The Essay: The Retreating Roar

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Broadcaster

BBC Radio 3

TX Date

13th Feb 2015

Presenter

Madeleine Bunting

Producer

Kristine Pommert

Commissioner

Matthew Dodd

Quotes

"BBC Radio gets Easter right."

Kate Chisholm, The Spectator

Awards

Sandford St Martin Awards 2015

Shortlisted - Radio

Madeleine Bunting’s series of Essays for Easter Week 2014. Matthew Arnold’s poem ‘Dover Beach’ is her starting-point: ‘But now I only hear (Faith’s) melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’. What – for someone in today’s culture with a contemporary mindset – fills the gaps left by such huge (but vanishing) ideas like Faith, Sin, Sacrifice, Patience, Salvation, which have so dominated 2,000 years of Western history? What has been gained – and lost?

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