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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

08/10/2015

Hopeful Romantics

BBC Radio 4 - We British, Hopeful Romantics

Andrew Marr introduces the age of the Romantics, who dominate our sense of what a poet is.

Andrew Marr explores the age of the Romantics. Was this the period when poetry went completely off the rails? With Richard Holmes. Poems by Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge and Clare.

The British are brilliant at writing poems. On National Poetry Day, Andrew Marr is using them to tell our story.

The British are supposedly poor at romance, but they make excellent Romantics. The Romantics dominate our sense of what a poet is. Infact they loom pretty large in our sense of what an individual is. An outpouring of poetic genius not seen before or since. Yet this might just be the period when poetry went completely off the rails.

With Richard Holmes and Lucy Newlyn. Poems by Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge and Clare and a new one by Andrew Motion; plus the archteypal romantic artist - a singing nightingale. Reader: Siobhan Redmond.

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Andrew Marr explores British history and identity through poems.

Andrew Marr explores British history and identity through poems. An epic broadcast for National Poetry Day.

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