Death

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Death, what the 16th century philosopher Frances Bacon called, ‘the least of all evils’. A subject which has provoked thousands of reflections which live on: How has the perception, dread or even desire for our own endings shaped the development of the culture of Europe and the West, from funeral rituals to Gothic novels, to the Aids fiction and fact of today. From the celebration of the passage of a soul to the grief of the loss of a body. And how have different eras addressed the essential existential problems that death presents us with?

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Guests

• Jonathan Dollimore 2 episodes
  Professor of English, York University
• Thomas Lynch No other episodes
  Poet, essayist, funeral director and author of The Undertaking - Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
• Marilyn Butler No other episodes
  Professor of English Literature and Rector of Exeter College, Oxford

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Programme ID: p00546ry

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00546ry

Auto-category: 128.5 (Death)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, our subject today is what the 16th century philosopher Francis Bacon called the least of all evils.