From early Christian theology through Jacobean tragedy to Freud and Foucault, the relationship between desire and death has been a central strand in Western culture.
Jonathan Dollimore traces this fascinating and disturbing theme in his new book, Death, Desire and Loss in Western
Culture. Paul Allen talks to him about the book and the way we conceptualise death in an age pervaded by media images of violence and sex. And the death of children is addressed in Friedrich Riickert 's harrowing poems written at the turn of the century and set to music by Mahler. Night Waves reviews the opening of a new staging by Robert Lepage.
Producer Rebecca Stratford