John Cowper Powys

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2022

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With their casts of outsiders, deviants and miscreants, the novels of John Cowper Powys explore where meaning can be found in a world without God. Very often, the answer is in semi-mystical communion with nature and landscape. Heir of both Thomas Hardy and Friedrich Nietzsche, Powys was admired by contemporaries like Iris Murdoch, and anticipated lots of the concerns of ecocritical writers and thinkers of today. But few of his books are currently in print. To mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, Matthew Sweet discusses his life and writing with Margaret Drabble, John Gray, Iain Sinclair and Kevan Manwaring.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can I just say?
0:01.5	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:04.0	It's such a wonderful listen.
0:05.6	So nice.
0:06.5	There are loads more like it on BBC sounds.
0:08.8	Different paces, different heights.
0:10.6	The roof is buckling.
0:11.9	Where you can also listen to live sports commentary.
0:14.2	It's right foot goes for goal.
0:16.7	And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories.
0:21.7	The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.
0:25.2	And she's had to live with that.
0:26.8	So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion.
0:29.7	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	Sort of expecting that every week now.
0:35.8	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:39.6	This is the Arts and Ideas podcast, and you're about to enter the zone, the John Cooper Poess Zone.
0:45.8	Join me, Matthew Sweet, with Margaret Drabble, John Gray and Ian Sinclair after this message.
0:52.3	In 2022, the BBC Proms returns to concert halls around the UK to radio, television and BBC Sounds.
1:02.0	Find every concert in BBC Sounds, available until mid-October.
1:09.5	Relax to the Prom's mindful mixes, inspired by music from this year's festival
1:14.7	and discover special proms editions of the in-tune mixtape.
	...

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