28 min listen
Death
ratings:
Length:
28 minutes
Released:
May 4, 2000
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Death, what the 16th century philosopher Frances Bacon called, ‘the least of all evils’. A subject which has provoked thousands of reflections which live on: How has the perception, dread or even desire for our own endings shaped the development of the culture of Europe and the West, from funeral rituals to Gothic novels, to the Aids fiction and fact of today. From the celebration of the passage of a soul to the grief of the loss of a body. And how have different eras addressed the essential existential problems that death presents us with?With Jonathan Dollimore, Professor of English, York University; Thomas Lynch, poet, essayist, funeral director and author of The Undertaking - Life Studies from the Dismal Trade; Marilyn Butler, Professor of English Literature and Rector of Exeter College, Oxford.
Released:
May 4, 2000
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Tragedy: Melvyn Bragg examines whether the ancient genre of tragedy has a place in our own time. by In Our Time: Culture