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Factual: History

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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Couples

The Essay: Couples: Episode 2

Couples

Episode 2

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Couples, Episode 2Close menu

Writer Frederic Raphael explores some of classical myth and literature's couples.

Writer Frederic Raphael explores some of classical myth and literature's couples, including Helen and Menelaus, Odysseus and Penelope, and Hector and Andromache.

Oscar-winning writer Frederic Raphael a new essay exploring some of couples who have become archetypes in classical myth and literature - including Odysseus and Penelope and Orpheus and Eurydice.

Frederic looks at the complex relationships between men and women in classical Greece - at Helen, Menelaus and prince Paris, and of the soldier Odysseus who went the distance to get his wife back.

He also re-examines the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and offers a new interpretation of that fatal look back.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Frederic Raphael explores the theme of couples throughout culture and society

Oscar-winning writer Frederic Raphael explores the theme of couples throughout history, literature, classical civilisation, culture and politics

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