English male poets
The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known.
20 episodes
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Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aldous Huxley's dystopian 1932 novel Brave New World and its vision of a future of test tube babies, free love and round-the-clock surveillance.
9 April 2009
Featuring: David Bradshaw, Daniel Pick, Michèle Barrett
CultureEnglish agnosticsEnglish male novelistsEnglish emigrants to the United StatesAlumni of Balliol College, OxfordBritish philosophers of culture, English pacifistsEnglish science fiction writersEnglish essayists20th-century British essayists20th-century mysticsPeople educated at Eton CollegeEnglish male poetsEnglish short story writersJames Tait Black Memorial Prize recipientsAnti-consumeristsPhilosophers of technologyEnglish male short story writersMale essayistsNew Age predecessorsBritish philosophers of mindLost Generation writersEnglish satiristsDuke University faculty20th-century English novelists20th-century English philosophersEnglish travel writersPhilosophers of literature20th centuryAuden
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss WH Auden's life and poetry from Europe before WWII, reflecting on his travels to Spain, China and Germany and the rise of totalitarianism.
19 December 2019
Featuring: Mark Ford, Janet Montefiore, Jeremy Noel-Tod
CultureEnglish literary criticsAmerican literary critics, American male dramatists and playwrightsEnglish emigrants to the United StatesAmerican male essayists, American male poets20th-century English non-fiction writersAmerican lecturersMembers of the American Academy of Arts and LettersOxford Professors of Poetry20th-century English male writersAmerican male non-fiction writersBritish male essayistsEnglish essayistsAlumni of Christ Church, OxfordFormalist poetsEnglish male dramatists and playwrightsEnglish male poetsEnglish LGBTQ poets20th-century American essayistsGay dramatists and playwrights, Gay poets20th-century American male writersAnglican poetsModernist theatreLGBTQ AnglicansAmerican LGBTQ poetsGay academicsNaturalized citizens of the United States20th-century English poetsEnglish male non-fiction writers20th centuryDickens
Melvyn Bragg discusses the achievements of Charles Dickens What is his political and literary legacy to our age?
12 July 2001
Featuring: Rosemary Ashton, Michael Slater, John Bowen
Critics of the Catholic ChurchEnglish male novelists19th-century travel writers19th-century English dramatists and playwrightsLiteracy and society theoristsPeople from Somers Town, LondonBritish male essayistsEnglish reformers19th-century English historians19th-century English poetsEnglish Anglicans19th-century English novelistsEnglish male dramatists and playwrightsWriters about activism and social change19th-century pseudonymous writersEnglish male poetsVictorian novelists19th-century British short story writersWriters from the London Borough of CamdenEnglish male journalistsEnglish prisoners and detaineesTrope theoristsEnglish philanthropistsBritish social reformersEnglish male short story writersLecturersBritish critics of religionsAnglican writers19th-century British journalistsEnglish satirists19th-century English non-fiction writers19th-century English essayistsEnglish historical novelistsEnglish male non-fiction writersEnglish travel writers19th-century British philanthropistsWriters of Gothic fictionBurials at Westminster Abbey19th centuryGeorge Herbert
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of 'the most beautiful poem in the world' whose works on his relationship with God offered comfort to Charles I when he faced execution.
7 November 2024
Featuring: Helen Wilcox, Victoria Moul, Simon Jackson
CulturePoet priestsAnglican poetsAnglican saintsTuberculosis deaths in England17th-century English poets17th-century Christian mysticsPeople celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendarAlumni of Trinity College, CambridgeProtestant mysticsAnglo-Welsh poets17th-century deaths from tuberculosisSonneteers17th-century English male writersEnglish male poets17th-century English Anglican priestsAnglican writersPeople educated at Westminster School, LondonLutheran saints17th centuryWalesGerard Manley Hopkins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works of Hopkins, unpublished in his lifetime, who FR Leavis called 'the only influential poet of the Victorian age and the greatest'.
21 March 2019
Featuring: Catherine Phillips, Jane Wright, Martin Dubois
John Clare
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Clare, the 'Northamptonshire peasant poet', whose writing was as celebrated as his life was humble.
9 February 2017
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Mina Gorji, Simon Kövesi
John Donne
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the extraordinary life and work of one of England's finest love poets and, as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, most remarkable preachers.
12 January 2023
Featuring: Mary Ann Lund, Sue Wiseman, Hugh Adlington
CultureCritics of the Catholic ChurchAlumni of Hart Hall, OxfordPhilosophers of religionLiteracy and society theoristsEpigrammatistsEnglish people of Welsh descentIndependent scholars17th-century English poets16th-century English male writersMetaphor theoristsWriters about activism and social changeChristian poetsSonneteersEnglish male poets17th-century Anglican theologiansLutheran saintsAnglican poetsAnglican saints16th-century English poetsPeople celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendarWriters from LondonPeople from the City of London17th-century English male writersLiterary theoristsMetaphysical poetsEnglish satiristsPoet priestsEnglish male non-fiction writersPamphleteers17th-century English Anglican priests16th century17th centuryTheologyJohn Keats
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the short, brilliant life of one of the most celebrated Romantic poets and the works of his most intensely creative year from autumn 1818.
19 February 2026
Featuring: Fiona Stafford, Nicholas Roe, Meiko O’Halloran
Marlowe
Melvyn Bragg discusses Christopher Marlowe; a forger, a brawler, a spy, but above all a playwright, a poet and the most celebrated writer of his generation.
7 July 2005
Featuring: Katherine Duncan-Jones, Jonathan Bate, Emma Smith
16th-century English poets16th-century English male writersEnglish male dramatists and playwrights16th-century English dramatists and playwrights16th-century English translatorsPeople of the Elizabethan eraEnglish male poetsEnglish spiesLatin–English translatorsEnglish Renaissance dramatistsDeaths by stabbing in England, English murder victims, People murdered in England16th centuryMilton
Melvyn Bragg examines the literary and political career of the 17th century poet John Milton, examining work such as Paradise Lost as well as his role as propagandist during the English Civil War.
7 March 2002
Featuring: John Carey, Lisa Jardine, Blair Worden
Critics of the Catholic ChurchChristian humanistsBritish free speech activistsNeoclassical writersRhetoricians17th-century writers in Latin17th-century English writersMythopoeic writersRhetoric theoristsEnglish Anglican theologiansLiteracy and society theoristsBlind poetsEnglish political philosophersEnglish essayistsEpic poets17th-century English poetsEnglish male dramatists and playwrightsMetaphor theoristsWriters about activism and social changeChristian poetsSonneteersEnglish male poetsCalvinist and Reformed poetsDeaths from kidney failure in the United KingdomAnglican philosophersAnglican poetsBlind writersAnti-Catholicism in the United KingdomMale essayistsWriters from LondonPeople from the City of London17th-century English male writersEnglish writers with disabilitiesEnglish non-fiction writersLiterary theoristsBritish philosophers of religionEnglish DissentersAlumni of Christ's College, Cambridge17th-century English educatorsEnlightenment philosophersSocial philosophersPamphleteersEnglish educational theorists17th-century English philosophers17th-century English dramatists and playwrightsEnglish theologiansEnglish republicans17th centuryTheologyPope
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the satirist Alexander Pope. One of the greatest poets of the English language, his brilliant satires have made him popular in our age but not in his own.
9 November 2006
Featuring: John Mullan, Jim McLaverty, Valerie Rumbold
18th-century English male writersBritish male essayistsEnglish essayists18th-century English non-fiction writersTranslators of HomerTuberculosis deaths in England18th-century English poetsEnglish Catholic poetsNeoclassical writersTory poetsFreemasons of the Premier Grand Lodge of EnglandEnglish Roman CatholicsEnglish male non-fiction writersPeople from the City of LondonEnglish male poets18th-century British essayistsRoman Catholic writers18th centuryRobert Graves
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of the author of I, Claudius, especially his love and war poems and his ideas on the source of all creativity.
10 October 2024
Featuring: Paul O'Prey, Fran Brearton, Bob Davis
CultureBisexual poetsEnglish literary criticsEnglish male novelists20th-century English non-fiction writersEnglish World War I poetsBisexual novelists20th-century English memoiristsOxford Professors of Poetry20th-century English male writersPeople with post-traumatic stress disorderBisexual memoirists20th-century atheistsEnglish male poetsEnglish people of Irish descentEnglish LGBTQ poetsEnglish short story writersJames Tait Black Memorial Prize recipientsEnglish bisexual men, English bisexual writers, Royal Welch Fusiliers officersEnglish male short story writersEnglish writers with disabilitiesEnglish atheists20th-century translatorsBisexual male writers20th-century English novelistsEnglish historical novelistsPrix Italia winnersBritish Army personnel of World War I20th-century English poetsPeople educated at Charterhouse SchoolEnglish male non-fiction writers20th-century English LGBTQ people20th centuryShakespeare and Literary Criticism
Melvyn Bragg discusses the enduring popular and academic appeal of Shakespeare and examines whether literary criticism and the academic institution ruins the pleasure of reading.
4 March 1999
Featuring: Harold Bloom, Jacqueline Rose
English Renaissance dramatists16th-century English poets17th-century English poetsEnglish male dramatists and playwrights16th-century English male actors, 17th-century English male actors, Burials in Warwickshire, English male stage actors, King's Men (playing company), Male actors from Stratford-upon-Avon, People educated at King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare family, William Shakespeare, Writers from Warwickshire16th-century English dramatists and playwrightsPeople of the Elizabethan eraSonneteers17th-century English male writersEnglish male poets17th-century English dramatists and playwrights16th century17th centuryShakespeare's Life
Melvyn Bragg discusses what we know about the life of William Shakespeare, a tantalising conundrum that has exercised minds since the day the playwright died.
15 March 2001
Featuring: Katherine Duncan-Jones, John Sutherland, Grace Ioppolo
English Renaissance dramatists16th-century English poets17th-century English poetsEnglish male dramatists and playwrights16th-century English male actors, 17th-century English male actors, Burials in Warwickshire, English male stage actors, King's Men (playing company), Male actors from Stratford-upon-Avon, People educated at King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare family, William Shakespeare, Writers from Warwickshire16th-century English dramatists and playwrightsPeople of the Elizabethan eraSonneteers17th-century English male writersEnglish male poets17th-century English dramatists and playwrights16th century17th centuryShakespeare's Work
Melvyn Bragg discusses whether the work of William Shakespeare is 'not of an age but for all time' or increasingly irrelevant museum pieces embalmed in out of reach language.
11 May 2000
Featuring: Frank Kermode, Michael Bogdanov, Germaine Greer
English Renaissance dramatists16th-century English poets17th-century English poetsEnglish male dramatists and playwrights16th-century English male actors, 17th-century English male actors, Burials in Warwickshire, English male stage actors, King's Men (playing company), Male actors from Stratford-upon-Avon, People educated at King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare family, William Shakespeare, Writers from Warwickshire16th-century English dramatists and playwrightsPeople of the Elizabethan eraSonneteers17th-century English male writersEnglish male poets17th-century English dramatists and playwrights16th century17th centurySir Thomas Wyatt
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Tudor courtier who found a way to write extraordinary and enduring poetry while under the intense scrutiny of Henry VIII's machinery of state.
9 May 2024
Featuring: Brian Cummings, Susan Brigden, Laura Ashe
Swift's A Modest Proposal
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jonathan Swift's satirical 1729 pamphlet A Modest Proposal, which reveals much about attitudes to the Irish and the poor in 18th-Century Britain.
29 January 2009
Featuring: John Mullan, Judith Hawley, Ian McBride
CulturePeople educated at Kilkenny College18th-century Irish writersEnglish fantasy writersNeoclassical writersEnglish male novelistsAlumni of Hart Hall, OxfordEnglish pamphleteersAlumni of Trinity College DublinEnglish AnglicansEnglish male poetsIrish satiristsEnglish short story writersEnglish male short story writers18th-century Irish novelists, 18th-century Irish poetsAnglican writers18th-century English novelists17th-century Anglo-Irish peopleEnglish satiristsJonathan SwiftEnglish political writers18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writers18th-century pseudonymous writersAnglo-Irish artists, Irish fantasy writersIrish male poets17th century18th centuryIrelandThe Scriblerus Club
Melvyn Bragg discusses the Scriblerus Club which included some of the sharpest satirists of the 18th century.
9 June 2005
Featuring: John Mullan, Judith Hawley, Marcus Walsh
Thomas Middleton
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the star writers for the London stage in the age of Shakespeare, much in demand for his own work and for rewriting the work of others.
20 March 2025
Featuring: Emma Smith, Lucy Munro, Michelle O’Callaghan
Wilfred Owen
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Britain's greatest war poets, who published only 5 poems in his short life yet whose works became seen as a warning of the futility of wars.
27 October 2022
Featuring: Jane Potter, Fran Brearton, Guy Cuthbertson
CultureEnglish people of Welsh descentRecipients of the Military CrossPeople with post-traumatic stress disorderArtists' Rifles soldiersBritish Army personnel of World War I20th-century English poetsEnglish World War I poetsLost Generation writersEnglish male poetsEnglish LGBTQ poetsWar writersEnglish writers with disabilities20th-century English LGBTQ people20th-century English male writers20th century