Five programmes about
T.S. Eliot's last great enterprise as a poet.
3: The Village of the Heart
'It is still often assumed that Eliot is a cold poet, who has little to say of love. But East Coker (like Burnt Norton) is among the most distinguished of modern love poems.'
Barbara Everett , of Somerville College, Oxford, suggests that through East Coker's dream of landscape, Eliot explores the human love of home.
In the beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Isan open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Complete readings of East Coker precede and follow the talk, by Alec Guinness (first broadcast in 1973) and John Franklyn-Robbins (first broadcast in 1983) respectively. (Fourth programme Monday ft 45pm;