Marilyn Monroe centenary: What is beauty?
Words about Marilyn Monroe, Helen of Troy and a host of other beauties both real and imagined by Sappho, Austen, Oscar Wilde. And music to match from Tchaikovsky, Bach, Judith Weir.
Marilyn Monroe was born June 1 1926. Inspired by the movie star, Words and Music explores the question, What is Beauty?
Answers come in words from the Greek poet Sappho, Monroe's biographer Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates, who wrote a novel inspired by Marilyn - Blonde. We will also hear about more everyday beauty from the writers James Baldwin and E Annie Proulx. And we will hear words in praise of the beauty of music from Pablo Casals and Haruki Murakami, Jane Austen in praise of poetry and Zadie Smith on art. And, of course, there will be music in all its glories, from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty to Kara Karayev’s Most Beautiful of All Beauties to Judith Weir's Still, Glowing.
The readers are Ralf Little and Susannah Fielding.
READINGS:
She Walks in Beauty (extract) - Lord Byron
Lament for Art O’Leary (extract) - Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill
The Planter's Daughter - Austin Clarke
Fragment 16 - Sappho translated by Anne Carson
My Week With Marilyn - Colin Clark
Marilyn Monroe, a life in 100 takes - Andrew Wilson
The Leopard - Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Persephone - Stevie Smith
Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin
The Lowlands - Jhumpa Lahiri
Marilyn Monroe in Mexico - FBI redacted files
Blonde - Joyce Carol Oates
Joy and Sorrow - Pablo Casals
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway
Grace Jones - Irenosen Okojie
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
I said to beauty - Edna St Vincent Millay
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
In an Artist's Studio - Christina Rosetti
Marilyn: An Autobiography - Normal Mailer
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
The Shipping News - E Annie Proulx
Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy
The BFI Southbank has a major two-month season of films this summer, Marilyn Monroe: Self Made Star, celebrating the centenary of the birth of cinema’s most enduring film star. And the National Portrait Gallery will present an exhibition, Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait, looking at how she inspired photographers and artists.
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- Sun 31 May 202619:45BBC Radio 3
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