Popular culture, poetry, music and visual arts and the roles they play in our society.
The life and work of one of the most influential figures of the Victorian era.
The life and work of the brilliant, acerbic and unpopular poet Alexander Pope.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of metaphor.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.
Melvyn Bragg examines the mathematical structures that lie within the heart of music.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enduring popular and academic appeal of Shakespeare.
How the written word, originally used for accountancy, gave rise to human literature.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the great French writer Michel de Montaigne.
Melvyn Bragg considers the importance of the 17th century Spanish novel Don Quixote.
Melvyn Bragg examines the development of Western rituals and attitudes to death.
Melvyn Bragg examines the definition and state of modern culture in the 20th century.
Melvyn Bragg examines what the architecture of the 20th century says about the age.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss James Joyce's celebrated novel Ulysses.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov.
Melvyn Bragg examines the ideas behind the 18th century literary cult of sensibility.
Melvyn Bragg examines Merlin, prophet, magician, king maker and the mad man of the woods.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mad, bad world of modern utopias.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the myth of Faustus and temptation by evil.
The life and work of the celebrated 20th century French novelist Marcel Proust.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Persian epic poem, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the 19th-century writer and campaigner Annie Besant.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Caxton and the influence of the printing press.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English literature.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Benjamin Franklin.