Laura Ashe
Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford
11 episodes
Covers topics in categories such as:
Sir 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.
09 May 2024
Also featuring: Brian Cummings, Susan Brigden
The Song of Roland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic reimagining of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778AD when Charlemagne's rearguard was ambushed and his knight Roland fought and died.
4 November 2021
Also featuring: Miranda Griffin, Luke Sunderland
Piers Plowman
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Langland's exploration of what it means to live a good life, written when the Black Death had overturned many of the old certainties.
29 October 2020
Also featuring: Lawrence Warner, Alastair Bennett
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poem of the knight who interrupts King Arthur's Christmas celebrations, challenging someone to chop off his head if he can do the same in return
13 December 2018
Also featuring: Ad Putter, Simon Armitage
Thomas Becket
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thomas Becket, chancellor turned archbishop, who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral and whose tomb became a centre of pilgrimage across Europe.
14 December 2017
Also featuring: Michael Staunton, Danica Summerlin
Purgatory
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Purgatory as an idea and, from C12th, as a place imagined alongside Heaven and Hell where souls of sinners would be purged by fire.
25 May 2017
Also featuring: Matthew Treherne, Helen Foxhall Forbes
The 12th Century Renaissance
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins and impact of the philosophical, scientific, religious and architectural changes of the 12th century in western Europe.
20 October 2016
Also featuring: Elisabeth van Houts, Giles Gasper
Tristan and Iseult
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tristan and Iseult, as told by Thomas of Britain and Beroul in the 12th century and reworked by Gottfried of Strasbourg and others, including Wagner.
31 December 2015
Also featuring: Juliette Wood, Mark Chinca
Beowulf
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem Beowulf, one of the masterpieces of Anglo-Saxon literature.
5 March 2015
Also featuring: Clare Lees, Andy Orchard
Chivalry
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss chivalry, which governed the behaviour of the knights of medieval Europe.
13 February 2014
Also featuring: Miri Rubin, Matthew Strickland
Le Morte d'Arthur
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory's epic medieval tale of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
10 January 2013
Also featuring: Helen Cooper, Helen Fulton