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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Dear Albrecht DΓΌrer—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.
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Fate—My Life in Food
Fri 28 Sep 2018
Joanna Robertson now lives in France, but more despite the food than because of it.
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Family—My Life in Food
Thu 27 Sep 2018
Joanna Robertson's deep connection with food has created families, and changed them.
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Disorder—My Life in Food
Wed 26 Sep 2018
Joanna Robertson's deep and intimate relationship with food goes disastrously wrong.
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Artists—My Life in Food
Tue 25 Sep 2018
Joanna Robertson's deep connection with food leads her to top artists and musicians.
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Origins—My Life in Food
Mon 24 Sep 2018
Since early childhood, Joanna Robertson has been lured by both real and fictional food.
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Why the Lloyd George museum is so small—A Bard's Eye View of Wales
Fri 21 Sep 2018
Twm Morys looks into the reputation of Lloyd George in the village of his birth
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Devils—A Bard's Eye View of Wales
Thu 20 Sep 2018
Twm Morys tells the story of Jack Ystumllyn, an African man in North Wales in the 1770s
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Saint Teilo - A Surplus of Arms—A Bard's Eye View of Wales
Wed 19 Sep 2018
Poet Twm Morys delves into the cultural links between Brittany and Wales
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Dinogad's Jerkin – The oldest lullaby in Britain—A Bard's Eye View of Wales
Mon 17 Sep 2018
Poet and musician Twm Morys tells the story of the oldest lullaby in Britain.
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Dear Agatha Christie...
Fri 20 Jul 2018
Novelist Ian Sansom has a theory to put to Queen of crime, Agatha Christie.
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Dear Virginia Woolf...
Thu 19 Jul 2018
A letter of apology to Virginia Woolf from novelist, Ian Sansom.
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Dear Geoffrey Chaucer...
Mon 16 Jul 2018
Novelist Ian Sansom fires off a letter to Geoffrey Chaucer...
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Sonny's Blues
Sun 1 Jul 2018
How James Baldwin's short story helped break down divisions of class, age and race.
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.
