The Essay Podcast
Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.
Episodes to download
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Alice Oswald on Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn—An Ode to John Keats
Mon 7 Jan 2019
1/5 Alice Oswald explores Keats's great poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn.
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Harold Godwinson
Fri 4 Jan 2019
Clive Anderson discusses the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, Harold Godwinson.
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Edward the Confessor
Thu 3 Jan 2019
Stephen Baxter creates a portrait of Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor.
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Aethelred the Unready
Wed 2 Jan 2019
Simon Keynes discusses the life of the Anglo-Saxon monarch Aethelred.
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The Smith - Gold and Black
New Year's Day 2019
Leslie Webster on the life of the smith and his ambivalent status in Anglo-Saxon society.
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Alfred the Great
Mon 31 Dec 2018
Michael Wood discusses Alfred the Great, King of Wessex and king of the Anglo-Saxons.
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Bede, the Father of English History
Fri 28 Dec 2018
Scholar of the Anglo Saxons Lilian Groves explores the life and times of St Bede.
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The Beowulf Bard
Thu 27 Dec 2018
The late Seamus Heaney's exploration of the great bard of the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf.
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Eadfrith the Scribe
Boxing Day 2018
Richard Gameson explores the literary, historical and artistic legacy of scribes..
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Cuthbert
Christmas Day 2018
Historian Tony Morris explores the life of Cuthbert, the popular saint of the Northeast/
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King Raedwald
Christmas Eve 2018
Martin Carver on the inhabitant of the magnificent Sutton Hoo ship burial
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Dear Caravaggio—Letters to Artists
Fri 16 Nov 2018
Ian Sansom corresponds with Caravaggio on the links between fine art and violence.
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Dear Frida Kahlo—Letters to Artists
Thu 15 Nov 2018
Ian Sansom wonders how Frida Kahlo feels about her merchandise.
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Dear Julia Margaret Cameron—Letters to Artists
Wed 14 Nov 2018
Ian Sansom pens a missive to Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.
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Dear Albrecht D眉rer—Letters to Artists
Mon 12 Nov 2018
Ian Sansom thanks Albrecht Durer for his instructive, selfless vanity.
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Episode 4—Minds at War: Series 5
Thu 8 Nov 2018
The impact of World War One on great artists through the prism of a single work of art.
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Episode 3—Minds at War: Series 5
Wed 7 Nov 2018
The impact of World War One on great artists through the prism of a single work of art.
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Episode 2—Minds at War: Series 5
Tue 6 Nov 2018
The impact of World War One explored through single works of art by great artists.
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Episode 1—Minds at War: Series 5
Mon 5 Nov 2018
The impact of World War One on great artists through the prism of a single work of art.
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Ted Hughes and Tenderness—Telegraph Wires - Five Views of Ted Hughes
Fri 26 Oct 2018
Poet Simon Armitage talks about finding an unexpected in tenderness Ted Hughes's work.
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Ted Hughes and the River of Time—Telegraph Wires - Five Views of Ted Hughes
Thu 25 Oct 2018
Poet Zaffar Kunial explores Ted Hughes's personal obsession with dates and anniversaries.
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Crows, Loss and a Violent Melancholia—Telegraph Wires - Five Views of Ted Hughes
Wed 24 Oct 2018
Poet Karen McCarthy Woolf on finding solace in Hughes's work during a troubled childhood.
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Ted Hughes v Philip Larkin—Telegraph Wires - Five Views of Ted Hughes
Tue 23 Oct 2018
Sean O'Brien returns to his native Hull to consider the work of two very different poets.
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Ted Hughes and Animal Encounters—Telegraph Wires - Five Views of Ted Hughes
Mon 22 Oct 2018
Poet Helen Mort reads Hughes's poems about creatures in light of her own animal phobia.
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100 Acre Wood—Forests
Fri 19 Oct 2018
Brian Sibley guides Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough around the home of Winnie the Pooh.
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The Jungle Book—Forests
Thu 18 Oct 2018
Join Mowgli and Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough in the forest of Kipling's imagination
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Mirkwood—Forests
Wed 17 Oct 2018
The forests of Middle Earth explored by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.
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Brothers Grimm—Forests
Tue 16 Oct 2018
Dare to enter the dark Germanic forest of the Brothers Grimm.
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The Wood Beyond the World—Forests
Mon 15 Oct 2018
Enjoy the lush, romantic delights of the Pre-Raphaelite forest.
Death in Trieste
A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.
Watch: My Deaf World
Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.
The Book that Changed Me
Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.
Download The Essay
Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.
