The Eyes
Poet Michael Symmons Roberts reflects on the importance of sight, both metaphorically and spiritually, as we glimpse the brightness of heaven and the darkness of night.
The poet Michael Symmons Roberts reflects on the importance of sight. Eyes "seem so vulnerable, so exposed, yet so central to the way most of us receive and interact with the world around us," he observes as he explores the deep metaphorical associations of vision and blindness, light and darkness, with truth and ignorance, good and evil.
Many great writers and thinkers have lost their sight and used their blindness to provide fresh insights on faith and God. Roberts quotes the academic John Hull, who went blind in middle age: "God is indifferent alike to both light and darkness. He does not need the light in order to know and the darkness cannot prevent him from knowing".
We also hear the poetry of Gerald Manley Hopkins, who practised "Custody of the Eyes", keeping his gaze fixed on the ground for months on end, in order to deepen his appreciation and understanding of the world and the gift of sight.
Music from Shostakovich, Handel and Etta James helps Michael contrast physical and inner sight, and he goes on to discuss forms of technological seeing that bypass the human eye entirely.
Presenter: Michael Symmons Roberts
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI Media production for 成人快手 Radio 4.
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Music Played
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Michael Tippett
The Windhover
Performer: 成人快手 Singers. -
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John Rutter
I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes
Performer: The Cambridge Singers. -
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George Frideric Handel
Messiah, Hwv 56/Part 1 - The People That Walked In Darkness
Performer: London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Fact Sheet
Readings
Title: 听听 听听听听听听听听听听听 Paradise Lost
Author:听听听听听听听听听听听 John Milton
Publisher:听 听听听听听 Penguin Classics
听
Title: 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 听Scales Taken From The Eyes (Sermon No. 3205)
Author: 听听听听听听听听听听 听CH Spurgeon
Publisher:听 听听听听听 听Delmarva Publications
听
Title: 听听 听听听听听听听听听听听 Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness
Author: 听听听听听听听听听听 John Hull
Publisher: 听听听听听听 SPCK Classics
听
Title: 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 The Windhover
Author: 听听听听听听听听听听 Gerard Manley Hopkins
Publisher: 听听听听听听 Oxford University Press
听
Title: 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 The Fish
Author: 听听听听听听听听听听 Elizabeth Bishop
Publisher: 听听听听听听 Macmillan
听
Title: 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 The Vision Machine
Author: 听听听听听听听听听听 Paul Virilio
Publisher: 听听听听听听 British Film Institute
听
Title: 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 How Forensic Scientists Once Tried To 'See' a Dead Person's Last Sight
Author: 听听听听听听听听听听 Marissa Fessenden
Publisher: 听听听听听听 Smithsonian Magazine
听
Title: 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 On Photography
Author: 听听听听听听听听听听 Susan Sontag
Publisher: 听听听听听听 Penguin Classics
听
Title: 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 They Are All Gone In To The World Of Light!
Author: 听听听听听听听听听听 Henry Vaughan
Publisher: 听听听听听听 Oxford University Press
Broadcasts
- Sun 4 Feb 2018 06:05成人快手 Radio 4
- Sun 4 Feb 2018 23:30成人快手 Radio 4