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Bettany Hughes

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Hannah Sander

Start the Week: In Praise of Passion

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19/03/2018

In Praise of Passion

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, In Praise of Passion

Andrew Marr with Bettany Hughes, John Lewis-Stempel, Rachel Hewitt and Stephen Walsh.

Cultural discussion programme. Andrew Marr on our fascination with wildness, disorder and Bacchic revelry with Bettany Hughes, John Lewis-Stempel, Rachel Hewitt and Stephen Walsh.

We are drawn to wildness and disorder, argues historian Bettany Hughes. She tells Andrew Marr about the attraction of Bacchus, the god of wine and fertility, and the subject of a new BBC Four documentary. Bacchus (also known as Dionysus) has been a symbol of excess ever since Roman maidens fled to the woods and drank wine in his name. Hughes follows the Bacchic cult through history, and argues that chaos has been as important to civilisation as reason and restraint.

The wood - scene of so many Bacchic revelries - comes to life in nature writer John Lewis-Stempel's new account, The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood. Through poetry, folklore and his own observations he asks what it is that draws us to magical spaces.

Today we revel in feelings of joy and wonder, but feelings themselves are a surprisingly modern invention, says cultural historian Rachel Hewitt. She looks back at the 1790s, the decade when men and women of learning first began to take emotions seriously. Hewitt explains how an Enlightenment interest in reason led us to explore our own chaotic moods.

There are Bacchic scenes in the music of Debussy, as biographer Stephen Walsh shows in a new study of the French composer. Away from his piano Debussy had to battle professional vendettas, but in pieces such as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Debussy created a world of rich woodland scenes and musical intoxication.

Producer: Hannah Sander.

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