A Brief History of Being Cold
Alexandra Harris presents a cultural history of the cold, with the help of poets and writers including Simon Armitage, Katherine Swift, Adam Gopnik and AS Byatt.
Alexandra Harris presents a cultural history of the cold and how it has shaped the British. With the help of poets and writers including Simon Armitage, A.S. Byatt, Katherine Swift and Adam Gopnik Alex looks at the way our literature began with the cold in poems like 'The Seafarer' and 'The Wanderer'. Making winter a synonym for age and endurance the Anglo-Saxons wrote poetry mesmerised by the beauty and horror of cold. In Yorkshire Simon Armitage discusses his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight imagining the Pennines crossed by Gawain, hung with icicles on his hunt for the Green Knight. And the gardener Katherine Swift takes us on a winter tour of her garden in Shropshire.
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Poet Simon Armitage on Marsden Moor, West Yorkshire
Marsden Moor, West Yorkshire
Marsden Moor, West Yorkshire
Marsden Moor, West Yorkshire
Dower House Garden at Morville
On the first real frosty day in winter Alexandra Harris visited Katherine Swift, the historian who designed the Dower House Garden at Morville in Shropshire, a garden which aims to tell the history of English gardening in spaces like the Knot Garden, the Victorian Rose Border, the Wild Garden and the Snowdrop Walk. The Dower House Garden is open to the public: details on the National Trust website
The Dower House at Morville
Broadcasts
- Sun 20 Jan 201319:45BBC Radio 3
- Sun 12 Jan 201418:45BBC Radio 3
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