The Bacchae
In Our Time18 Maalis 2021

The Bacchae

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Euripides' great tragedy, which was first performed in Athens in 405 BC when the Athenians were on the point of defeat and humiliation in a long war with Sparta. The action seen or described on stage was brutal: Pentheus, king of Thebes, is torn into pieces by his mother in a Bacchic frenzy and his grandparents condemned to crawl away as snakes. All this happened because Pentheus had denied the divinity of his cousin Dionysus, known to the audience as god of wine, theatre, fertility and religious ecstasy.

The image above is a detail of a Red-Figure Cup showing the death of Pentheus (exterior) and a Maenad (interior), painted c. 480 BC by the Douris painter. This object can be found at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

With

Edith Hall Professor of Classics at King’s College London

Emily Wilson Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

And

Rosie Wyles Lecturer in Classical History and Literature at the University of Kent

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Jaksot(1082)

Stevie Smith

Stevie Smith

In 1957 Stevie Smith published a poetry collection called Not Waving But Drowning – and its title poem gave us a phrase which has entered the language. Its success has overshadowed her wider work as t...

16 Maalis 202353min

Chartism

Chartism

On 21 May 1838 an estimated 150,000 people assembled on Glasgow Green for a mass demonstration. There they witnessed the launch of the People’s Charter, a list of demands for political reform. The cha...

9 Maalis 202351min

Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) whose charts offered an unprecedented level of accuracy.In 1572 Brahe's observations of a new star challenged...

2 Maalis 202353min

Superconductivity

Superconductivity

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery made in 1911 by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926). He came to call it Superconductivity and it is a set of physical properties that ...

23 Helmi 202350min

Rawls' Theory of Justice

Rawls' Theory of Justice

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss A Theory of Justice by John Rawls (1921 - 2002) which has been called the most influential book in twentieth century political philosophy. It was first published in 197...

16 Helmi 20231h

John Donne

John Donne

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Donne (1573-1631), known now as one of England’s finest poets of love and notable in his own time as an astonishing preacher. He was born a Catholic in a Protestant co...

9 Helmi 202351min

The Great Stink

The Great Stink

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the stench from the River Thames in the hot summer of 1858 and how it appalled and terrified Londoners living and working beside it, including those in the new Houses o...

26 Tammi 202350min

Persuasion

Persuasion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen’s last complete novel, which was published just before Christmas in 1817, five months after her death. It is the story of Anne Elliot, now 27 and (so we ar...

19 Tammi 202350min

Suosittua kategoriassa Historia

olipa-kerran-otsikko
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
mayday-fi
huijarit
mystista
rss-ikiuni
konginkangas
tsunami
totuus-vai-salaliitto
rouva-diktaattori
rss-i-dont-like-mondays-2
rss-kirkon-ihmeellisimmat-tarinat
rss-sattuu-sita-suomessakin
sotaa-ja-historiaa-podi
maailmanpuu
rss-subjektiivinen-todistaja
historiaa-suomeksi
rss-peter-peter
apinan-vuosi
rss-kikka-forever