The Modern World: Ten Great Writers S01E11 · Ten Great Writers: The Seminar

Overview

In this lively round-table discussion, moderator Melvyn Bragg; the late writer and critic Anthony Burgess; Professor George Steiner, author of Language and Silence; literary critic Hermione Lee; and writer and series consultant Professor Malcolm Bradbury debate what constitutes modernist writing. New literary themes generated by the era’s political and social upheavals are also discussed, including time, the unconscious mind, alienation, the changing role of women, and the consequences of two world wars. In addition, the panel suggests that the atrocities of the post-modern world led writers to reject modernist narrative techniques and seek a new syntax and vocabulary.

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Episodes

1. 1 1. James Joyce: Ulysses1988-01-10From the series "The Modern World: Ten Great Writers", this playful documentary introduces James Joyce's most famous work "Ulysses". It includes fantastic adaptations to film from
2. 2 2. Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent1988-01-17When an anarchist attempted to blow up the Greenwich Observatory, an idea exploded in the mind of Joseph Conrad. This program re-creates the world of The Secret Agent, the first gr
3. 3 3. Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'1988-01-24
4. 4 4. Marcel Proust: A la recherche du temps perdu1988-01-31Withdrawing from the glittering high society he had so avidly courted, Marcel Proust spent the last decade of his life in virtual isolation, writing and revising Remembrance of Thi
5. 5 5. Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain1988-02-07A novel of ideas at once serious and comic, The Magic Mountain offers a bird’s-eye view of the political, philosophical, and social landscapes of pre-World War I Europe. This progr
6. 6 6. Henrik Ibsen: The Master Playwright1988-02-14This program, narrated by Ibsen biographer Michael Meyer, charts the development of Henrik Ibsen’s style over four periods: his early years of failure; his epic dramas; his sociolo
7. 7 7. Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway1988-02-21Virginia Woolf pushed the boundaries of the novel as a tool for psychological inquiry through her experimentation with subjective and relativistic perceptions of time and events. T
8. 8 8. Luigi Pirandello: In Search of an Author1988-02-28In 1925 Luigi Pirandello brought his troupe to England as part of a worldwide tour. This program re-creates one day in London as “The Einstein of the Theater” watches his plays and
9. 9 9. T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land1988-03-06Read by noted actors Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land powerfully expresses the disillusionment and disgust of the post–World War I era in
10. 10 10. Franz Kafka: The Trial1988-03-13A suppressor of his own writings, Franz Kafka even requested that upon his death all his extant works be destroyed—yet those very works accurately prefigured the anxieties and alie
11. 11 11. Ten Great Writers: The Seminar1988-03-20In this lively round-table discussion, moderator Melvyn Bragg; the late writer and critic Anthony Burgess; Professor George Steiner, author of Language and Silence; literary critic