John Carey
Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Oxford University
7 episodes
Appears in multiple episodes with: Martin Palmer, Laura Marcus
Covers topics in categories such as:
Heaven
Melvyn Bragg discusses heaven and the afterlife, from Ancient Egypt, Zoroastrianism and Judaism through to Christianity, the arch promoter of heaven.
22 December 2005
Also featuring: Valery Rees, Martin Palmer
Modernist Utopias
Melvyn Bragg discusses the mad, bad world of modern utopias where babies are hatched from test tubes, where women live without men, where machines have taken over, and where the poor are exterminated.
10 March 2005
Also featuring: Steven Connor, Laura Marcus
The Fall
Melvyn Bragg discusses the idea of original sin and its impact on politics, gender and notions of morality in western culture, examining Augustine, Milton, the Masaccio frescoes and Charles Darwin.
8 April 2004
Also featuring: Martin Palmer, Griselda Pollock
The Epic
Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of the epic form, from it's creation by Homer to its more modern incarnations in the hands of James Joyce, J R R Tolkien and Philip Pullman.
6 February 2003
Also featuring: Karen Edwards, Oliver Taplin
Milton
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
Also featuring: Lisa Jardine, Blair Worden
CultureSocial philosophersWriters about activism and social changeEnglish male poetsEnlightenment philosophersSonneteersCritics of the Catholic ChurchEnglish essayistsChristian humanists17th-century English male writersEnglish non-fiction writersLiteracy and society theoristsEnglish male dramatists and playwrightsEpic poets17th-century English poetsLiterary theorists17th-century English writersAnglican poetsChristian poetsPeople from the City of London17th-century writers in LatinRhetoric theorists17th-century English dramatists and playwrightsMale essayistsMetaphor theoristsWriters from London17th-century English philosophersEnglish republicansEnglish political philosophersNeoclassical writersPamphleteersEnglish writers with disabilitiesEnglish educational theoristsCalvinist and Reformed poetsMythopoeic writersAnglican philosophersBritish free speech activistsBlind writersDeaths from kidney failure in the United KingdomEnglish Anglican theologians17th-century English educatorsRhetoriciansBritish philosophers of religionEnglish DissentersAlumni of Christ's College, CambridgeBlind poetsEnglish theologiansAnti-Catholicism in the United KingdomLiterary Modernism
Melvyn Bragg discusses literary modernism. The literary movement that embraced Joyce, DH Lawrence, TS Eliot, Virginia Woolf in the early decades of the twentieth century.
26 April 2001
Also featuring: Laura Marcus, Valentine Cunningham
Utopia
Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of the concept of Utopia, examines real and fictional examples, and explores why we are as enthralled as ever by the idea of it.
7 October 1999
Also featuring: A. C. Grayling