The Essay: Forests

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The Essay: Forests: The Wood Beyond the World

Forests

The Wood Beyond the World

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Enjoy the lush, romantic delights of the Pre-Raphaelite forest.

Enjoy a meander through the lush, romantic delights of the Pre-Raphaelite forest with Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.

Lose yourself in a forest of fair maidens and knights with suspiciously shiny armour. This is a forest where the romantic couplings may be fantastical but the backdrop is meticulously drawn.  Each leaf, each clump of moss is taken directly from nature.  This is the mediaeval forest as reimagined by late Victorian aesthetes aghast at the grit and grime of industrialisation.

Eleanor Rosamund Baraclough is joined by Ingrid Hanson from Manchester University for a walk through this Pre-Raphaelite forest.  Their spirit guide is William Morris, the writer and designer who helped create the forest in his works of fantasy fiction such as The Wood Beyond the World, beating a path to be followed by Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

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.

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough examines the great fictional forests of art and literature.

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