Beowulf: everything you wanted to know

Napoleon III's family was, in the words of historian Edward Shawcross, “the most cutthroat mafioso soap opera in the world”. Exiled to Switzerland as a boy and disowned by his own father, he spent years as a laughing stock of French politics, twice arrested trying to seize power. ...  Show more

The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum is set to be the biggest historical event in decades. In conversation with David Musgrove, its curator Michael Lewis gives the lowdown on what the exhibition is all about, and how you should make the most of your trip if you do ...  Show more

Composed towards the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Anglo-Saxon epic poem that transcends its time to shed light on psychological and spiritual truths that still ring true today.

Seamus Heaney’s deeply felt interpretation - widely a ...

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem Beowulf, one of the masterpieces of Anglo-Saxon literature. Composed in the early Middle Ages by an anonymous poet, the work tells the story of a Scandinavian hero whose feats include battles with the fearsome monster Grendel and ...  Show more

Greetings!Welcome back to the podcast and let me introduce the heroic Beowulf! Beowulf is an epic poem that is one of the most important texts in old English (that's an English that was spoken thousands of years ago and sounds very different from what we speak today!)Monster aler ...  Show more

Whether it’s dismissed as little more than an old children’s story or a record of the moment when paganism gave way to Christianity, Beowulf has had a profound impact on the evolution of western storytelling and is one of the most important works of Old English literature. Learn ...  Show more