<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the great French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) in London, initially in 1870 and then from 1899. He spent his first visit in poverty, escaping from war in France, while by the second he had become so commercially successful that he stayed at the Savoy Hotel. There, from his balcony, he began a series of almost a hundred paintings that captured the essence of this dynamic city at that time, with fog and smoke almost obscuring the bridges, boats and Houses of Parliament. The pollution was terrible for health but the diffraction through the sooty droplets offered an ever-changing light that captivated Monet, and he was to paint the Thames more than he did his water lilies or haystacks or Rouen Cathedral. On his return to France, Monet appeared to have a new confidence to explore an art that was more abstract than impressionist.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Karen Serres
Senior Curator of Paintings at the Courtauld Gallery, London
Curator of the exhibition 'Monet and London. Views of the Thames'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Frances Fowle
Professor of Nineteenth-Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator of French Art at the National Galleries of Scotland&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jackie Wullschläger
Chief Art Critic for the Financial Times and author of ‘Monet, The Restless Vision’&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson
Studio production: John Goudie&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Caroline Corbeau Parsons, Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904 (Tate Publishing, 2017)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Frances Fowle, Monet and French Landscape: Vétheuil and Normandy (National Galleries of Scotland, 2007), especially the chapter ‘Making Money out of Monet: Marketing Monet in Britain 1870-1905’&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge, Monet (Harry N. Abrams, 1983)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings (Yale University Press, 1990)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the 20th Century (Yale University Press, 1998)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Katharine A. Lochnan, Turner, Whistler, Monet (Tate Publishing, 2005)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nicholas Reed, Monet and the Thames: Paintings and Modern Views of Monet’s London (Lilburne Press, 1998)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Grace Seiberling, Monet in London (High Museum of Art, 1988)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Karen Serres, Frances Fowle and Jennifer A. Thompson, Monet and London: Views of the Thames (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2024 – catalogue to accompany Courtauld Gallery exhibition)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Charles Stuckey, Monet: A Retrospective (Random House, 1985)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: The Triumph of Impressionism (first published 1996; Taschen, 2022)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jackie Wullschläger, Monet: The Restless Vision (Allen Lane, 2023)&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Claude Monet's fascination with the foggy Thames.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the great French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) in London, initially in 1870 and then from 1899. He spent his first visit in poverty, escaping from war in France, while by the second he had become so commercially successful that he stayed at the Savoy Hotel. There, from his balcony, he began a series of almost a hundred paintings that captured the essence of this dynamic city at that time, with fog and smoke almost obscuring the bridges, boats and Houses of Parliament. The pollution was terrible for health but the diffraction through the sooty droplets offered an ever-changing light that captivated Monet, and he was to paint the Thames more than he did his water lilies or haystacks or Rouen Cathedral. On his return to France, Monet appeared to have a new confidence to explore an art that was more abstract than impressionist.WithKaren Serres
Senior Curator of Paintings at the Courtauld Gallery, London
Curator of the exhibition 'Monet and London. Views of the Thames'Frances Fowle
Professor of Nineteenth-Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator of French Art at the National Galleries of ScotlandAnd Jackie Wullschläger
Chief Art Critic for the Financial Times and author of ‘Monet, The Restless Vision’In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionProducer: Simon Tillotson
Studio production: John GoudieReading list:Caroline Corbeau Parsons, Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904 (Tate Publishing, 2017)Frances Fowle, Monet and French Landscape: Vétheuil and Normandy (National Galleries of Scotland, 2007), especially the chapter ‘Making Money out of Monet: Marketing Monet in Britain 1870-1905’Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge, Monet (Harry N. Abrams, 1983)Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings (Yale University Press, 1990)Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the 20th Century (Yale University Press, 1998)Katharine A. Lochnan, Turner, Whistler, Monet (Tate Publishing, 2005)Nicholas Reed, Monet and the Thames: Paintings and Modern Views of Monet’s London (Lilburne Press, 1998)Grace Seiberling, Monet in London (High Museum of Art, 1988)Karen Serres, Frances Fowle and Jennifer A. Thompson, Monet and London: Views of the Thames (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2024 – catalogue to accompany Courtauld Gallery exhibition)Charles Stuckey, Monet: A Retrospective (Random House, 1985)Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: The Triumph of Impressionism (first published 1996; Taschen, 2022)Jackie Wullschläger, Monet: The Restless Vision (Allen Lane, 2023)

Monet in England

<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss "The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling" (1749) by Henry Fielding (1707-1754), one of the most influential of the early English novels and a favourite of Dickens. Coleridge wrote that it had one of the 'three most perfect plots ever planned'. Fielding had made his name in the theatre with satirical plays that were so painful for their targets in government that, from then until the 1960s, plays required approval before being staged; seeking other ways to make a living, Fielding turned to law and to fiction. 'Tom Jones' is one of the great comic novels, with the tightness of a farce and the ambition of a Greek epic as told by the finest raconteur. While other authors might present Tom as a rake and a libertine, Fielding makes him the hero for his fundamental good nature, so offering a caution not to judge anyone too soon, if ever.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Judith Hawley
Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Henry Power
Professor of English Literature at the University of Exeter&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Charlotte Roberts
Associate Professor of English Literature at University College London&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Martin C. Battestin with Ruthe R. Battestin, Henry Fielding: A Life (Routledge, 1989)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;J. M. Beattie, The First English Detectives: The Bow Street Runners and the Policing of London, 1750–1840 (Oxford University Press, 2012)
 
S. Dickie, Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2011)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;J.A. Downie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Oxford University Press, 2020)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Henry Fielding (ed. John Bender and Simon Stern), The History of Tom Jones (Oxford University Press, 2008)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Henry Fielding (ed. Tom Keymer), The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (Penguin Classics, 1996)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ronald Paulson, The Life of Henry Fielding: A Critical Biography (Wiley Blackwell, 2000)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Henry Power, Epic into Novel: Henry Fielding, Scriblerian Satire, and the Consumption of Classical Literature (Oxford University Press, 2015)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Claude Rawson, Henry Fielding and the Augustan Ideal under Stress (first published 1972; Routledge, 2021)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Claude Rawson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Henry Fielding (Cambridge University Press, 2007)&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great English comic novels.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss "The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling" (1749) by Henry Fielding (1707-1754), one of the most influential of the early English novels and a favourite of Dickens. Coleridge wrote that it had one of the 'three most perfect plots ever planned'. Fielding had made his name in the theatre with satirical plays that were so painful for their targets in government that, from then until the 1960s, plays required approval before being staged; seeking other ways to make a living, Fielding turned to law and to fiction. 'Tom Jones' is one of the great comic novels, with the tightness of a farce and the ambition of a Greek epic as told by the finest raconteur. While other authors might present Tom as a rake and a libertine, Fielding makes him the hero for his fundamental good nature, so offering a caution not to judge anyone too soon, if ever.With Judith Hawley
Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonHenry Power
Professor of English Literature at the University of ExeterAndCharlotte Roberts
Associate Professor of English Literature at University College LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonIn Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list:Martin C. Battestin with Ruthe R. Battestin, Henry Fielding: A Life (Routledge, 1989)J. M. Beattie, The First English Detectives: The Bow Street Runners and the Policing of London, 1750–1840 (Oxford University Press, 2012)
 
S. Dickie, Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2011)J.A. Downie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Oxford University Press, 2020)Henry Fielding (ed. John Bender and Simon Stern), The History of Tom Jones (Oxford University Press, 2008)Henry Fielding (ed. Tom Keymer), The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (Penguin Classics, 1996)Ronald Paulson, The Life of Henry Fielding: A Critical Biography (Wiley Blackwell, 2000)Henry Power, Epic into Novel: Henry Fielding, Scriblerian Satire, and the Consumption of Classical Literature (Oxford University Press, 2015)Claude Rawson, Henry Fielding and the Augustan Ideal under Stress (first published 1972; Routledge, 2021)Claude Rawson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Henry Fielding (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Fielding's Tom Jones

<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the greatest poet of his age', Thomas Wyatt (1503 -1542), who brought the poetry of the Italian Renaissance into the English Tudor world, especially the sonnet, so preparing the way for Shakespeare and Donne. As an ambassador to Henry VIII and, allegedly, too close to Anne Boleyn, he experienced great privilege under intense scrutiny. Some of Wyatt's poems, such as They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek, are astonishingly fresh and conversational and yet he wrote them under the tightest constraints, when a syllable out of place could have condemned him to the Tower. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Brian Cummings
50th Anniversary Professor of English at the University of York&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Susan Brigden
Retired Fellow at Lincoln College, University of Oxford&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Laura Ashe
Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thomas Betteridge and Suzannah Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance (Routledge, 2016)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Susan Brigden, Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest (Faber, 2012)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nicola Shulman, Graven with Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt: Courtier, Poet, Assassin, Spy (Short Books, 2011)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chris Stamatakis, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Rhetoric of Rewriting (Oxford University Press, 2012)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Patricia Thomson (ed.), Thomas Wyatt: The Critical Heritage (Routledge, 1995)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Greg Walker, Writing Under Tyranny: English Literature and the Henrician Reformation (Oxford University Press, 2005)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thomas Wyatt (ed. R. A. Rebholz), The Complete Poems (Penguin, 1978)&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the astonishing poet at the heart of Henry VIII's court

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'the greatest poet of his age', Thomas Wyatt (1503 -1542), who brought the poetry of the Italian Renaissance into the English Tudor world, especially the sonnet, so preparing the way for Shakespeare and Donne. As an ambassador to Henry VIII and, allegedly, too close to Anne Boleyn, he experienced great privilege under intense scrutiny. Some of Wyatt's poems, such as They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek, are astonishingly fresh and conversational and yet he wrote them under the tightest constraints, when a syllable out of place could have condemned him to the Tower. With Brian Cummings
50th Anniversary Professor of English at the University of YorkSusan Brigden
Retired Fellow at Lincoln College, University of OxfordAnd Laura Ashe
Professor of English Literature at the University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionReading list:Thomas Betteridge and Suzannah Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance (Routledge, 2016)Susan Brigden, Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest (Faber, 2012)Nicola Shulman, Graven with Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt: Courtier, Poet, Assassin, Spy (Short Books, 2011)Chris Stamatakis, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Rhetoric of Rewriting (Oxford University Press, 2012)Patricia Thomson (ed.), Thomas Wyatt: The Critical Heritage (Routledge, 1995)Greg Walker, Writing Under Tyranny: English Literature and the Henrician Reformation (Oxford University Press, 2005)Thomas Wyatt (ed. R. A. Rebholz), The Complete Poems (Penguin, 1978)

Sir Thomas Wyatt

<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest European playwrights of the twentieth century. The aim of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was to make the familiar ‘strange’: with plays such as Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle he wanted his audience not to sit back but to engage, observe and discover the contradictions in life, and act on what they learnt. He developed this approach in turbulent times, from Weimar Germany to the rise of the Nazis, to exile in Scandinavia and America and then post-war life in East Berlin, and he has since inspired dramatists around the world.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Laura Bradley
Professor of German and Theatre at the University of Edinburgh&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Barnett
Professor of Theatre at the University of York&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tom Kuhn
Professor of Twentieth Century German Literature, Emeritus Fellow of St Hugh's College, University of Oxford&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list: &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Barnett, Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Barnett, A History of the Berliner Ensemble (Cambridge University Press, 2015)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Laura Bradley and Karen Leeder (eds.), Brecht and the GDR: Politics, Culture, Posterity (Camden House, 2015)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Laura Bradley, ‘Training the Audience: Brecht and the Art of Spectatorship’ (The Modern Language Review, 111, 2016)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bertolt Brecht (ed. Marc Silberman, Tom Kuhn and Steve Giles), Brecht on Theatre (Bloomsbury, 2014)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bertolt Brecht (ed. Tom Kuhn, Steve Giles and Marc Silberman), Brecht on Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bertolt Brecht (trans. Tom Kuhn and David Constantine), The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht (Norton Liveright, 2018) which includes the poem ‘Spring 1938’ read by Tom Kuhn in this programme&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stephen Brockmann (ed.), Bertolt Brecht in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2021)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Meg Mumford, Bertolt Brecht (Routledge, 2009)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stephen Parker, Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life (Bloomsbury, 2014)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ronald Speirs, Brecht’s Poetry of Political Exile (Cambridge University Press, 2000)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Zoob, Brecht: A Practical Handbook (Nick Hern Books, 2018)&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great 20th-century German playwright.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest European playwrights of the twentieth century. The aim of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was to make the familiar ‘strange’: with plays such as Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle he wanted his audience not to sit back but to engage, observe and discover the contradictions in life, and act on what they learnt. He developed this approach in turbulent times, from Weimar Germany to the rise of the Nazis, to exile in Scandinavia and America and then post-war life in East Berlin, and he has since inspired dramatists around the world.WithLaura Bradley
Professor of German and Theatre at the University of EdinburghDavid Barnett
Professor of Theatre at the University of YorkAnd Tom Kuhn
Professor of Twentieth Century German Literature, Emeritus Fellow of St Hugh's College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio productionReading list: David Barnett, Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014)David Barnett, A History of the Berliner Ensemble (Cambridge University Press, 2015)Laura Bradley and Karen Leeder (eds.), Brecht and the GDR: Politics, Culture, Posterity (Camden House, 2015)Laura Bradley, ‘Training the Audience: Brecht and the Art of Spectatorship’ (The Modern Language Review, 111, 2016)Bertolt Brecht (ed. Marc Silberman, Tom Kuhn and Steve Giles), Brecht on Theatre (Bloomsbury, 2014)Bertolt Brecht (ed. Tom Kuhn, Steve Giles and Marc Silberman), Brecht on Performance (Bloomsbury, 2014)Bertolt Brecht (trans. Tom Kuhn and David Constantine), The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht (Norton Liveright, 2018) which includes the poem ‘Spring 1938’ read by Tom Kuhn in this programmeStephen Brockmann (ed.), Bertolt Brecht in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2021)Meg Mumford, Bertolt Brecht (Routledge, 2009)Stephen Parker, Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life (Bloomsbury, 2014)Ronald Speirs, Brecht’s Poetry of Political Exile (Cambridge University Press, 2000)David Zoob, Brecht: A Practical Handbook (Nick Hern Books, 2018)

Bertolt Brecht

<description>&lt;p&gt;Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristophanes' comedy in which the women of Athens and Sparta, led by Lysistrata, secure peace in the long-running war between them by staging a sex strike. To the men in the audience in 411BC, the idea that peace in the Peloponnesian War could be won so easily was ridiculous and the thought that their wives could have so much power over them was even more so. However Aristophanes' comedy also has the women seizing the treasure in the Acropolis that was meant to fund more fighting in an emergency, a fund the Athenians had recently had to draw on. They were in a perilous position and, much as they might laugh at Aristophanes' jokes, they knew there were real concerns about the actual cost of the war in terms of wealth and manpower. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Paul Cartledge
AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sarah Miles
Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;James Robson
Professor of Classical Studies at the Open University&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Producer: Simon Tillotson&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading list:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Lysistrata (Oxford University Press, 1987)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Three Plays by Aristophanes: Staging Women (Routledge, 2010)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Birds; Lysistrata; Women at the Thesmophoria (Loeb Classical Library series, Harvard University Press, 2014) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aristophanes (ed. Alan H. Sommerstein), Lysistrata and Other Plays: The Acharnians; The Clouds; Lysistrata (Penguin, 2002)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aristophanes (ed. Alan H. Sommerstein), Lysistrata (Aris &amp;amp; Phillips, 1998)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Paul Cartledge, Aristophanes and his Theatre of the Absurd (Bristol Classical Press, 1999)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kenneth Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (University of California Press, 1972)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Germaine Greer, Lysistrata: The Sex Strike: After Aristophanes (Aurora Metro Press, 2000)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tony Harrison, The Common Chorus: A Version of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (Faber &amp;amp; Faber, 1992)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Douglas M. MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays (Oxford University Press, 1995)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;S. Douglas Olson (ed.), Ancient Comedy and Reception: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Henderson (De Gruyter, 2013), especially 'She (Don't) Gotta Have It: African-American reception of Lysistrata' by Kevin Wetmore&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;James Robson, Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Bloomsbury ancient comedy companions (Bloomsbury, 2023)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;James Robson, Aristophanes: An Introduction (Duckworth, 2009)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ralph M. Rosen and Helene P. Foley (eds.), Aristophanes and Politics. New Studies (Brill, 2020) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Donald Sells, Parody, Politics and the Populace in Greek Old Comedy (Bloomsbury, 2018)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Stuttard (ed.), Looking at Lysistrata: Eight Essays and a New Version of Aristophanes' Provocative Comedy (Bristol Classical Press, 2010)&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristophanes' comedy in which a sex strike brings peace.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristophanes' comedy in which the women of Athens and Sparta, led by Lysistrata, secure peace in the long-running war between them by staging a sex strike. To the men in the audience in 411BC, the idea that peace in the Peloponnesian War could be won so easily was ridiculous and the thought that their wives could have so much power over them was even more so. However Aristophanes' comedy also has the women seizing the treasure in the Acropolis that was meant to fund more fighting in an emergency, a fund the Athenians had recently had to draw on. They were in a perilous position and, much as they might laugh at Aristophanes' jokes, they knew there were real concerns about the actual cost of the war in terms of wealth and manpower. WithPaul Cartledge
AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge Sarah Miles
Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham UniversityAndJames Robson
Professor of Classical Studies at the Open UniversityProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Lysistrata (Oxford University Press, 1987)Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Three Plays by Aristophanes: Staging Women (Routledge, 2010)Aristophanes (ed. Jeffrey Henderson), Birds; Lysistrata; Women at the Thesmophoria (Loeb Classical Library series, Harvard University Press, 2014) Aristophanes (ed. Alan H. Sommerstein), Lysistrata and Other Plays: The Acharnians; The Clouds; Lysistrata (Penguin, 2002)Aristophanes (ed. Alan H. Sommerstein), Lysistrata (Aris &amp; Phillips, 1998)Paul Cartledge, Aristophanes and his Theatre of the Absurd (Bristol Classical Press, 1999)Kenneth Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (University of California Press, 1972)Germaine Greer, Lysistrata: The Sex Strike: After Aristophanes (Aurora Metro Press, 2000)Tony Harrison, The Common Chorus: A Version of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (Faber &amp; Faber, 1992)Douglas M. MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays (Oxford University Press, 1995)S. Douglas Olson (ed.), Ancient Comedy and Reception: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Henderson (De Gruyter, 2013), especially 'She (Don't) Gotta Have It: African-American reception of Lysistrata' by Kevin WetmoreJames Robson, Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Bloomsbury ancient comedy companions (Bloomsbury, 2023)James Robson, Aristophanes: An Introduction (Duckworth, 2009)Ralph M. Rosen and Helene P. Foley (eds.), Aristophanes and Politics. New Studies (Brill, 2020) Donald Sells, Parody, Politics and the Populace in Greek Old Comedy (Bloomsbury, 2018)David Stuttard (ed.), Looking at Lysistrata: Eight Essays and a New Version of Aristophanes' Provocative Comedy (Bristol Classical Press, 2010)

Lysistrata

Popular culture, poetry, music and visual arts and the roles they play in our society.

In Our Time: Culture

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