Tillotson

In the second of two programmes marking In Our Time's 20th anniversary on 15th October, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's versions of history, continuing with the Roman plays. Rome was the setting for Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and parts of Antony and Cleopatra and these plays gave Shakespeare the chance to explore ideas too controversial for English histories. How was Shakespeare reimagining Roman history, and what impact has that had on how we see Rome today? The image above is of Marlon Brando playing Mark Antony in a scene from the film version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, 1953WithSir Jonathan Bate Provost of Worcester College, University of OxfordCatherine Steel Professor of Classics and Dean of Research in the College of Arts at the University of GlasgowAnd Patrick Gray Associate Professor of English Studies at Durham UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson

In the first of two programmes marking In Our Time's 20th anniversary on 15th October, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's versions of history, starting with the English Plantagenets. His eight plays from Richard II to Richard III were written out of order, in the Elizabethan era, and have had a significant impact on the way we see those histories today. In the second programme, Melvyn discusses the Roman plays.The image above is of Richard Burton (1925 - 1984) as Henry V in the Shakespeare play of the same name, from 1951WithEmma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of OxfordGordon McMullan Professor of English at King’s College London and Director of the London Shakespeare CentreAnd Katherine Lewis Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of HuddersfieldProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works of Wharton (1862-1937) such as The Age of Innocence for which she won the Pulitzer Prize and was the first woman to do so, The House of Mirth, and The Custom of the Country. Her novels explore the world of privileged New Yorkers in the Gilded Age of the late C19th, of which she was part, drawing on her own experiences and written from the perspective of the new century, either side of WW1 . Among her themes, she examined the choices available to women and the extent to which they could ever really be free, even if rich. With Dame Hermione Lee Biographer, former President of Wolfson College, OxfordBridget Bennett Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of LeedsAndLaura Rattray Reader in North American Literature at the University of GlasgowProducer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great epic poem attributed to Homer, telling the story of an intense episode in the Trojan War. It is framed by the wrath of the Greek hero Achilles, insulted by his leader Agamemnon and withdrawing from the battle that continued to rage, only returning when his close friend Patroclus is killed by the Trojan hero Hector. Achilles turns his anger from Agamemnon to Hector and the fated destruction of Troy comes ever closer. With Edith Hall Professor of Classics at King's College LondonBarbara Graziosi Professor of Classics at Princeton UniversityAnd Paul Cartledge A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow and Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture at Clare College, CambridgeProducer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of William Morris, known in his lifetime for his poetry and then his contribution to the Arts and Crafts movement, and increasingly for his political activism. He felt the world had given in to drudgery and ugliness and he found inspiration in the time before industrialisation, in the medieval life which was about fellowship and association and ways of working which resisted the division of labour and allowed the worker to exercise his or her imagination. Seeing a disconnection between art and society, his solution was revolution which in his view was the only way to reset their relationship.The image above is from the Strawberry Thief wallpaper design by William Morris.With Ingrid Hanson Lecturer in 18th and 19th Century Literature at the University of ManchesterMarcus Waithe University Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Magdalene CollegeAndJane Thomas Professor of Victorian and Early 20th Century Literature at the University of HullProducer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Norwegian playwright and poet, best known for his middle class tragedies such as The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, A Doll's House and An Enemy of the People. These are set in a world where the middle class is dominant and explore the qualities of that life, its weaknesses and boundaries and the ways in which it takes away freedoms. It is the women who fare the worst in this society, something Ibsen explored in A Doll's House among others, a play that created a sensation with audiences shocked to watch a woman break free of her bourgeois family life to find her destiny. He explored dark secrets such as incest and, in Ghosts, hereditary syphilis, which attracted the censors. He gave actresses parts they had rarely had before, and audiences plays that, after Shakespeare, became the most performed in the world.With Tore Rem Professor of English Literature at the University of OsloKirsten Shepherd-Barr Professor of English and Theatre Studies and Tutorial Fellow, St Catherine's College at the University of OxfordAnd Dinah Birch Professor of English Literature and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Cultural Engagement at the University of LiverpoolProducer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eleven stories of Celtic mythology and Arthurian romance known as The Mabinogion, most of which were told and retold for generations before being written down in C14th. Among them are stories of Pwyll and Rhiannon and their son Pryderi, of Culhwch and Olwen, of the dream of the Emperor Macsen, of Lludd and Llefelys, of magic and giants and imagined history. With common themes but no single author, they project an image of the Island of Britain before the Anglo-Saxons and Normans and before Edward I's conquest of Wales. They came to new prominence, worldwide, from C19th with the translation into English by Lady Charlotte Guest aided by William Owen Pughe.The image above is of Cynon ap Clydno approaching the Castle of Maidens from the tale of Owain, or the Lady of the FountainWith Sioned Davies Professor in the School of Welsh at Cardiff UniversityHelen Fulton Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of BristolAndJuliette Wood Associate Lecturer in the School of Welsh at Cardiff UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what Virginia Woolf called 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people'. It was written by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans (1819-80), published in 8 parts in 1871-72, and was originally two separate stories which became woven together. One, 'Middlemarch', focused on a doctor, Tertius Lydgate and the other, 'Miss Brooke', on Dorothea Brooke who became the central figure in the finished work. The events are set in a small town in the Midlands, surrounded by farmland, leading up to the Reform Act 1832, and the novel explores the potential to change in matters of religion, social status, marriage and politics, and is particularly concerned with the opportunities available to women to lead fulfilling lives. The image above shows Rufus Sewell and Juliet Aubrey in the BBC adaptation, from 1994With Rosemary Ashton Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College LondonKathryn Hughes Professor of Life Writing at the University of East AngliaAnd John Bowen Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of YorkProducer: Simon Tillotson.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work, ideas and life of the Russian poet whose work was celebrated in C20th both for its quality and for what it represented, written under censorship in the Stalin years. Her best known poem, Requiem, was written after her son was imprisoned partly as a threat to her and, to avoid punishment for creating it, she passed it on to her supporters to be memorised, line by line, rather than written down. She was a problem for the authorities and became significant internationally, as her work came to symbolise resistance to political tyranny and the preservation of pre-Revolutionary liberal values in the Soviet era.The image above is based on 'Portrait of Anna Akhmatova' by N.I. Altman, 1914, MoscowWithKatharine Hodgson Professor in Russian at the University of ExeterAlexandra Harrington Reader in Russian Studies at Durham UniversityAndMichael Basker Professor of Russian Literature and Dean of Arts at the University of BristolProducer: Simon Tillotson.