The Iron Maiden

The Reith Lectures

BBC

Society & Culture, Science, Government, Technology

4.2 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2017

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do we construct our pictures of the past, including both truth and myth, asks best-selling author Hilary Mantel. Where do we get our evidence? She warns of two familiar errors: either romanticising the past, or seeing it as a gory horror-show. It is tempting, but often condescending, to seek modern parallels for historical events. "Are we looking into the past, or looking into a mirror?" she asks. "Dead strangers...did not live and die so we could draw lessons from them." Above all, she says, we must all try to respect the past amid all its strangeness and complexity.

Over the course of the lecture series, Dame Hilary discusses the role that history plays in our culture. She asks how we view the past and what our relationship is with the dead.

The programme is recorded in front of an audience at Middle Temple in London, followed by a question and answer session.

The Reith Lectures are chaired by Sue Lawley and produced by Jim Frank.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.8	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.5	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to
0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all
0:28.1	put together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your
0:34.1	life, check out BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm novelist Hilary Mantell, and I'd like to welcome you to the second of the 2017 BBC Wreath Lectures Podcasts.
0:46.3	My second lecture is called The Iron Maiden, and in it I ask where our pictures of the past come from.
0:55.0	How does fact pass so readily into legend?
1:00.0	Do we use the past as a mirror and prefer a version that flatters us?
1:07.0	Hello. Hello and welcome to the second of this year's wreath lectures with the novelist Hilary Mantell.
1:19.8	We're in magnificent surroundings today, Middle Temple Hall at the heart of one of the four inns of court in the Centre of London. Completed in 1573 with its
1:30.7	rich carvings and double hammer-been roof, this was the setting for the very first performance of Shakespeare's
1:37.5	12th night. Miraculously, and unlike the other Inns of Court, it survived the great fire of London and then both world wars.
1:46.4	Its long history makes it a fitting place for our subject matter.
1:51.5	In her first lecture, Hilary Mantell asked what history was for.
1:55.9	Now she'll argue that the art of fiction can give the dead fresh life.
2:01.4	Twice winner of the Booker Prize with her novels about the court of Henry
2:04.6	8th, Wolf Hall, and bring up the bodies, she's called her second lecture
2:08.6	the Iron Maiden. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the BBC's
2:12.7	Reith Lecturer, 2017, Hilary Mantel.
2:36.0	Thank you. 2017, Hilary Mantell. In my first lecture in this series, I talked about my great-grandmother, Catherine O'Shea,
	...

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