The Essay

In the 200th anniversary of her birth, Charlotte Bronte's true identity revealed through five powerful, poignant letters.The poet laureate Robert Southey's letter to Charlotte Bronte is now infamous: "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it even as an accomplishment and a recreation."The scholar and Bronte biographer Lyndall Gordon, explores Bronte's response to this letter, in all its ambiguity: "In the evenings, I confess, I do think, but never trouble anyone else with my thoughts."Producer: Beaty Rubens.

Charlotte Bronte's true identity revealed through five powerful and poigant letters2.Biographer Claire Harman on the two years Charlotte Bronte spent as a mature student in Belgium, at a school run by Zoe and Constantin Heger, and its turbulent epistolary aftermath.When Charlotte Bronte's passionate letters to Constantin Heger were published in 1913, they caused a sensation. Today, they are more likely to provoke a sympathetic response.Marking the 200th anniversary of her birth, Claire Harman unfolds the story of Bronte's time in Brussels. She explores the letters she wrote to Heger after her return to Haworth and his stoney refusal to correspond with her, in spite of her pleas and her wish to write a book and dedicate it to him: "I would write a book and I would dedicate it to my literature master - to the only master I have ever had - to you Monsieur".It's amongst the most painful incidents in Bronte's life-story, but Claire Harman goes on to discuss how Bronte eventually used the experience in The Professo

Charlotte Bronte's true identity revealed through her powerful and poignant letters.1.Bronte's biographer, Claire Harman, on her experience as a governess.Among the 900 surviving letters of Charlotte Bronte, the ones written while she was a governess most vivdly reveal her characteristic blend, as a young woman, of unhappiness and frustration mingled with hope and ambition. Claire Harman sets out the drab, demeaning details of Bronte's career as a governess, and her passionate longing for a more fulfilling life. In her letter to her old school-friend, Ellen Nussey, Bronte writes enviously of another friend who has been travelling in Belgium: "I hardly know what swelled to my throat as I read her letter - such a vehement impatience of restraint and steady work - such a strong wish for wings - wings such as wealth can furnish - such an urgent thirst to see - to know - to learn - something internal seemed to expand boldly for a minute - I was tantalised with the consciousness of faculties unexercised.....". Prod

Acclaimed writer A L Kennedy muses on the hell that is other people.As someone so unable to deal with other people that she works at home, making up imaginary friends, who even then don't always behave, A L Kennedy admits to not necessarily being the best person to dish out advice on relationships. However, in this series she wonders whether she's perhaps been a little harsh when it comes to 'other people'. Today she tackles fullscale, walking on sunshine, singing in the rain love - surely the most terrifying word of all that we associate with 'other people'.Written and read by A L Kennedy, the award-winning novelist, dramatist and broadcaster. Producer: Justine Willett.

Acclaimed writer A L Kennedy muses on the hell that is other people, today looking at family.As someone so unable to deal with other people that she works at home, making up imaginary friends, who even then don't always behave, A L Kennedy admits to not necessarily being the best person to dish out advice on relationships. However, in this series she wonders whether she's perhaps been a little harsh when it comes to 'other people'.Written and read by A L Kennedy, the award-winning novelist, dramatist and broadcaster. Producer: Justine Willett.

Acclaimed writer A L Kennedy muses on the hell that is other people, today looking at friends.As someone so unable to deal with other people that she works at home, making up imaginary friends, who even then don't always behave, A L Kennedy admits to not necessarily being the best person to dish out advice on relationships. However, in this series she wonders whether she's perhaps been a little harsh when it comes to 'other people'.Today, she ponders friendship, which, as a happily solitary only child, was something she managed to put off for as long as was decently possible...Written and read by A L Kennedy, the award-winning novelist, dramatist and broadcaster. Producer: Justine Willett.

Acclaimed writer A L Kennedy muses on the hell that is other people, today looking at 'other generations'. As someone so unable to deal with other people that she works at home, making up imaginary friends, who even then don't always behave, A L Kennedy admits to not necessarily being the best person to dish out advice on relationships. However, in this series she wonders whether she's perhaps been a little harsh when it comes to 'other people'.Today, she contemplates the pitfalls of being old, young or something in between, and wonders why we're perhaps uneasiest of all with those of our own age.Written and read by A L Kennedy, the award-winning novelist, dramatist and broadcaster. Producer: Justine Willett.

Acclaimed writer A L Kennedy muses on the hell that is other people, kicking off with strangers. In Jean Paul Sartre's Play 'No Exit' one character declares, 'L'Enfer - c'est les autres' - hell is other people, and A L Kennedy has found herself very much behind this idea. As someone so unable to deal with other people that she works at home, making up imaginary friends, who even then don't always behave, she admits to not necessarily being the best person to dish out advice on relationships. However, in this series she wonders whether she's perhaps been a little harsh when it comes to 'other people'.Today, she reveals why, despite being a solitary novelist with an existential fear of strangers, she has found herself hugging the odd one in the street. Written and read by A L Kennedy, the award-winning novelist, dramatist and broadcaster. Producer: Justine Willett.

Five writers recall clothes and accessories that resonate vividly in works of art: The series started with a white dress and ends with a pristine white suit ... Author and journalist John Walsh describes the transformative powers of a 'two-piece', worn in turn by a motley bunch of blokes in Los Angeles and celebrated in Ray Bradbury's story 'The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit'.Producer Duncan Minshull

Five writers recall clothes and accessories that resonate vividly in works of art:Justine Picardie, author and editor of Harper's Bazaar, considers a whole pile of dresses and jewellery worn by Nicole Diver in Scott Fitzgerald's novel Tender Is The Night. And how Nicole's passion for clothes is mirrored by the author's wife, Zelda. Producer Duncan Minshull

Five writers recall clothes and accessories that resonate vividly in works of art:Author and critic Stephen Bayley on a pair of glasses sported brilliantly in the film 8 1/2 by Marcello Mastroianni. So classic and cool are the frames, that we desire them today. Producer Duncan Minshull

Five writers recall clothes and accessories that resonate vividly in works of art: Journalist Rachel Cooke remembers reading the best-seller Bonjour Tristesse as a teenager, in which a character's memorable slacks, or 'pedal pushers', said everything about French chic. Or so she thought.

Five writers recall clothes and accessories that resonate vividly in works of art:Art historian James Fox describes 'Symphony in White' No. 1, the painting by James Whistler that had everyone guessing about the wearer and the story behind her.Producer Duncan Minshull

Tom Service explores musical creativity and seismic shock in the twenty-first century. By the time the 20th century was 16 years old, music like Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Strauss's Salome, and Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces had sent shockwaves through the tectonic plates of musical and cultural convention. In ripping up the musical rule-book, these pieces were heard to threaten social and even moral stability as well. So where are the seismic moments of the first 16 years of the 21st century? Why haven't composers been able to write another Rite? Is it because new music has lost its cultural capital? Or is it, rather, that seismic activity is happening even more today than it was in 1916- an endless series of mini-earthquakes rather than a single musical volcano, biding its time until all that creative energy breaks through?The story of new music is peppered with events that have altered the course of musical history. For our New Year New Music season, we asked five Radio 3 presenters to each tell

Sarah Walker's chosen seismic moment in new music describes the notorious 1973 concert when Carnegie Hall played host to the radically minimalist Four Organs by Steve Reich. She also looks at how minimalism together with the idea of the composer-performer ensemble, changed the history of 20th century music.The story of new music is peppered with events that have altered the course of musical history. For our New Year New Music season, we asked five Radio 3 presenters to each tell the story of one of these "seismic moments". From silence and ambient sounds to riot and revolution, these intriguing events have, in different ways, changed the progress of sound and culture - or, as one of our five suggests, have they?Written and read by Sarah Walker Producer: John Goudie.

In his 1978 album Music for Airports Brian Eno created a new genre of music he named 'ambient music'. The album was designed to ease the tedium of waiting in airports, but ambient music, which Eno said was 'as ignorable as it is interesting', had an influence way beyond that. Ivan Hewett looks into the genesis and subsequent history of ambient music, and explains why Eno's description is not as self-contradictory as it appears to be.The story of new music is peppered with events that have altered the course of musical history. For our New Year New Music season, we asked five Radio 3 presenters to each tell the story of one of these "seismic moments". From silence and ambient sounds to riot and revolution, these intriguing events have, in different ways, changed the progress of sound and culture - or, as one of our five suggests, have they?Written and read by Ivan Hewett. Produced by Elizabeth Allard.

Sara Mohr-Pietsch's chosen seismic moment in new music looks to the fall of the Berlin Wall. She reflects on the accompanying rise in the popularity of Eastern European composers as a simplicity in musical language emerged from behind the Iron Curtain.The story of new music is peppered with events that have altered the course of musical history. For our New Year New Music season, we asked five Radio 3 presenters to each tell the story of one of these "seismic moments". From silence and ambient sounds to riot and revolution, these intriguing events have, in different ways, changed the progress of sound and culture - or, as one of our five suggests, have they?Written and read by Sara Mohr-Pietsch. Producer: Nicola Holloway.

Robert Worby's selected seismic moment in new music is the first performance of John Cage's controversial 4'33" and its impact on performers and audiences ever since.The story of new music is peppered with events that have altered the course of musical history. For our New Year New Music season, we asked five Radio 3 presenters to each tell the story of one of these "seismic moments". From silence and ambient sounds to riot and revolution, these intriguing events have, in different ways, changed the progress of sound and culture - or, as one of our five suggests, have they?Written and read by Robert Worby Produced by Elizabeth Allard.

Many people would not consider a ski-jump to be a work of art. But for anthropologist and novelist Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Oslo's Holmenkollen ski-jumping hill was the most important art work in Norway."The Holmenkollen Hill, white, elegant and majestic, hovered above the city like a large bird about to take flight," says Eriksen. "It was a work of art enjoyed by tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people every day". Eriksen employs the past tense because the structure - built for the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo - was pulled down and replaced with a more "flashy, hi-tech and efficient" ski jump in 2008. The architects of the original - Olav Tveten and Frode Rinnan - had created much more than a sporting facility, he says. It was a frugal, elegant structure, which spoke to the Norwegian love of the mountains and the outdoors. "Looking towards Holmenkollen made people more Norwegian." It lives on, he says, as a memory of how architecture can transform a practical structure into a sublime work of a

Writer and historian Ray Hudson considers how one drawing shows Alaskans caught between the fire and the sea: between the state's turbulent natural beauty and the race to exploit its wealth in raw materials. In Carolyn Reed's "Touching Fire", two women stand on the shores of a great sea, their faces lit by a pile of blazing logs. "This fire for me suggests the commercial exploitation that has historically consumed much of the region," says Hudson, who witnessed a massive expansion in commercial fishing during nearly three decades living in Alaska's remote Aleutian Islands. Yet he takes heart from the dignity and determination of the women caught between fire and water. "I know that despite its violent dominance the fire will go out and the women will turn to face the sea," he says. This edition of The Essay is one of a series in which five writers each consider the significance of a work of art to their homelands, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season.Producer: Andy Denwood.