The great French playwright and comic actor who flourished at the court of Louis XIV.
Published on Thursday, 22nd May 2025.
The prolific and versatile Jacobean playwright tasked with 'improving' some of Shakespeare
Published on Thursday, 17th April 2025.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss this influential and prolific 18th-century Irish writer.
Published on Thursday, 20th March 2025.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential English architect John Soane.
Published on Thursday, 6th March 2025.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eighteenth century mania for classical vases.
Published on Thursday, 23rd January 2025.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential Greek biographer and his main work
Published on Thursday, 16th January 2025.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great 12th-century Persian epic romantic poet.
Published on Thursday, 2nd January 2025.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential 20th-century Italian novelist and essayist
Published on Thursday, 19th December 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss arguably the greatest devotional poem writer in English.
Published on Thursday, 5th December 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's influential story of the March sisters
Published on Thursday, 21st November 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fine poet of love and war and author of I, Claudius.
Published on Thursday, 7th November 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Claude Monet's fascination with the foggy Thames.
Published on Thursday, 25th July 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great English comic novels.
Published on Thursday, 11th July 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the astonishing poet at the heart of Henry VIII's court
Published on Thursday, 6th June 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great 20th-century German playwright.
Published on Thursday, 23rd May 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristophanes' comedy in which a sex strike brings peace.
Published on Thursday, 9th May 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic poem that helped build the Finnish nation.
Published on Thursday, 25th April 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of the waltz on British society and culture.
Published on Thursday, 11th April 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lewis Carroll's fantastical tale inspired by Alice Liddell
Published on Thursday, 14th March 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's great comedy of love, desire and marriage.
Published on Thursday, 25th January 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Dutch painter of Sunflowers and Starry Nights.
Published on Thursday, 18th January 2024.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of the Fall of the House of Usher.
Published on Thursday, 28th December 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss writer and Renaissance queen Marguerite de Navarre.
Published on Thursday, 21st December 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Veblen on conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure.
Published on Thursday, 14th December 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's novel, set in a French miners' strike.
Published on Thursday, 23rd November 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Bergman's iconic film of a knight playing chess with Death
Published on Thursday, 19th October 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thomas Mann's novella of 1912.
Published on Thursday, 13th July 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests on Sophocles' tragedy, sometimes called the best play ever written
Published on Thursday, 6th July 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet's celebration of agriculture and rural life
Published on Thursday, 15th June 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the innovative and highly influential American poet.
Published on Thursday, 25th May 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Virginia Woolf's essay on women and literature.
Published on Thursday, 27th April 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Sanskrit epic.
Published on Thursday, 6th April 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the writer best known for her poem Not Waving But Drowning
Published on Thursday, 16th March 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the priest who was one of England's finest love poets.
Published on Thursday, 9th February 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Austen's last complete novel, published after her death.
Published on Thursday, 19th January 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' celebrated and influential film from 1941.
Published on Thursday, 12th January 2023.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval German epic The Song of the Nibelungs.
Published on Thursday, 29th December 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influential German school founded by Walter Gropius.
Published on Thursday, 8th December 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the outstanding poets of the First World War.
Published on Thursday, 24th November 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the innovative artist at the heart of French impressionism
Published on Thursday, 10th November 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orwell's novel on totalitarianism, truth and surveillance.
Published on Thursday, 13th October 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins and evolution of the satirical everyman figure
Published on Thursday, 28th July 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poems, plays and persona of the prominent Welsh writer
Published on Thursday, 14th July 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Li Bai and Du Fu from the Golden Age of Chinese Poetry.
Published on Thursday, 9th June 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of The Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791
Published on Thursday, 19th May 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1819 work that inspired two centuries of vampire tales
Published on Thursday, 5th May 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Michelangelo's iconic frescoes in Renaissance Rome.
Published on Thursday, 28th April 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Sophocles' tragedy of an autocrat who defies family ties.
Published on Thursday, 21st April 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's tragedy of young star-crossed love in Verona
Published on Thursday, 17th February 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a major force in French culture in the 20th century.
Published on Thursday, 27th January 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Hardy's goal of being a great poet and how he succeeded.
Published on Thursday, 13th January 2022.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a giant of cinema in Weimar Germany and Hollywood.
Published on Thursday, 30th December 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' celebrated story of Scrooge's redemption.
Published on Thursday, 16th December 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Beardsley, Wilde and art for art's sake in the 1890s.
Published on Thursday, 18th November 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a masterpiece of French epic poetry from the 12th century.
Published on Thursday, 4th November 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of the celebrated author of The Bell.
Published on Thursday, 21st October 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's novel of a woman's fight for independence.
Published on Thursday, 30th September 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer known as the father of history.
Published on Thursday, 23rd September 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the greatest and most challenging poems in English
Published on Thursday, 24th June 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Published on Thursday, 17th June 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great novel from the Ming Era, with its heroic Monkey.
Published on Thursday, 20th May 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential poets of Rome's Augustan Age.
Published on Thursday, 29th April 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revenge of Dionysus on Thebes in Euripides' tragedy.
Published on Thursday, 18th March 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Coleridge's famous poem of a sailor who shot an albatross.
Published on Thursday, 4th March 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the deciphering of hieroglyphs, secret for 1,500 years.
Published on Thursday, 11th February 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Fitzgerald's celebrated novel of the Jazz Age.
Published on Thursday, 14th January 2021.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Portuguese poet and his many literary personas.
Published on Thursday, 3rd December 2020.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and timeless works of the great German artist.
Published on Thursday, 12th November 2020.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Langland's celebrated poem, written around 1370.
Published on Thursday, 29th October 2020.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies.
Published on Thursday, 1st October 2020.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's Gothic story of a monster brought to life
Published on Thursday, 19th March 2020.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated French novelist, her life and work.
Published on Thursday, 6th February 2020.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poems of Catullus from the late Roman Republic
Published on Thursday, 9th January 2020.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss WH Auden's life and his poetry from the 1930s.
Published on Thursday, 19th December 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Dostoevsky's novel. The hero thinks he's above the law....
Published on Thursday, 14th November 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry, ideas and life of Robert Burns (1759-1796).
Published on Thursday, 24th October 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the science and ideas in HG Wells' story of time travel.
Published on Thursday, 17th October 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Spanish poet and playwright's work, life and death.
Published on Thursday, 4th July 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the physician with a curious mind in dangerous times
Published on Thursday, 6th June 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's comedy, one of his most popular plays
Published on Thursday, 18th April 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the only influential poet of the Victorian age'.
Published on Thursday, 21st March 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry and context of this pre-Islamic Arabian knight
Published on Thursday, 28th February 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how this Bible story has inspired artists for centuries.
Published on Thursday, 14th February 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and novelist, author of Waiting for Godot
Published on Thursday, 17th January 2019.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest poems from medieval England
Published on Thursday, 13th December 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet Horace, who flourished under Augustus.
Published on Thursday, 15th November 2018.
Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 2 of 2).
Published on Thursday, 18th October 2018.
Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of Shakespeare's approach to history (programme 1 of 2)
Published on Thursday, 11th October 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Wharton's novels of America's Gilded Age.
Published on Thursday, 4th October 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic poem on the wrath of Achilles in the Trojan War.
Published on Thursday, 13th September 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a great cultural figure of the 19th century.
Published on Thursday, 5th July 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the playwright and his tragedies of middle-class life.
Published on Thursday, 31st May 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the medieval Welsh stories of Celtic mythology.
Published on Thursday, 10th May 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot's greatest novel, published 1871-72.
Published on Thursday, 19th April 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the celebrated Russian poet.
Published on Thursday, 18th January 2018.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, longest and most quoted play.
Published on Thursday, 28th December 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and influence of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Published on Thursday, 21st December 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most popular idea sent in by listeners.
Published on Thursday, 7th December 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and works of the great woman of letters.
Published on Thursday, 16th November 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events behind and impact of Picasso's iconic work.
Published on Thursday, 2nd November 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aphra Behn (1640-1689): playwright, poet, spy.
Published on Thursday, 12th October 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Bronte's only novel, Wuthering Heights.
Published on Thursday, 28th September 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Central Asian scientist and historian al-Biruni.
Published on Thursday, 31st August 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Pushkin's masterpiece, Eugene Onegin, a novel in verse.
Published on Thursday, 22nd June 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Christine de Pizan (c1364-1430).
Published on Thursday, 8th June 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), celebrated American poet.
Published on Thursday, 11th May 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.
Published on Thursday, 30th March 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Elizabeth Gaskell's novel North and South from 1855.
Published on Thursday, 9th March 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works, life and times of Seneca the Younger.
Published on Thursday, 23rd February 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Clare, poet and farm labourer.
Published on Thursday, 9th February 2017.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss TS Eliot's Four Quartets, known as his great last work.
Published on Thursday, 22nd December 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss JMW Turner's The Fighting Temeraire.
Published on Thursday, 10th November 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Gilgamesh, the great epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia.
Published on Thursday, 3rd November 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a period of great change in western Europe.
Published on Thursday, 20th October 2016.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Published on Thursday, 29th September 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
Published on Thursday, 23rd June 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Muses in Greek mythology and after.
Published on Thursday, 19th May 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Published on Thursday, 5th May 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Published on Thursday, 24th March 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Rumi (1207-1273).
Published on Thursday, 11th February 2016.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the story of Tristan and Iseult.
Published on Thursday, 31st December 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emma, the novel by Jane Austen.
Published on Thursday, 19th November 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Holbein at the court of Henry VIII.
Published on Thursday, 15th October 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Frida Kahlo.
Published on Thursday, 9th July 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, first published in 1847.
Published on Thursday, 18th June 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Rabindranath Tagore.
Published on Thursday, 7th May 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of the 18th-century writer Fanny Burney.
Published on Thursday, 23rd April 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the ancient Greek poet Sappho.
Published on Thursday, 9th April 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.
Published on Thursday, 5th March 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Bruegel's painting The Fight Between Carnival and Lent.
Published on Thursday, 15th January 2015.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Trial, by Franz Kafka.
Published on Thursday, 27th November 2014.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aesop, legendary author of the famous collection of fables
Published on Thursday, 20th November 2014.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Rudyard Kipling.
Published on Thursday, 16th October 2014.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway.
Published on Thursday, 3rd July 2014.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the 18th-century Bluestocking Society.
Published on Thursday, 5th June 2014.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
Published on Thursday, 22nd May 2014.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the ancient Egyptian poem The Tale of Sinuhe.
Published on Thursday, 1st May 2014.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Laurence Sterne's comic novel Tristram Shandy.
Published on Thursday, 24th April 2014.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Published on Thursday, 14th November 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the French thinker Blaise Pascal.
Published on Thursday, 19th September 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio.
Published on Thursday, 4th July 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Chinese book Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Published on Thursday, 27th June 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Queen Zenobia, who led a rebellion against Ancient Rome.
Published on Thursday, 30th May 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.
Published on Thursday, 23rd May 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Icelandic sagas.
Published on Thursday, 9th May 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the great French writer Michel de Montaigne.
Published on Thursday, 25th April 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Amazons, formidable female warriors of classical myth.
Published on Thursday, 11th April 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov.
Published on Thursday, 14th March 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Evelyn Waugh's comic novel Decline and Fall.
Published on Thursday, 21st February 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Malory's epic medieval tale Le Morte d'Arthur.
Published on Thursday, 10th January 2013.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Persian epic poem, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi.
Published on Thursday, 13th December 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss The Anarchy, the 12th-century English civil war.
Published on Thursday, 1st November 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Caxton and the influence of the printing press.
Published on Thursday, 18th October 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the medieval scholar Gerald of Wales.
Published on Thursday, 4th October 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Druids of ancient Europe.
Published on Thursday, 20th September 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the 19th-century writer and campaigner Annie Besant.
Published on Thursday, 21st June 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss James Joyce's celebrated novel Ulysses.
Published on Thursday, 14th June 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Voltaire's satirical novel Candide, published in 1759.
Published on Thursday, 3rd May 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.
Published on Thursday, 22nd March 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Benjamin Franklin.
Published on Thursday, 1st March 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Kama Sutra.
Published on Thursday, 2nd February 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Safavid Dynasty of early modern Iran.
Published on Thursday, 12th January 2012.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Daniel Defoe's seminal novel Robinson Crusoe.
Published on Thursday, 22nd December 2011.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti.
Published on Thursday, 1st December 2011.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam.
Published on Wednesday, 29th June 2011.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Robert Burton's book The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Published on Thursday, 12th May 2011.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the foundation of the medieval universities.
Published on Thursday, 17th March 2011.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's Poetics.
Published on Thursday, 27th January 2011.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Published on Thursday, 6th January 2011.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of metaphor.
Published on Thursday, 25th November 2010.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and mythology of the unicorn.
Published on Thursday, 28th October 2010.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the German artistic movement known as Sturm und Drang.
Published on Thursday, 14th October 2010.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists.
Published on Thursday, 27th May 2010.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Roman satire.
Published on Thursday, 22nd April 2010.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Edvard Munch and his most famous painting, The Scream.
Published on Thursday, 18th March 2010.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot's 1861 novel Silas Marner.
Published on Thursday, 28th January 2010.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history and myth of the Samurai.
Published on Thursday, 24th December 2009.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Published on Thursday, 26th November 2009.
Melvyn Bragg discusses why revenge tragedy was so popular with Elizabethan theatre goers.
Published on Thursday, 18th June 2009.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolutionary history of the whale.
Published on Thursday, 21st May 2009.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aldous Huxley's dystopian 1932 novel Brave New World.
Published on Thursday, 9th April 2009.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Raphael's depiction of Plato and Aristotle.
Published on Thursday, 26th March 2009.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss TS Eliot's seminal poem The Waste Land.
Published on Thursday, 26th February 2009.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.
Published on Thursday, 5th February 2009.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jonathan Swift's satirical 1729 pamphlet A Modest Proposal
Published on Thursday, 29th January 2009.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the culture of the Baroque.
Published on Thursday, 23rd October 2008.
Melvyn Bragg examines Dante’s ‘Inferno’, a medieval journey through Hell’s nine circles
Published on Thursday, 3rd July 2008.
Melvyn Bragg explores the ancient astrological idea of the music of the spheres.
Published on Thursday, 19th June 2008.
Melvyn Bragg examines the Metaphysical poets, including John Donne and Andrew Marvell.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the prescient thriller about Anglo-German relations.
Published on Thursday, 12th June 2008.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a treasure house of Assyrian ideas.
Published on Thursday, 15th May 2008.
Melvyn Bragg examines the effect of Irish politics on the work of the poet W.B. Yeats.
Published on Thursday, 17th April 2008.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek myths from Achilles to Zeus.
Published on Thursday, 13th March 2008.
Melvyn Bragg and guests examine Shakespeare’s bloodthirsty tragedy, King Lear.
Published on Thursday, 28th February 2008.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Rudolph II and his Renaissance Court in Prague.
Published on Thursday, 31st January 2008.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enigmatic myth of the Fisher King.
Published on Thursday, 17th January 2008.
The life ad work of the Algerian-French writer and philosopher, Albert Camus.
Published on Thursday, 3rd January 2008.
