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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet George Herbert (1593-1633) who, according to the French philosopher Simone Weil, wrote ‘the most beautiful poem in the world’. Herbert gave his poems on his relationship with God to a friend, to be published after his death if they offered comfort to any 'dejected pour soul' but otherwise be burned. They became so popular across the range of Christians in the 17th Century that they were printed several times, somehow uniting those who disliked each other but found a common admiration for Herbert; Charles I read them before his execution, as did his enemies. Herbert also wrote poems prolifically and brilliantly in Latin and these he shared during his lifetime both when he worked as orator at Cambridge University and as a parish priest in Bemerton near Salisbury. He went on to influence poets from Coleridge to Heaney and, in parish churches today, congregations regularly sing his poems set to music as hymns.

With

Helen Wilcox
Professor Emerita of English Literature at Bangor University

Victoria Moul
Formerly Professor of Early Modern Latin and English at UCL

And

Simon Jackson
Director of Music and Director of Studies in English at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge

Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a Â鶹ԼÅÄ Studios Audio production