In Our Time: Culture Folgen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Shakespeare’s great comedies, which plays in the space between marriage, love and desire. By convention a wedding means a happy ending and here there are three, but neither Orsino nor Viola, Olivia nor Sebastian know much of each other’s true character and even the identities of the twins Viola and Sebastian have only just been revealed to their spouses to be. These twins gain some financial security but it is unclear what precisely the older Orsino and Olivia find enduringly attractive in the adolescent objects of their love. Meanwhile their hopes and illusions are framed by the fury of Malvolio, tricked into trusting his mistress Olivia loved him and who swears an undefined revenge on all those who mocked him.With Pascale Aebischer Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Performance Studies at the University of ExeterMichael Dobson Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of BirminghamAnd Emma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of OxfordProduced by Simon Tillotson, Victoria Brignell and Luke MulhallReading list:C.L. Barber, Shakespeare’s Festive Comedies: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom (first published 1959; Princeton University Press, 2011)Simone Chess, ‘Queer Residue: Boy Actors’ Adult Careers in Early Modern England’ (Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 19.4, 2020)Callan Davies, What is a Playhouse? England at Play, 1520-1620 (Routledge, 2023)Frances E. Dolan, Twelfth Night: Language and Writing (Bloomsbury, 2014)John Drakakis (ed.), Alternative Shakespeares (Psychology Press, 2002), especially ‘Disrupting Sexual Difference: Meaning and Gender in the Comedies’ by Catherine BelseyBart van Es, Shakespeare’s Comedies: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016) Sonya Freeman Loftis, Mardy Philippian and Justin P. Shaw (eds.), Inclusive Shakespeares: Identity, Pedagogy, Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), especially ‘”I am all the daughters of my father’s house, and all the brothers too”: Genderfluid Potentiality in As You Like It and Twelfth Night’ by Eric Brinkman Ezra Horbury, ‘Transgender Reassessments of the Cross-Dressed Page in Shakespeare, Philaster, and The Honest Man’s Fortune’ (Shakespeare Quarterly 73, 2022) Jean Howard, ‘Crossdressing, the theatre, and gender struggle in early modern England’ (Shakespeare Quarterly 39, 1988)Harry McCarthy, Boy Actors in Early Modern England: Skill and Stagecraft in the Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2022)Stephen Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare's England (Cambridge University Press, 1996)William Shakespeare (eds. Michael Dobson and Molly Mahood), Twelfth Night (Penguin, 2005)William Shakespeare (ed. Keir Elam), Twelfth Night (Arden Shakespeare, 2008)Emma Smith, This is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright (Pelican, 2019)Victoria Sparey, Shakespeare’s Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture (Manchester University Press, 2024)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dutch artist famous for starry nights and sunflowers, self portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over, and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) painted them and around 900 others in the last decade of his short, brilliant life and, famously, in that lifetime he made only one recorded sale. Yet within a few decades after his death these extraordinary works, with all their colour and life, became the most desirable of all modern art, propelled in part by the story of Vincent van Gogh's struggle with mental health.With Christopher Riopelle The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National GalleryMartin Bailey A leading Van Gogh specialist and correspondent for The Art NewspaperAnd Frances Fowle Professor of Nineteenth Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator at National Galleries ScotlandProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Martin Bailey, Living with Vincent Van Gogh: The Homes and Landscapes that shared the Artist (White Lion Publishing, 2019)Martin Bailey, Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln, 2021)Martin Bailey, Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln, 2021)Nienke Bakker and Ella Hendriks, Van Gogh and the Sunflowers: A Masterpiece Examined (Van Gogh Museum, 2019)Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Teio Meedendorp and Louis van Tilborgh (eds), Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months (Thames & Hudson, 2023)Frances Fowle, Van Gogh's Twin: The Scottish Art Dealer Alexander Reid, 1854-1928 (National Galleries of Scotland, 2010) Bregje Gerritse, The Potato Eaters: Van Gogh’s First Masterpiece (Van Gogh Museum, 2021)Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2012)Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2009)Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh, A Life in Letters (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2020)Hans Luitjen, Jo van Gogh Bonger: The Woman who Made Vincent Famous Bloomsbury, 2022Louis van Tilborgh, Martin Bailey, Karen Serres (ed.), Van Gogh Self-Portraits (Courtauld Institute, 2022)Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger, Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings (Taschen, 2022)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Poe (1809-1849), the American author who is famous for his Gothic tales of horror, madness and the dark interiors of the mind, such as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-Tale Heart. As well as tapping at our deepest fears in poems such as The Raven, Poe pioneered detective fiction with his character C. Auguste Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. After his early death, a rival rushed out a biography to try to destroy Poe's reputation but he has only become more famous over the years as a cultural icon as well as an author.WithBridget Bennett Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of LeedsErin Forbes Senior Lecturer in 19th-century African American and US Literature at the University of BristolAndTom Wright Reader in Rhetoric at the University of SussexProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Peter Ackroyd, Poe: A Life Cut Short (Vintage, 2009)Amy Branam Armiento and Travis Montgomery (eds.), Poe and Women: Recognition and Revision (Lehigh University Press, 2023)Joan Dayan, Fables of Mind: An Inquiry into Poe's Fiction (Oxford University Press, 1987)Erin Forbes, ‘Edgar Allan Poe in the Great Dismal Swamp’ (Modern Philology, 2016)Kevin J. Hayes (ed.), Edgar Allan Poe in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2012) J. Gerald Kennedy and Scott Peeples (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe (Oxford University Press, 2018)Jill Lepore, 'The Humbug: Poe and the Economy of Horror' (The New Yorker, April 20, 2009)Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark (Vintage, 1993)Scott Peeples and Michelle Van Parys, The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City (Princeton University Press, 2020)Edgar Allan Poe, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin, 2006)Shawn Rosenhelm and Stephen Rachman (eds.), The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)