Something Understood

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Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

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Something Understood: Death Be Not Proud

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Death Be Not Proud

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, Death Be Not Proud

The poet Michael Symmons Roberts explores the mystery and inevitability of death.

Inspired by John Donne’s Death Be Not Proud, poet Michael Symmons Roberts explores the mystery and inevitability of death and why it is such an inspiration to art and literature.

Death has been an inspiration to poets, authors, artists and composers throughout the centuries. The multi award winning poet, Professor Michael Symmons Roberts, devotes his debut presenting Something Understood to an intense reflection on the subject, its mystery and inevitability. 

Roberts has himself used death in his own work, notably in his poem Corpse which is featured in the programme alongside the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens. But it’s the life and poetry of John Donne, which Roberts cites as his main inspiration. Donne, Roberts explains, courted death as a young man and witnessed plenty of it.

Another life-long influence on Roberts is the music of David Bowie who died earlier this year. “Mortality, the need to seize the fleeting life we have, was always there in his work,” Roberts says as he reflects on the elegiac Heroes and tells the story of Bowie’s final album, Blackstar and the song Lazarus. “Many fans interpreted it as a message from beyond the border, from a man who had crossed it.” 

Other music includes Vera Hall singing Death is Awful, Mozart’s Requiem and John Donne’s poem Death Be Not Proud set to music by John Tavener.

Presenter: Michael Symmons Roberts
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4

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