Posts made in November 24th, 2009

The BBC and Me

Posted by elizabeth on Nov 24, 2009 in "My Last Duchess", Robert Browning, The Second Duchess | 4 comments

I had the most delightful experience this morning—I was interviewed by Mark Smalley of the BBC for a program in the “Adventures in Poetry” series, focusing on my beloved “My Last Duchess.” My first interview! The Second Duchess isn’t scheduled until February 2011, but even so, it’s a great honor and a keen pleasure to be included (among many others, of course) in this program. I talked about my interpretations of the poem and how they drove my writing of the book, how Browning and I had fictionalized the same material but from different points of view, and how the reality of the historical personages behind the poem affected one’s reading of the poem and my writing of the book. I enjoyed myself tremendously and can’t wait to find out which snippets are chosen to actually be part of the program.

“Adventures in Poetry: ‘My Last Duchess’” is presently scheduled for Sunday, December 6th, on BBC Radio 4, with a repeat on Saturday, December 12th. After that it will be available online via iPlayer for a couple of weeks. Watch this space for further links!