Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of the waltz on British society and culture.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lewis Carroll's fantastical tale inspired by Alice Liddell
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's great comedy of love, desire and marriage.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Dutch painter of Sunflowers and Starry Nights.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of the Fall of the House of Usher.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss writer and Renaissance queen Marguerite de Navarre.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Veblen on conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's novel, set in a French miners' strike.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Bergman's iconic film of a knight playing chess with Death
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thomas Mann's novella of 1912.
Melvyn Bragg and guests on Sophocles' tragedy, sometimes called the best play ever written
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet's celebration of agriculture and rural life
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the innovative and highly influential American poet.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Virginia Woolf's essay on women and literature.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Sanskrit epic.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the writer best known for her poem Not Waving But Drowning
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the priest who was one of England's finest love poets.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Austen's last complete novel, published after her death.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' celebrated and influential film from 1941.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval German epic The Song of the Nibelungs.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential German school founded by Walter Gropius.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the outstanding poets of the First World War.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the innovative artist at the heart of French impressionism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orwell's novel on totalitarianism, truth and surveillance.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins and evolution of the satirical everyman figure
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poems, plays and persona of the prominent Welsh writer
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Li Bai and Du Fu from the Golden Age of Chinese Poetry.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of The Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1819 work that inspired two centuries of vampire tales
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Michelangelo's iconic frescoes in Renaissance Rome.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Sophocles' tragedy of an autocrat who defies family ties.
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's tragedy of young star-crossed love in Verona
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a major force in French culture in the 20th century.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Hardy's goal of being a great poet and how he succeeded.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a giant of cinema in Weimar Germany and Hollywood.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' celebrated story of Scrooge's redemption.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Beardsley, Wilde and art for art's sake in the 1890s.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a masterpiece of French epic poetry from the 12th century.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of the celebrated author of The Bell.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's novel of a woman's fight for independence.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer known as the father of history.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the greatest and most challenging poems in English
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great novel from the Ming Era, with its heroic Monkey.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential poets of Rome's Augustan Age.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revenge of Dionysus on Thebes in Euripides' tragedy.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Coleridge's famous poem of a sailor who shot an albatross.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the deciphering of hieroglyphs, secret for 1,500 years.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Fitzgerald's celebrated novel of the Jazz Age.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Portuguese poet and his many literary personas.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and timeless works of the great German artist.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Langland's celebrated poem, written around 1370.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's Gothic story of a monster brought to life
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated French novelist, her life and work.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poems of Catullus from the late Roman Republic
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss WH Auden's life and his poetry from the 1930s.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Dostoevsky's novel. The hero thinks he's above the law....
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry, ideas and life of Robert Burns (1759-1796).
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the science and ideas in HG Wells' story of time travel.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Spanish poet and playwright's work, life and death.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the physician with a curious mind in dangerous times
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's comedy, one of his most popular plays
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the only influential poet of the Victorian age'.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry and context of this pre-Islamic Arabian knight
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how this Bible story has inspired artists for centuries.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and novelist, author of Waiting for Godot
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest poems from medieval England
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet Horace, who flourished under Augustus.
Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 2 of 2).
Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 1 of 2)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Wharton's novels of America's Gilded Age.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic poem on the wrath of Achilles in the Trojan War.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a great cultural figure of the 19th century.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and his tragedies of middle-class life.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval Welsh stories of Celtic mythology.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot's greatest novel, published 1871-72.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the celebrated Russian poet.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, longest and most quoted play.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and influence of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most popular idea sent in by listeners.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and works of the great woman of letters.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events behind and impact of Picasso's iconic work.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aphra Behn (1640-1689): playwright, poet, spy.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Bronte's only novel, Wuthering Heights.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Central Asian scientist and historian al-Biruni.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Pushkin's masterpiece, Eugene Onegin, a novel in verse.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Christine de Pizan (c1364-1430).
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), celebrated American poet.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Elizabeth Gaskell's novel North and South from 1855.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works, life and times of Seneca the Younger.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Clare, poet and farm labourer.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss TS Eliot's Four Quartets, known as his great last work.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss JMW Turner's The Fighting Temeraire.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Gilgamesh, the great epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a period of great change in western Europe.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Muses in Greek mythology and after.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Rumi (1207-1273).
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the story of Tristan and Iseult.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emma, the novel by Jane Austen.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Holbein at the court of Henry VIII.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Frida Kahlo.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, first published in 1847.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Rabindranath Tagore.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of the 18th-century writer Fanny Burney.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the ancient Greek poet Sappho.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Bruegel's painting The Fight Between Carnival and Lent.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Trial, by Franz Kafka.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aesop, legendary author of the famous collection of fables
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Rudyard Kipling.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the 18th-century Bluestocking Society.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the ancient Egyptian poem The Tale of Sinuhe.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Laurence Sterne's comic novel Tristram Shandy.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the French thinker Blaise Pascal.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Chinese book Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Queen Zenobia, who led a rebellion against Ancient Rome.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Icelandic sagas.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the great French writer Michel de Montaigne.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Amazons, formidable female warriors of classical myth.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Evelyn Waugh's comic novel Decline and Fall.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Malory's epic medieval tale Le Morte d'Arthur.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Persian epic poem, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss The Anarchy, the 12th-century English civil war.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Caxton and the influence of the printing press.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the medieval scholar Gerald of Wales.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Druids of ancient Europe.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the 19th-century writer and campaigner Annie Besant.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss James Joyce's celebrated novel Ulysses.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Voltaire's satirical novel Candide, published in 1759.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Benjamin Franklin.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Kama Sutra.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Safavid Dynasty of early modern Iran.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Daniel Defoe's seminal novel Robinson Crusoe.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Robert Burton's book The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the foundation of the medieval universities.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's Poetics.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of metaphor.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and mythology of the unicorn.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the German artistic movement known as Sturm und Drang.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Roman satire.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Edvard Munch and his most famous painting, The Scream.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot's 1861 novel Silas Marner.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history and myth of the Samurai.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Melvyn Bragg discusses why revenge tragedy was so popular with Elizabethan theatre goers.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolutionary history of the whale.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aldous Huxley's dystopian 1932 novel Brave New World.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Raphael's depiction of Plato and Aristotle.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss TS Eliot's seminal poem The Waste Land.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jonathan Swift's satirical 1729 pamphlet A Modest Proposal
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the culture of the Baroque.
Melvyn Bragg examines Dante’s ‘Inferno’, a medieval journey through Hell’s nine circles
Melvyn Bragg explores the ancient astrological idea of the music of the spheres.
Melvyn Bragg examines the Metaphysical poets, including John Donne and Andrew Marvell.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the prescient thriller about Anglo-German relations.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a treasure house of Assyrian ideas.
Melvyn Bragg examines the effect of Irish politics on the work of the poet W.B. Yeats.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek myths from Achilles to Zeus.
Melvyn Bragg and guests examine Shakespeare’s bloodthirsty tragedy, King Lear.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Rudolph II and his Renaissance Court in Prague.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enigmatic myth of the Fisher King.
The life ad work of the Algerian-French writer and philosopher, Albert Camus.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Wordsworth’s poem, The Prelude.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 18th century obsession with taste.
Melvyn Bragg discusses the myths, tales and legends of the Arabian Nights.
Melvyn Bragg discusses the 1857 trial of Gustave Flaubert's novel, Madame Bovary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the war poet Siegfried Sassoon.
Melvyn Bragg discusses the high pessimism of Victorian culture.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Greek and Roman love poetry.
Melvyn Bragg discusses epistolary literature from Aphra Benn to Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Melvyn Bragg discusses Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Jorge Luis Borges.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Hell and its representation in the arts.
The life and work of the brilliant, acerbic and unpopular poet Alexander Pope.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great achievements of the Enlightenment.
Melvyn Bragg explores comedy in Ancient Greek theatre including Aristophanes and Menander.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss pastoral literature from Virgil to Dylan Thomas.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 19th century anti-slavery novel, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'.
Melvyn Bragg examines the mathematical structures that lie within the heart of music.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 5000 year cultural history of fairies.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great German polymath, Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Emperor Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance.
Melvyn Bragg considers the importance of the 17th century Spanish novel Don Quixote.
Melvyn Bragg explores the concept of friendship; ‘a single soul dwelling in two bodies’.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English literature.
Melvyn Bragg examines the controversy and scandal of 17th century print culture.
Melvyn Bragg examines the ‘Oresteia’, the seminal trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus.
The life and work of Samuel Johnson, a giant of 18th century literature.
Melvyn Bragg examines the life of glittering Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe.
Melvyn Bragg examines Merlin, prophet, magician, king maker and the mad man of the woods.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the satirical 18th century Scriblerus Club.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval tale of Abelard and Heloise.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ‘The Aeneid’, Virgil's great epic poem about Rome.
The life and work of one of the most influential figures of the Victorian era.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the heavenly host of Angels.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mad, bad world of modern utopias.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the myth of Faustus and temptation by evil.
The life and work of French novelist, playwright and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
Melvyn Bragg examines the cultural effect of the eighteenth century idea of Politeness.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the monster filled epic, Homer’s Odyssey.
Melvyn Bragg examines the poetry, tragedy and idealism of Byron, Shelley and Keats.
Melvyn Bragg examines the myths and theology that inspired the Vikings.
Melvyn Bragg explores a transcendental idea that took hold on the Age of Enlightenment.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the novels of sensation, a Victorian literary phenomenon.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the centuries old myth of the most romantic noble outlaw.
Melvyn Bragg examines the 19th century Parisian philosophy of life lived for art.
Melvyn Bragg examines the history of concepts and ideas on youth from antiquity to today.
The life and work of the celebrated 20th century French novelist Marcel Proust.
Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the creative force of originality.
The history of the epic, from Homer's Odyssey to Joyce’s Ulysses.
Melvyn Bragg explores Victorian realism and its focus on the ordinariness of life.
Melvyn Bragg examines how a dominant power can exert a cultural influence on its empire.
Melvyn Bragg examines the position of Richard Wagner and his music in German culture.
The origins and cultural impact of 18th century tourism.
Melvyn Bragg explores the life and work of the 19th century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.
Melvyn Bragg explores the history and changing the status of the artist.
The history of marriage from ancient Greek and Babylonian times to today.
Melvyn Bragg examines both the literary and political careers of the poet John Milton.
Melvyn Bragg explores the strange and mystical world of the Irish poet W B Yeats.
Melvyn Bragg examines the ideas behind the 18th century literary cult of sensibility.
The cultural history of food in Modern Europe since the Renaissance.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Oscar Wilde, his literary legacy and the Aesthetes.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss surrealism, the art of the unconscious.
The achievements and legacy of the 19th century literary giant Charles Dickens.
Melvyn Bragg and guests examine the 20th century philosophy of existentialism
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Sonnet, the most enduring form in the poet’s armoury.
Melvyn Bragg examines the movement that embraced Joyce, DH Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.
Melvyn Bragg and guests consider the enigma of the life of William Shakespeare
Melvyn Bragg examines the origins and significance of the 18th century Gothic movement.
Melvyn Bragg assesses the role of Freudian analysis in understanding literature.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideals, exponents and legacy of Romanticism.
The history of London from its Neolithic origin to the digitalised capital city of today.
Melvyn Bragg examines why the public is fascinated with the private lives of individuals.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the true meaning of genius and whether it is born or made.
Melvyn Bragg explores the veracity of modern claims about the culture of the Renaissance.
Melvyn Bragg and guests examine the ideals that underwrite the idealism of America.
Melvyn Bragg examines what it is about Shakespeare’s work that makes it universal.
Melvyn Bragg examines the development of Western rituals and attitudes to death.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the characteristics of the English identity.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the development and future of material culture.
Melvyn Bragg explores the enduring appeal of the Roman poet Ovid’s work Metamorphoses.
The history of the politics, practice and process of reading.
Melvyn Bragg investigates the changing ideals of masculinity in 20th century literature.
Melvyn Bragg examines whether the ancient genre of tragedy has a place in our own time.
Melvyn Bragg and guests consider the development and the future of the novel.
Melvyn Bragg examines whether it is possible to apply mathematical logic to literature.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss whether it matters if memoirs aren’t entirely truthful.
Melvyn Bragg examines the history of capitalism from Marx to the collapse of Communism.
Melvyn Bragg examines the enduring strengths and current role of the British monarchy.
Melvyn Bragg examines how our collective and individual ways of remembering have changed.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 20th century’s vast population and cultural shifts.
Melvyn Bragg examines whether writers have a political role in modern society.
Melvyn Bragg examines what the architecture of the 20th century says about the age.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enduring popular and academic appeal of Shakespeare.
Melvyn Bragg examines the history and legacy of 20th Century Avant Garde painting.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss whether the formation of language is innate or cultural.
Melvyn Bragg examines the definition and state of modern culture in the 20th century.
Melvyn Bragg examines the development of the empowerment of women in the 20th century.
Melvyn Bragg examines how legitimate it is to call the 20th century the American century.
Melvyn Bragg examines what impact globalisation has had on human rights.
Melvyn Bragg examines the changing ideas about the function of work in the 20th century.
Melvyn Bragg looks at the innovative developments of the city in the 20th century.