Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music

when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

This is a download from the BBC.

For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

Tonight, I'm talking to the literary historian and critic Fiona Stafford and to the poet and critic Robert Crawford, author of

on Glasgow and Edinburgh, and a lot else as well. Our theme is romanticism. And in particular,

the links between its flowering in the work of Scottish writers, Stutters Burns, Scott and Thompson,

and the music of Beethoven. It's a gigantic topic. So maybe we should begin with what we mean by

romanticism. For me, I'm the least expert here, but especially when I think of Beethoven,

I think of romanticism as being that huge sweep and the way a personal emotion is translated

into a sublime scale, the scale of a romantic landscape.

I think of formal innovation and I expect it to be politically on the side of the radical ideal.

Actually, it's a hopeful music. Storms blow, the struggle is immense, it's huge, but after the minor key there's the major. After the rain,

there's sunshine. So, Robert, how does this chime with the romanticism we find in Scottish

writing of the 18th and 19th century? Well, I think from a European perspective, Scottish

romanticism meant mountains, mist, storms, withered old characters,

bards with a tang of gallic, all undergirded by Scottish Enlightenment, philosophical ideas,

including ideas of sympathy with fellow humans?

So it isn't just a reaction to Scottish Enlightenment, it takes it up and carries it on?

Yes, I think that's true. And I think one of the aspects of the Scottish Enlightenment

...