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[Assistant] Now, recall, if you would, how Milton, a mere 40 years before, begins Paradise Lost, of man's first disobedience, etc., etc. I sing. In that, in that poem, that epic poem, the poet proclaims what he's doing. You, you know from the beginning, he said, I'm singing, this is a song, this is a poem.


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[Assistant] We know exactly what literary form it is. Uh, adjust your sets. You know, we know exactly, we know exactly where we're going to and where he's coming from. There's no deception.


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[Assistant] Defoe, by contrast, is deceptive. That whole visitor leaving his name off the title page, for instance.


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[Assistant] This may be fact he insinuates, or maybe not, but you have to actually be in that state of confusion to get a maximum benefit from the novel.


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[Assistant] Now that opening paragraph reads like journalism, and in point of fact, Defoe was a journalist.


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[Assistant] He'd been one for 30 years and he's the first and arguably one of the greatest journalists England's ever produced. He wasn't by background a creative writer. Indeed he would have rather despised that description. For him it was facts, facts, facts. He was a reporter.


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[Assistant] How at once he came to evolve or transmute his journalistic style, his reportage into this new thing, prose fiction, is not known. It seems to have been intuitive, a happy leap into the literary unknown.


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[Assistant] What we do know, however, is that Defoe began writing fiction very late in life, at a time when he was hard up, when he was short of money. The novel...


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[Assistant] has always been a commercial form of literature. Novelists, unlike Milton with his measly five pounds, ten dollars, to continue the analogy,


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[Assistant] Novelists write for money on the whole. They, like everybody else, are in the big capitalist game.


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[Assistant] Now the other feature of the novel is that it's what's sometimes called the bourgeois epic.


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[Assistant] Now, what that means is that it interests itself, the novel interests itself, takes its heroes and heroines from classes in society that have generally been beneath the interest of, of literature. Uh, unless it's comedy.


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[Assistant] Above us, beyond us, different from us in many ways. But Robinson Crusoe, as I say, or Moll Flanders, the heroine of Defeo's next novel, these, these are ordinary people.


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[Assistant] They may not be exactly like us, but we, we can, so to speak, get inside them. We can actually sort of, we have more access to their, to them and their lives than we do to the traditional heroes and heroines of literature.


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[Assistant] Consider for instance Robinson as he goes on to describe himself to the reader. And note how in fact he pulls us in. We can actually feel his life, uh, in a way which I think is very difficult if you...


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[Assistant] What I just mentioned earlier, Marlowe's Dr. Theister's.


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[Assistant] My father, who was very ancient, an old man, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house education and a country free school generally go, and designed me for the law.


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[Assistant] But I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea. And my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.


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[Assistant] And somehow one is a very mysterious thing, this. One feels that one is Robinson Crusoe. It's a terrific trick that literature is performing at this stage of its evolution.


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[Assistant] Anyway, to go back to the story, Robinson runs away to see, as I said earlier at 1651,


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[Assistant] Some fifty, sixty years before the novel was published. And he never sees his family again.


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[Assistant] As I say, it is the unexceptional nature of Robinson which impresses us.


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[Assistant] I'm not a hero, he seems to say, just an ordinary kind of guy, just an ordinary fellow. Now, why should the bourgeoisie


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[Assistant] The ordinary middle class require an epic.


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[Assistant] Because in the new mercantile dynamic world, which was happening in England at this time,


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[Assistant] The middle classes were the driving force. They were, as Mark says in the Communist Manifesto, the revolutionary class at this period of history. It's very hard for us to think of the middle classes as being revolutionary, but they were transforming, they were transforming the world around them as much as the proletariat would do in 1917 in Russia.


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[Assistant] They were dominant. They were the dominant class in society. And the dominant class always wants its own literature. Always wants to articulate, express itself.


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[Assistant] As it were, enshrined its ideals and its notions and its doubts and confusions in literary form. And the middle class was writing high and the novel was their form.


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[Assistant] Robinson runs away from home, not because he wants adventure, but because he wants to make his fortune. He wants to get rich. Now he won't inherit his fortune, because he's a third son, and primogeniture means all the money gets left to the first son. So in fact, he's gonna be left out.


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[Assistant] And he doesn't want to be a lawyer, which is a kind of judging kind of work. So he has to make his own way in the world as an individual starting from zero. And of course by becoming a mariner, a merchant, he


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[Assistant] He does have the prospect of getting rich, getting very rich, but of course he has to do so.


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[Assistant] This novel does in fact have a series of very exciting adventures in his quest to make his fortune.


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[Assistant] 300 years of its being a bestseller testifies a page-turner.


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[Assistant] I mean, the bits I was reading out, you probably felt, even though I was reading them out, that you'd like to read on.


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[Assistant] So a Robinson, to summarize, is almost drowned, he's captured by pirates, he's enslaved by the Arabs, he escapes, he finds his way to an exotic South America, where as a plantation owner he makes a lot of money.


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[Assistant] And it is in the process of making even more money that he finds himself alone on his island having lost everything. Now it's on the simplest of narrative levels, it's exciting stuff, page turning as I say. How will Robinson survive against the elements, against wild animals, against cannibal raiders?


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[Assistant] These appear rather late in the narrative, but they're promised in the title page, without supplies, without people around it, without an army, without, without all the things that we need to defend ourselves in life.


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[Assistant] But below the narrative surface Robinson is, as I said earlier, homo economicus. He's an economic man making himself without other assistance than what he himself has, what he is, and what he does. He's an individual. And a very successful individual.


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[Assistant] And money remains the main purpose of his existence. Money and the acquisition of yet more money. Let me cite an example. It's one of my favourite moments in the novel. And not least for a quality which may be unexpected but which we'll encounter time and time again in fiction. Humour. A very sly, ironic humour. This is the situation.


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[Assistant] The wreck of the ship on which Krudo was voyaging has been washed up on shore.


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[Assistant] It will only be a few days before it breaks up. And our hero laboriously makes his way aboard and even more laboriously brings back what utensils and what materials he can buy an improvised raft. He salvages, he scavenges. And what he scavenges will make the difference between life and death to him.


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[Assistant] And the inventory of what he scavenges is given with a shopkeeper's exactitude. This is the quotation I'm talking about.


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[Assistant] There have been now 13 days on shore, you'll notice the emphasis on numbers, and there have been 11 times on board the ship.


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[Assistant] In which time I brought away all that one pair of hands could well be supposed capable to bring. Though I believe verily, had the calm weather held, I should have brought away the whole ship piece by piece. But preparing the twelfth time to go on board, I found the wind began to rise.


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[Assistant] However, at low water, I went on board, and though I thought I had rummaged the cabin, the captain's cabin so effectually that nothing more could be found,


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[Assistant] Yet I discovered a locker with drawers in it, in one of which I found two or three razors and one pair of large scissors with some ten or a dozen of good knives and forks.


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[Assistant] Why, one wonders, does it matter whether there are a dozen or a hundred knives and forks because they represent property and property is important and you have to, as I say, inventory it. And it does this all the way through. We don't know the name of the boat.


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[Assistant] The ship which is wrecked, but we do know how many knives and forks there are. The passage goes on.


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[Assistant] In another, another draw that is, I found about 36 pounds value in money. Some European coins, some Brazil, some pieces of eight, some gold and some silver.


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[Assistant] I have no manner of use for thee. Ean remain where thou art, and go to the bottom as a creature whose life is not worth saving.


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[Assistant] This is very pious, we think. It's the stuff of a good sort of first sermon. Well done, Robinson.


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[Assistant] But remember, this is money. And then our hero adds, rather shame-facedly we may think,


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[Assistant] However, upon second thoughts, I took it away. It might come in useful. Now of course, it'd be much more useful to go and get a lump of rope from the deck, but in fact he takes the money. It's both deliciously sort of funny and amusing, and is an insight into what this novel is all about. Money is important.


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[Assistant] Now over the next 28 years Robinson uses what he scavenges from the ship to keep body and soul together and gradually cultivates the island. He colonizes it. Everything in the island, all that he grows and can plunder from it is his and his property.


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[Assistant] Among other things, we can see this novel, Robinson Crusoe, as an allegory of empire. This is what England was doing at the time, taking over great chunks of the world as its personal property.


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[Assistant] Now, famously, after many years, Robinson acquires a companion, a native from a neighbouring island who has escaped from cannibals who would eat him.


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[Assistant] Uh, Robinson teaches man Friday, he's named after the day on which Robinson found him, English. And he makes him his servant. More importantly, Friday becomes his chattel. He becomes human property. It's an allegory if you like of slavery.


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[Assistant] In the sequel to Robinson Crusoe, which was called for by the huge success, the best selling success of the first version, first volume,


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[Assistant] Robinson sells this companion of his solitude. He sells Friday because he has property. Now this too is an allegory of English colonialism over the 18th and 19th centuries. Britain acquired more and more of the globe, transforming itself principally by sea power into the largest empire the world had ever known.


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[Assistant] These vast territories were owned by the mother country.


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[Assistant] However benignly or malignly they were ruled they were, in the geopolitical sense, property of the English Crown.


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[Assistant] And Robinson refers to himself as the sovereign or monarch of his island and all that it contains. He owns it. It's his.


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[Assistant] He might just want to put a little flag on there saying Robinson Crusoe.


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[Assistant] That includes the luckless Man Friday who is taught English, civilized and converted to Christianity. He's lucky in that respect because he'll go to heaven. But nonetheless, he remains as much Robinson's property as the scissors and the money which he took from the ship all those years ago. And of course, Man Friday exists principally in Robinson's terms to turn a prophet. A word incidentally on Christianity.


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[Assistant] The rise of capitalism, as thinkers like Marx, Max Weber, and R.H. Taney have argued, is intimately connected with Protestantism and Puritanism. As capitalism stresses the individual acquisition of wealth, so Protestantism and Puritanism stress the individual's private, personal relationship and responsibilities to its maker.


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[Assistant] The individual has credit with his maker, he earns his salvation, as the individual has credit with his bank, and has his little kind of, as it were, store of wealth.


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[Assistant] On his island, Robinson, who began life all those years ago in 1651 as a version of the prodigal son, becomes gradually a devout and God-fearing Christian.


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[Assistant] Fear, as it happens, plays a major part in this. In that famous moment, as folklorically famous as anything in the story, when he finds a single footprint on the shore, it's not Manfredi's by the way, Robinson is terrified. Now we never discover whose foot left the print.


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[Assistant] But it is a key moment in Robinson's moral and religious growth. Because this terror turns him towards God.


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[Assistant] He was swept up on the island a godless fellow and destitute. He leaves the island by a series of adventures, rich and a good Christian.


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[Assistant] And this was, we are to apprehend, God's plan for him all the time. It was providential. God clearly loves him. And he's finally saved in more than one sense. Not merely saved by the rescue vessel, which after almost 30 years takes him back to civilization, but his soul is saved.


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[Assistant] The ways of providence are strange, but those whom God smiles on can expect, in addition to the eternal salvation of their souls, a healthy bank balance as well. This is the point which, as I say, those thinkers, Marx, Max Weber, and R.H. Taney, demonstrate, I think, authoritatively.


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[Assistant] Now, Defoe's life was extraordinary. It was full of event and literary achievement. He was a great pamphleteer, government spy about which we'd like to know more but never will. And as, as was said earlier, the father of English journalism. He was born


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[Assistant] Around 1660, and he lived in turbulent and dangerous times. More so as he was a dissenter. He didn't actually conform to the state religion, and he had a very foreign name, which is never a good thing in England. He found himself in the stocks at one time for having written things which offended the authorities.


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[Assistant] He lived a long life dying in his early 70s in 1731. He was never well off and downright impoverished in his last years. And it was in those last years, age 60, a fact which I find very cheerful, that he invented the English novel. What if he died ten years earlier?


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[Assistant] Well, we can only be grateful that, like his hero, he was spared to give us this wonderful literary bequest. And what was that bequest? Well, the English novel over the next


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[Assistant] Three centuries will become a major form. To some extent it will be one of the principal arenas in which literary talent will express itself and will also find ways of carrying the novel a long way forward from the starting point that Defoe gave it. Robinson Crusoe is


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[Assistant] One of the, in its own right, it's a very great novel.


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[Assistant] More importantly, it creates a genre.


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[Assistant] I said earlier that this is a very rare event in literary history that we can see things happening with this clarity. And it's a great privilege because we understand the novel better because we understand its origins, its genesis. And we have to thank


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[Assistant] Daniel Defoe for that fact and if you'll forgive the pun for that fiction.


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[Assistant] The tortellini dish, it's a prawn mousse tortellini with a seafood and prawn bisque. I'm excited because we've got Gina on our team who loves making pasta and Ben and I are great with seafood.


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[Assistant] That all got tipped into here. And that's not what was supposed to happen.


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[Assistant] Bronze! Bronze guys, bronze! Yeah, they're here! Here's your bronze. Beautiful guys. It's all hands on deck now. Finish off with a prawn oil. Yes! We've got nine of us working on our entrees to get them out to these diners. It's crazy.


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[Assistant] The last salmon goes out and of course the first ticket for the dessert comes in and that's how far we are behind in service. So all hands on deck.


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[Assistant] We're now all demoulding panna cotta crazily like mad men trying to get everything on the plate so it's looking pretty.


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[Assistant] Today I'm in charge of Red Team's dessert, which is a Miso Toffee Apple.


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[Assistant] It has a hazelnut crème with a miso caramel ice cream, dehydrated apple, and fresh apple discs.


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[Assistant] He really likes the flavours on the dessert but suggest maybe making a caramel and try and flavour it with some apple things like maybe a cider.


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[Assistant] I take Gordon's suggestions really seriously. He has such a wealth of knowledge, so I'm just gonna get onto it as soon as possible. Jess, we're adding a caramel. Besides that, everything's good. Good job, Jess. We're the best team.


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[Assistant] Today I'm in charge of Red Team's dessert, which is a meso toffee apple. So Jesse, say calm.


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[Assistant] It has the hazelnut crème with a miso caramel ice cream, fresh apple disc, dehydrated apple, and finished with an apple caramel.


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[Assistant] Let's, let's also put into perspective the pressure of Gordon in the kitchen during prep. I mean, that's, I'm really proud that they could do 150 of these. That's fantastic.


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[Assistant] Gordon, when we came and visited you at the pass, you looked like a bit of a rollercoaster.


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[Assistant] The deliciousness what we experienced at the table. Let's see how you went.


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[Assistant] Loki, you've got a big decision tomorrow, yeah? Do you play your pin, take your chance, or leave it for later?


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[Assistant] Gordon, once again, a massive thank you from all of us. You've been truly inspiring. And, uh, please come back, huh? Yeah? We love having you. Mmm, yes.


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[Assistant] Legend is a word that often suffers from overuse.


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[Assistant] And guess what? Now he's here. I reckon he's quite simply the biggest name in food.


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[Assistant] The good news is that Gordon's here all week.


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[Assistant] What are you expecting to see from this batch of cogs? Passion. Vision.


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[Assistant] Get the lamb right, and put something crunchy and delicious on there, who knows, maybe. Maybe that, yea, upstairs, that's where you want to be, on the balcony.


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[Assistant] And I think that is that combination. You could take the lamb off the dish and it would still be a spectacular dish because that puree is so satiny and there's so much lamb flavor, uhm, in the jus. Well done.


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[Assistant] But uhm, you're here, you've got no spice, you've got a limited selection of flavors, and you put up, I think probably the best dish you put up so far in the competition.


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[Assistant] Three mystery boxes, two wins, you know where you go, up to the gantry, and all white immunity. Off you go. Well done, Saki!


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[Assistant] Well what a smashing start to Gordon Week.


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[Assistant] Well done, Sashi, you can relax for the rest of the day. For the rest of you, there's a whole lot more cooking for you with the Invention Test.


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[Assistant] And it's one that we're all really excited about because the dish that we want you to recreate is one of the world's most popular.


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[Assistant] Seems such a simple dish, but it's really the perfect balance of sweet and sour, of creamy and crunchy, of rich meatiness and freshness. Here's a clue.


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[Assistant] Is it tasty? Yeah, absolutely. Is the chicken crunchy? Yes, absolutely.


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[Assistant] Well Ben, it looks like you are preparing for a pressure test.


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[Assistant] There was some great cooking today.


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[Assistant] And we've seen some genuinely spectacular dishes. Great work. We were looking for the best two dishes to join Sashi in this week's immunity challenge.


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[Assistant] And we're also looking for the three least impressive dishes to go into tomorrow's pressure test.


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[Assistant] When Reverend Jim Jones founded the People's Temple in 1955, few could have imagined its horrifying end. This progressive religious movement rose in popularity and gained support from some of San Francisco's most prominent politicians.


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[Assistant] But in 1977, amidst revelations of brainwashing and abuse, Jones moved with several hundred followers to establish the Commune of Jonestown in Guyana.


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[Assistant] And when a congressional delegation arrived to investigate its conditions, Jones executed his final plan.


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[Assistant] Today, there are thousands of cults around the world. It's important to note two things about them. First, not all cults are religious. Some are political, therapy-based, focused on self-improvement, or otherwise.


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[Assistant] And while few turn out as deadly as Jonestown or Heaven's Gate, which ended in a mass suicide of 39 people in 1997, most cults share some basic characteristics.


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[Assistant] It claims to provide answers to life's biggest questions through its doctrine, along with the required recipe for change that shapes a new member into a true believer.


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[Assistant] You might wonder whether some of these descriptions might also apply to established religions. In fact, the word cultus originally described people who cultivated the worship of certain gods by performing rituals and maintaining temples.


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[Assistant] A modern cult, by contrast, separates its members from others. Rather than providing guidelines for members to live better lives, a cult seeks to directly control them, from personal and family relationships to financial assets and living arrangements.


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[Assistant] Cults also demand obedience to human leaders who tend to be highly persuasive people with authoritarian and narcissistic streaks motivated by money, sex, power, or all three.


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[Assistant] While a cult leader uses personal charisma to attract initial followers, further expansion works like a pyramid scheme, with earlier members recruiting new ones.


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[Assistant] Cults are skilled at knowing whom to target, often focusing on those new to an area or who have recently undergone some personal or professional loss.


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[Assistant] Once in the cult, members are subjected to multiple forms of indoctrination.


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[Assistant] Other methods may be more intense, using techniques of coercive persuasion involving guilt, shame, and fear.


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[Assistant] The cult environment discourages critical thinking, making it hard to voice doubts when everyone around you is modeling absolute faith.


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[Assistant] The resulting internal conflict, known as cognitive dissonance, keeps you trapped as each compromise makes it more painful to admit you've been deceived.


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[Assistant] And though most cults don't lead members to their death, they can still be harmful. By denying basic freedoms of thought, speech and association, cults stunt their members' psychological and emotional growth.


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[Assistant] A particular problem for children who are deprived of normal developmental activities and milestones.


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[Assistant] Nevertheless, many cult members eventually find a way out. Whether through their own realizations, the help of family and friends, or when the cult falls apart due to external pressure or scandals.


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[Assistant] Many cults may be hard to identify, and for some, their beliefs, no matter how strange, are protected under religious freedom.


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[Assistant] But when their practices involve harassment, threats, illegal activities, or abuse, the law can intervene.


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[Assistant] Believing in something should not come at the cost of your family and friends. And if someone tells you to sacrifice your relationships or morality for the greater good, they're most likely exploiting you for their own.


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[Assistant] It wasn't a great day yesterday. We had some problems all throughout our cook today. It's a new day, a new challenge and we're all starting at zero.


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[Assistant] It's a matter of getting in there and remembering all that you've given up to be here. And I'm just gonna do my best.


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[Assistant] I love following recipes, it's my preferred method of cook. There's 50 something steps, but I feel like I'm gonna be okay if I know what I need to do along the way. I always wanna have fun in the kitchen as well.


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[Assistant] I've now got to combine my chicken mince and my lovely parsley puree for the chicken mousse and make a tester. So I take a spoonful and put it in some boiling water. Can't season it later so I need to do it now.


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[Assistant] Matt's chicken had a fine, not too thick coating of the mousse underneath the skin.


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[Assistant] It's gotta be in the water bath for one hour at 65 degrees. Just set it and forget it and push on to my consomé.


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[Assistant] Consomaine is a beautiful, clear, flavoursome broth. Matt's had a great depth of flavour. It's a little bit tricky to make, but I'm excited to give it a go and if I follow the recipe, it should be okay.


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[Assistant] My herb oil tastes amazing. I'm feeling good at the moment. I'm Jojo. Got no time to gloat. I strain it through a muslin cloth. I've got to get onto the next step.


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[Assistant] My timer goes off. My bird's now had 11 minutes on each side. It seems to be golden and delicious. I feel like I'm confident. I'm just gonna leave the chicken rest on the bench.


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[Assistant] I have had the most amazing day today. I've given everything that I got.


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[Assistant] Knowing that there's so much pressure on really just inspired me.


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[Assistant] I feel like it is. I've not been so excited putting a dish up. I felt like I was doing everything that I needed to along the way.


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[Assistant] I so needed it, so I'm, I'm just hoping that it all tastes good together and everything works.


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[Assistant] Time starts and we get to our bench to see the recipe. It's seven bloody pages long. It might be seven pages, but I've just gotta understand and read it through carefully.


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[Assistant] This is my second time in Blacks in the same week.


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[Assistant] I learned a lot from cooking along with Gordon. Really took that advice to be clean and methodical, just trying to take that same approach.


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[Assistant] Working my fingers in between and making sure that I don't tear anything. Getting all the skin off and still intact. I think I've done pretty well.


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[Assistant] I'm really stoked that George is really liking the look of my consomme. It gives me a boost to kick on with this dish.


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[Assistant] Once the chicken's browned off, I get a mirror bar of veggies in there and start to get some real colour on them.


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[Assistant] De-glaze the pan with some white wine and add some chicken stock. I need to let it simmer for 30 minutes.


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[Assistant] And not have any lumps or impurities in it whatsoever.


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[Assistant] I'm quite nervous about this process, but also excited and ready to learn something new.


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[Assistant] It will cook the egg whites and float to the top of the consomme.


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[Assistant] I think being a part of just cooking this dish has just been an amazing experience.


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[Assistant] Hey guys. Just as good as cooking along with Gordon the other day.


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[Assistant] I'm really happy with few of the elements on my dish. Consumé tastes great and pouring it out on the plate, it looks fantastic.


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[Assistant] After cooking with Gordon the other day, it was just a real eye-opener.


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[Assistant] It's just definitely proving to myself that I can and do deserve to be here. I love showing the other guys, you know, what I can do.


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[Assistant] The Wind in the Willows. Episode 14. The Wild Woods.


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[Assistant] Rat sat by the fire to write a poem. Rat was sleepy. Before long, he was snoring in his chair.


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[Assistant] It is observed that sleepwalking is more common in children. However, factors like stress, sleep deprivation, sedative drugs, sleep apnea, etc., may lead to sleepwalking in adults.


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[Assistant] Is sleeping in contact lenses bad? Not at all. They help us see our dreams more clearly. Oh, stop bluffing.


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[Assistant] Contact lenses act like a sponge and absorb the moisture present in our eyes. They even trap bacteria.


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[Assistant] So, wearing them for too long, failing to clean them periodically and sleeping in them can cause excessive dryness and even eye infection.


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[Assistant] In addition to this, unlike other parts of our body, the cornea of our eye receives oxygen from the surrounding air and not from blood vessels. Now, when we wear contact lenses during the day, it reduces the oxygen supply to the cornea. But when we wear them while sleeping also, it further reduces the oxygen supply to the cornea.


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[Assistant] Yup. However, when we cross our legs or sleep on an arm for very long. We apply pressure causing the nerve pathways and its surrounding arteries to squeeze. Hence, the nerves do not work properly and the arteries cannot supply required nutrients to the nerves.


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[Assistant] How do dolphins sleep? By covering their face with fins. No. Like humans, dolphins are mammals.


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[Assistant] Just like security guards right? Oh, just listen. Each eye of a dolphin is directly connected to the opposite hemisphere of the brain.


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[Assistant] Now, while sleeping, a dolphin shuts down one hemisphere and the opposite eye. In the meantime, the other active hemisphere keeps track of internal bodily functions like breathing, and the open eye looks out for predators.


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[Assistant] After two to four hours, the dolphin swaps the sleeping task. It awakens the closed eye and resting hemisphere and shuts down the active hemisphere and the open eye.


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[Assistant] Oh my god, it's brunch. I love brunch. I can't even deal with this right now. It's brunch. I've got this.


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[Assistant] My team is awesome. I'm loving all the members and I'm really happy with it.


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[Assistant] Brunch to me is those really nice homemade burger buns. It's always something very homey, cozy. So today, as soon as I heard brunch, I really wanted to make homemade brioche buns. Homemade is always better than store bought, isn't it?


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[Assistant] But only an hour and five minutes ago, we still have to get these doors portioned out. They still need time to rise and close.


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[Assistant] And I've got that nervousness that am I gonna get it done in time.


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[Assistant] Time is running out and I have to get the brush buns in the oven.


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[Assistant] If I don't get this right, one of our dishes will literally be salmon on a plate. I take them out of the oven.


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[Assistant] Right, let's meet the three young guns that you'll be versing today.


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[Assistant] Guys, welcome to the MasterChef Kitchen. Joe, how do you think you're going to fare against our MasterChef contestants?


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[Assistant] John, you're no stranger to the Cut and Thrust calendar competition, are you? Tell us what you recently won.


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[Assistant] Gavin, do you think having Gordon in the kitchen will throw you off your game or are you relishing that challenge?


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[Assistant] The remarkable stuff for me is the onions in the rice, is the, that chewiness of that really lovely, um, rose pumpkin combined with the, the marinated goat's cheese and beautifully cooked quail. Look at the colour, great char on the outside and just that, that gentle pink blush. It's really delicious.


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[Assistant] Obviously the question is vegetable front and center. I don't, I don't really see vegetables on a plate. Uuuh.


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[Assistant] The meat may be cooked through but, but there's not a lot of joy and pleasure coming off the vegetables on a plate.


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[Assistant] Gee, we've moved into the Monet part of the gallery.


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[Assistant] What a beautiful combination. That really super cold cucumber sorbet against that yogurt mousse. The freshness of that roll of the cucumber. There's a real herbaceousness and a slight bitterness from some of the flowers in there. It's a thoroughly modern, thoroughly beautiful and thoroughly well balanced dessert that's not too sweet.


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[Assistant] Well Reese, John scored 21 out of 30. That means you need to score a 22 or more to take out a second pin tonight. Reese, I scored your dish. 9 out of 10.


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[Assistant] I've traveled to taste greatness. Anticipation. Get it in the oven. And trepidation.


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[Assistant] They're about to find out what pressure really is. Today you'll be keeping up with Gordon. Their only recipe. Let's go. Watch Gordon. Quickly don't fail.


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[Assistant] Put the carrots in, uh, Michelle, just chop and put it in.


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[Assistant] Right, today's going to work like this. Gordon will prepare and cook a dish in front of you. You have to cook it at the same time. You've got to watch Gordon, you've got to listen, and most of all, you've got to keep up.


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[Assistant] If you fall behind, he won't slow down. He'll keep going.


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[Assistant] Your time ends 10 seconds after Gordon finishes.


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[Assistant] The floor's all yours, the three of us gonna pop up there and watch on. Thank you.


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[Assistant] You put a plate of food up. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Off you go.


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[Assistant] You had to keep up with Gordon Ramsay. It was almost impossible, but you all


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[Assistant] Put up a dish and we're so proud of the three of you. Well done guys.


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[Assistant] Well, Michelle, we're gonna definitely miss you, but I think your fellow contestants are gonna 100% miss you even more. Uhm, you've been a shining light ever since you walked in here. Your big smile on your face and your kids are gonna be so excited to see you, but more importantly, you've done them proud by stepping outside of the comfort zone and doing something for you.


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[Assistant] I tried to warn you, Mole, said Rat.


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[Assistant] It's easy if you know these things, said Rat. If you don't, you can get into big trouble. I bet Toad comes here by himself.


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[Assistant] Come on then, said Rat. It's time to go home. We can't stay here at night, it's too cold.


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[Assistant] I mean down. Snow is falling everywhere.


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[Assistant] Yes, you're right, said Rat, sounding worried. The snow makes everything look different.


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[Assistant] Now even I can't tell where we are, said Rat.


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[Assistant] Can you read those streets there? What they are? They go, I don't know. I don't know. No, I don't know.


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[Assistant] Yeah, stop here, stop here. So we jumped out, and we go left to right, left to right. Right, it's gotta be that way there. Ash said, we're going left.


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[Assistant] Technically we were third, but we positioned ourselves nicely up the road a little bit, and the cup actually came to us first.


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[Assistant] Make sure you just realize which one's a pill. Grab it, bring it up to us.


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[Assistant] Say yes, she's got a flag on. Well, that's really amazing, she got it really quickly. Good work, Jas. I had no idea what I was doing.


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[Assistant] Yes, she did. That's it, Ash. Unbelievable. Seeing Ashley getting in front of me gave me the drive that I needed to keep going.


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[Assistant] A part of our brain called hypothalamus controls and maintains the core body temperature.


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[Assistant] Will it also maintain my physique? Oh. Please listen.


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[Assistant] Usually during cold months, the temperature is quite low. Hence if we have not worn any warm clothes, we feel cold. Our body temperature starts to decrease. This decrease in temperature is instantly detected by our hypothalamus.


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[Assistant] Thus it sends signals to our muscles to contract and relax rapidly, making us shiver.


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[Assistant] Don't worry, Star. Snow White is safe with us.


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[Assistant] So my process is that I'm just gonna write as many of the ingredients as I can. So I write raspberries and some milk, strawberries, and some gelatin.


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[Assistant] Give yourself half an hour at a freezer. That's all you need. Half an hour in the freezer? Yep. In the blast chiller.


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[Assistant] Tim's definitely not a dessert cook, and uhm, I can see he's getting really stressed out with a few of his elements. I'm kinda concerned that he hasn't given himself enough time to set the Parfait.


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[Assistant] The Wind in the Willows Episode 12 Toad's Dream Car


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[Assistant] Bring us a dish based around


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[Assistant] Today we'll take part in two rounds. The first round you need to win in order to...


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[Assistant] This is your kitchen and not theirs. Do that and you'll win a pin and Shannon will be level with Gordon on two all.


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[Assistant] What we want you to cook today is one of our favourite things to eat. It's a wonderful, tasty ingredient. We love it when


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[Assistant] The skin's nice and crispy though so bear that in mind. Your job is to bring us an absolutely delicious dish based around


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[Assistant] But we don't just want wings, we want wings and things. So bring us something else that's gonna pair brilliantly with those wings. Simple.


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[Assistant] Uhm, what do you reckon about the plating? Where's all the wings?


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[Assistant] What I love about this is it's a really elegant, surprising way of bringing us all those classic flavours of a sports bar in one dish. I think it's brilliant and I think it's genius.


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[Assistant] I love it. Chicken could not be cooked better. It could not be juicier.


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[Assistant] Cooking of the chicken? Absolutely perfect. Delicious succulent wings. But...


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[Assistant] You tell this in your thing because there's no soul in there, there's no seasoning in the salsa rosso. It's not a disaster. No.


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[Assistant] The voting was split 2-2. Sarah and Jess.


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[Assistant] There's a, an issue here in terms of, and this is the barest margin, if you're gonna serve four judges, if you're gonna serve four people, put four things on the plate. And that's why Jess, you won.


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[Assistant] Jess, congratulations, that means you in round two will cook against a top chef for the chance to win one of those bright shiny pins like Sashi's got.


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[Assistant] Jess, congratulations. Your fight for the pin is not over yet because we have recruited one of Sydney's hottest young guns.


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[Assistant] She's worked with some of our favourite Sydney chefs with Lauren Murdoch at Felix and with David Tsarekis at Zanthi. She started as sous chef.


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[Assistant] In just over a year, she became the head chef at what must be one of Sydney's tastiest restaurants. Please welcome, from Nomad, Jackie Challener.


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[Assistant] The secret to a great dessert. No eggs? Well, you can have wild eggs.


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[Assistant] Look at these king brown mushrooms. They've got teeny weeny ones over there. We've got absolute monsters. Look at that prawns.


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[Assistant] Really just taking two central ingredients, the fennel and the prawn.


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[Assistant] That might be one of the best bits of pastry we've ever had in the competition. That's just spectacular.


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[Assistant] Jackie, you need 26 or more to beat Jess. Jackie, I scored your dish.


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[Assistant] Because of our difficult journey, the Tang Empire will have the true scriptures. You should be happy to do all this work.


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[Assistant] He's called the Tiger Immortal. He recited prayers and right away rain fell. Since then, Daoists have been in charge.


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[Assistant] They destroyed all the Buddhist monasteries and statues.


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[Assistant] Don't put them on yet. Red team, blue team, listen up.


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[Assistant] Today you're going to be recreating dishes from one of Australia's best regional restaurants. Wickens at the Royal Mail in Dunkeld.


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[Assistant] Now Dunkeld is about a three and a half hour drive that way out of Melbourne.


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[Assistant] Or about an hour in the chopper. But here's the thing, not all of you are going to be going.


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[Assistant] Only the captains and the vice captains get the chopper trip. And there's a reason for that.


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[Assistant] Once you get to the Royal Mail, executive chef Robin Wickens and his head chef Dave Sutherland will demonstrate how to make a main course and a dessert to each team captain and vice captain.


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[Assistant] Their job is to memorize how to do it.


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[Assistant] That's right. Memorize. Every measurement, every ingredient, every technique must be committed to memory.


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[Assistant] Once the demonstration is over, you'll fly back in the chopper to the Marship Kitchen.


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[Assistant] I think it's unbelievable what they've done. It's a really good job. Let's see how this fish is cooked, eh?


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[Assistant] You both did an unbelievably good job. We were so impressed and so proud and I think Robin was mesmerized that you could have gone all that way, come back and then downloaded that information so perfectly. Well done.


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[Assistant] So, there's one round to each of you.


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[Assistant] And to split you, we had to ask ourselves one very simple question.


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[Assistant] Who brought us the dish that most closely resembled Robin's dish in terms of flavor, look, and technique?


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[Assistant] The dish that Robin would be most happy to put across the pass at the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld was...


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[Assistant] In the last few lectures, we've been looking at figures, writers.


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[Assistant] Who've been, if not entirely excluded, relegated to the edge of English literature.


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[Assistant] They are, as the technical phrase is, extracurricular.


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[Assistant] Now, in this lecture, we'll continue that excursion, that shandian digression.


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[Assistant] If, if one wants to use that phrase, off the main highway into some of the less beaten byways of literature. It's going on all the time. There's more literature than we can ever read and infinitely more than we shall ever study or that makes great books 101.


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[Assistant] Now, in this lecture, we'll be looking at poetry which is self-consciously minor and typically private, written by women.


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[Assistant] See a kind of invisible readership out there with which they nonetheless have a connection.


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[Assistant] Now women have always traditionally found it difficult to write for the stage because it's so public they have to display themselves and, and the conventions of society almost through to the 20th century forbid that. And epics are too big.


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[Assistant] For women. They require some large presence in the outside world, a kind of, as it were, a grandeur, a public grandeur, which has historically been denied the other sex, women.


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[Assistant] But some forms of literature do lend themselves to this private domestic arena within women. Women can feel comfortable and express themselves.


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[Assistant] In the 19th century, for example, to look forward.


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[Assistant] The admirable Mrs Gaskell, whose work we'll encounter a bit later on, would often write her novels chapter by chapter on the mantelpiece, at night, after she'd put the children to bed and the house had been tidied up and she'd done all the duties of a good wife and mother.


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[Assistant] Jane Austen, we're told, who I can well figure very largely in later lectures, would write in company in the drawing room at her escrotoir, those elegant little writing desks that they had in the 18th and 19th century. So there'd be people around her.


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[Assistant] People think she was inscribing or writing an everyday letter. Women could write letters, of course.


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[Assistant] If someone came close to read what she was actually doing, she might well push the paper out of sight because it was fiction. She didn't want to share that. At least she didn't want to share it until she was ready to share it. I always found it really nice to picture that protective gesture of Jane Austen's. This is my work and I'm keeping it to myself. Now short poems, lyric poems, lent themselves to domestic composition.


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[Assistant] And it is with that form of literature, the short lyric poem, that will be principally concerned in this lecture. It's a line one can follow


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[Assistant] From the 17th century through the 18th to the 19th century, Elizabeth Browning for instance, to the 20th century, Sylvia Plath for instance.


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[Assistant] Some of the poems she wrote when she was living in Devon among her beehives in her kitchen, they, they in fact can be connected right the way back to what women were doing three or four hundred years earlier when they, when they sat down to write this poetry for themselves.


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[Assistant] Now, I'd like to begin with a rather surprising example. Everyone knows that Queen Elizabeth was a great queen. That she was a great orator. She could actually speak, and remember if you would,


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[Assistant] Her speaking at Tilbury, her most famous speech. The Spanish Armada is just over the horizon. It's approaching. It was a mighty Spanish fleet sent by Philip that was surely, as the Spanish enemy thought, crushed puny England, as the low countries have been crushed by Imperial Spain.


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[Assistant] And Queen Elizabeth stood there, physically, defying the foe. And delivered herself with this magnificent speech. My loving people.


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[Assistant] We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery. She's using the royal we, of course. It's her she's talking about, not any kind of collective entity.


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[Assistant] But I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. You notice how she actually changes from we to I. Very, very powerful rhetorical movement there.


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[Assistant] I have always so behaved myself that under God I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects. And therefore, I am come amongst you as you see at this time, not for my recreation and disport.


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[Assistant] I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.


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[Assistant] I know already for your forwardness, you have deserved rewards and crowns, and we do assure you, again, she-


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[Assistant] Changes to we because she's now going to be bountiful. She's going to be the queen and give out honours. And we do assure you, in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you.


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[Assistant] In the meantime, my Lieutenant General shall be in my stead than whom never Prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject.


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[Assistant] Not doubting, but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my god, of my kingdom, and of my


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[Assistant] Now, the woman who wrote that could surely hold her own with the flatterings of Edmund Spenser and his fairy queen, a picture of which is behind me at the moment. One feels hearing in the mind's ear.


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[Assistant] Those writing words at Tilbury, as with the speeches of Winston Churchill addressing the nation in a similarly parlous moment in World War II, which I can just as a child remember, that one wants oneself to pick up one's pike or musket and go down to the beach and do battle with the foe.


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[Assistant] In this, of course, she's expecting that the Spaniards will land and there'll be a land battle. Uhm, the troops are massed, but as it happened...


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[Assistant] God blew, uh, as the commemorative medal put it, and the Spanish fleet was destroyed by a terrible storm, and they never reached the British shore. God, in fact, protected England, as the English like to think.


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[Assistant] But nonetheless, at that moment, Elizabeth didn't know that was gonna happen, she thought there'd be bloody battles, and, and that in fact, her, her kingdom, their kingdom, uh, was, was in dire peril. Now, that, if you like, is the public Elizabeth.


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[Assistant] Uhm, like her father, however, there's a private Elizabeth. Uhm, her father Henry VIII, allegedly.


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[Assistant] Uh, I'd like to think it's true, but allegedly wrote that famous lyric, Green Sleeves. Alas, my love, why do you wrong to cast me off? You know it well, everyone knows it.


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[Assistant] But she too was a versifier. She, she wrote good poetry. Now people sometimes find that surprising, but I, I, I think we should find it no more surprising than the fact that Queen Elizabeth II is a good horsewoman, or that, that Charles, who's to be the next King of England, one expects the heir apparent, is a good shot, you know, to start shooting.


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[Assistant] Because of that, being able to write poetry was a skill like dancing or like horsemanship in Queen Elizabeth's, uh, uh, growing up period.


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[Assistant] Queen Elizabeth the First was a very good poet. In fact, she could in other sort of situations, she could have been an author in her own right. The poem of Queen Elizabeth the First which I'd like to read out is called On Monsieur's Departure.


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[Assistant] And it, it commemorates a moment or records a moment when a lover, and despite furious speculation, no one can work out who, if indeed there ever was a lover that, that lover was. A lover has left her. The woman, it's a typical situation for a woman, she's, she's been left in the lurch, jilted.


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[Assistant] In Queen Elizabeth's case, she's embarrassed. She feels a loss, but she cannot, out of pride of position and rank, display the loss she feels. It must be bottled up to be released cathartically in a private poem.


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[Assistant] This is the poem. It's very beautiful, I think. And as I say, wholly unexpected if you contrast it with that, that rising speech which I read out.


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[Assistant] I grieve and dare not show my discontent.


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[Assistant] I love and yet I'm forced to seem to hate. I do yet dare not say I ever meant. I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate. I am and not. I freeze and yet I'm burned since from myself another self I turned.


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[Assistant] My care is like my shadow in the sun, follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, stands and lies by me, doth what I have done. His too familiar care doth make me rue it.


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[Assistant] Has the heart and the stomach of a man, but she's also in another department of her life, soft and made of melting snow.


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[Assistant] This surely, as I say, reveals to us the heart and stomach of a woman. And a woman has a full range of womanly feelings and responses to the intimate relations of life. Now, I want to move on now to another woman poet, Anne Bradstreet.


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[Assistant] Now, Britain and America are in good-natured war over the literary ownership of Anne Bradstreet. Uhm, let's just say her dates are 1612 to 1672, well before the American War of Independence.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and yet she is generally regarded as the first great American poet and


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[Assistant] On the other side of the Atlantic, she's regarded as being in the line, a very interesting line of British metaphysical poets. So in fact she's got a, if you like, a kind of, a dual literary personality. She carries two passports, in literary terms.


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[Assistant] Anne Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in Northampton, which is in the Midlands of England.


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[Assistant] She was the daughter of a steward or land agent who served an aristocratic estate owner.


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[Assistant] This was important because it meant that young Anne had access to books and a superior library. She was a, as it were, a member of the household with privileges. She could actually read, uhm, what her father's employer had in his house.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and she clearly, as she was a young English woman at this time without question, she clearly took full advantage of this privilege of being able to read books.


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[Assistant] Now, she was also very clearly attracted, fascinated even, by the currently fashionable style of poetry in the early 1700s, the metaphysicals. Dunn, Herbert, Marvel, if you can cast your mind back.


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[Assistant] Now these poets, as you'll recall, wrote clever, knotty, highly conceited stuff. You'll remember that word conceit.


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[Assistant] There's a poem which was constructed around an elaborate conception, or an intricate conception.


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[Assistant] Now at the age of 16, which in fact was a normal age of marriage, life being that much shorter in those days, at the age of 16, she married Simon Bradstreet.


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[Assistant] Now, both Anne's father and her husband Simon would later go on to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And she went to the colony with them in 1630.


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[Assistant] And she was hence forward an American woman. She resided there and never left the colony.


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[Assistant] As the English proverb has it, as the twig is shaped, so the tree is bent.


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[Assistant] Anne's literary pedigree remained English, whatever her later residence, and even though her poems...


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[Assistant] And, and, and they were about America, of course, uh, they, they nonetheless have this kind of, I think, sort of binocularity. They're, they're, they're, they're with English and American.


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[Assistant] Life was very hard in 17th century New England.


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[Assistant] Mortality rates were high, particularly among the young and the old. The amenities of life, the kind of thing...


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[Assistant] Routinely enjoyed in a rich household in England that Anna had been brought up with. These were singularly lacking. She had, to some extent, to change her lifestyle, adapt to a new lifestyle.


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[Assistant] She was helped by religion in doing this. It was God's, it was God's wish that she should be in America. But the religious atmosphere in Massachusetts was harsh. Necessarily, because in fact the environment was so harsh.


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[Assistant] There was a lot of illness, uhm, and contracted smallpox and later TB, both of which were chronic and debilitating medical conditions. Her hardship


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[Assistant] And as she would protest nonetheless her joys were increased by giving birth to eight children. Her house burned down.


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[Assistant] It was a tragedy, which was scarcely more, more terrible to her than the great 1660 London fire was to that city's inhabitants. And at least in London they had Sir Christopher Wren there to rebuild London, but she couldn't get her books back.


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[Assistant] Now Anne wrote a poem on that occasion gritting her teeth and nonetheless thanking God.


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[Assistant] This is what she wrote. And remember, she's standing there, we have to imagine, in the ruins of what little she had by way of household property and house.


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[Assistant] I blessed his grace that gave and took, that laid my goods now in the dust. Yea, so it was, and so was just. It was his own, it was not mine. Far be it that I should repine.


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[Assistant] Uhm, he and, and, and his there refers, of course, to God. It's wonderful, isn't it, the way in which he uses those very simple words. Almost every one of those words is an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable, except the last one, repai.


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[Assistant] It comes in with a, with a kind of, an extra force because in fact it is, in terms of diction, it is different from, from what's gone before.


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[Assistant] Now, losing books is one thing. It was even harder when God took children from her. But they too, she had to console herself, were in a better place. The Almighty must be submitted to.


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[Assistant] Consider the poignant poem, the almost unbearably poignant poem, which is entitled, In memory of my dear grandchild, Anne Bradstreet, her namesake, who deceased June the 20th, 1669, being three years and seven months old.


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[Assistant] It's a poem written, as she says, with a trembling hand and a troubled heart. This is the poem.


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[Assistant] I knew she was but as a withering flower that's here today perhaps gone in an hour. It's kind of Carpe Diem thing about flowers are beautiful but they last not long.


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[Assistant] Like as a bubble or the brittle glass or like a shadow turning as it was.


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[Assistant] It's a very complex image that a bubble or the brittle glass or like a shadow turning as it were, she's thinking I think of an hourglass, you know, like the egg timer and the sand running through it. It's faintly visualized there and of course it...


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[Assistant] It, it, it, it ties in with the perennial theme of vegetation and decay. Everything that lives must die. Of course, this child has died very prematurely.


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[Assistant] More fool than I to look, on that was lent, as if mine own. She should never regard her children as her own property.


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[Assistant] When thus impermanent. Farewell dear child.


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[Assistant] The life, life was so hard and of course the infant mortality was, was, was so widespread and


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[Assistant] Bitter experience can often result in sweet poetry. One knows that.


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[Assistant] What I would point to here, as with Queen Elizabeth, is, is, is the privacy. It is a woman taking a few minutes, as one suspects, to talk to herself, to talk about very womanly things, what a woman feels when she, she loses what she's labored so hard to produce, children and grandchildren.


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[Assistant] It is, of course, in one sense, a classic meditation, which was a standard Puritan exercise, which was also one of the bases of metaphysical poetry. It's a way of purifying the spirit by introspection and articulating, uhm, the results of that introspection. Very often in poetry, because in fact,


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[Assistant] That exercise requires a very subtle use of language, a very subtle use of consciousness, expressing itself through language. But the simplicity of Anne Bradstreet's expression, which is as simple as the colonial kitchenware around her,


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[Assistant] When it's tied in with those complex similes, the one I was referring to about the hourglass, it creates an amazingly subtle effect.


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[Assistant] It, it rends it, to my mind, at least a woman's poem. And I must say, in my mind's ear, I hear it in an English accent. But that, that is a matter of dispute. Who owns Anne Bradstreet? Whatever. Ownership.


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[Assistant] Uh, she submits to, she, she is, I would, I would submit a very great poet indeed. Now the next poet I want to look at is Margaret Cavendish.


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[Assistant] She's high-born, unlike the two women we've been talking about previously. Well, the one woman, I mean, Anne Bradstreet. Obviously, no one's higher-born than Queen Elizabeth.


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[Assistant] Cavendish is highborn and she bared the title in adult life of Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne, a title which came to her by marriage. In early life, she was a courtier attached to the Queen of England.


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[Assistant] And her own family, the Lucas's, were prominent royalists during the civil war. She went into exile into France with the king.


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[Assistant] She wrote prolifically, unlike Aphra Behn, under her own name.


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[Assistant] Uh, and published. And her works include prose fantasias, prose fantasias like The Blazing World in 1666, a memoir called The True Relation of My Birth, Breeding and Life, philosophical treatises and much, much poetry. Now, her poetry


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[Assistant] It is unusual, because unlike many other women writers, Cavendish was in the literary world, and she was known as a literary figure. Although that world was not always kinder or polite about her, they rather resented the fact this woman had barged in. She was often regarded as aggressive, self-advertising, and fantastical.


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[Assistant] Self-possessed women were typically thus stigmatized.


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[Assistant] She had no children, which with her prosperous and leisure lifestyle and access to the booksellers of London, supplied more opportunities to pursue a literary career as such than almost any other woman at the time, with the possible exception of Aphra Behn, who we were talking about earlier, and whose talent incidentally is by far the greater. One has to make that point.


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[Assistant] Cavendish's epistles are, however, landmarks in literature. And I want to look at just one of her poems. It's very early in her literary career, 1653. It's called A World Made by Atoms. And it's extraordinary. It would have been extraordinary from any poet's pen. But it's a poem about particle physics. And it's clearly metaphysical in style.


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[Assistant] And it's one of a cluster of what are called atomic poems which she wrote. I'll read just a bit of it and we'll get the sense of it.


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[Assistant] Small atoms of themselves a world may make as being subtle and of every shape.


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[Assistant] And as they dance about, fit places fine. Such forms as best agree make every kind.


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[Assistant] For when we build a house of brick and stone, one doubts that she ever built a house by the way. For when we build a house of brick and stone, we lay them even, every one by one. And when we find a gap that's big or small, we seek out stones to fit that place with all. And so it goes on.


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[Assistant] Now, this is one of, as I say, one of her atomic poems, and it is quite remarkable. Now the reason it's remarkable...


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[Assistant] She doesn't quite work out the conceit, but she does extremely well. John Donne could probably have done it better, but nonetheless she does it well.


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[Assistant] What's interesting about this is this poem identifies as not merely the first career poetess, an ugly word, but one has to use it in the annals of English literature, but also, and this is as important, the first blues stocking.


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[Assistant] That's a female intellectual in those annals of English literature. And it's a line which will follow through by such figure, figures as George Eliot to Iris Murdoch in, in the present day. So she's interesting.


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[Assistant] Flipping through the, the, the, the, these kind of women poets, these private women poets, to Catherine Phillips, who's also known by her nom de plume, The Matchless Orinda. Her dates are 1631 to 1664.


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[Assistant] She's born in London, the daughter of a merchant and a non-conformist.


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[Assistant] The household was excessively pious. Catherine's recorded as having read the Bible from cover to cover before she was five years old, and to have learned several languages in her childhood.


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[Assistant] Such prodigious feats are often recorded of girls because they were denied, as it were, any formal institutional education and they had to overachieve to be taken notice of. And she certainly was.


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[Assistant] In her teens, she turned royalist. Probably in the spirit of rebellion. Kind of adolescent rebellion, if you like.


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[Assistant] Age 16 she married a Welsh MP, James Phillips, who was almost 40 years older than her, and they moved to Wales. Now, it wasn't on the face of it a propitious preparation for a career in poetry, but in Wales she set up a salon.


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[Assistant] A group of, of like-minded people, like-minded writers, women, earning herself the, the non-diploma, as I say, of arinda, pen name.


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[Assistant] Now she was a notably virtuous woman, unlike Baine, with whom she was often contrasted, her contemporary, who was of course famously immoral, as people thought. And Phillips earned a reputation for herself as a writer from her Welsh literary base. And there's some speculation about some of her poems which are addressed to fellow females.


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[Assistant] Maybe thought under their veneer of literary affectation to be thought sapphic or lesbian. For example, this poem called A Retired, A Retired Friendship.


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[Assistant] Come, my Ardelia, to this bar where kindly mingling souls are wild. Let's innocently spend an hour and at all serious follies smile.


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[Assistant] Here is no quarreling for crowns, nor fear of changes in our fate, no trembling at the great one's frowns, nor any slavery of state. Here's no disguise, nor treachery, nor any deep concealed design, from blood and plots this place is free and calm as are those looks of thine.


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[Assistant] And so it goes on. Now, bowers, of course, are where lovers enjoy their bliss. But Phillips here insists I'm innocent.


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[Assistant] Or is that merely a convenient mask or disguise?


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[Assistant] What's genuinely interesting in poems like The Above by Orinda is, I think, the sly use of male lover conventions. Now, whether it's innocent or not, who can say?


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[Assistant] If we have to ask the question, then the poet has us, as it were.


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[Assistant] Now, high in this, this female poetic company is another aristocrat, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea, whose dates are 1661, 1720, slightly later.


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[Assistant] One of the first women poets to make it under her own name, well it was her husband's name actually, into print.


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[Assistant] The highborn always had it easier. They, they had friends.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but she was unusual in other ways than being a published woman writer. Her father, Sir William Kingsmill, had the very unusual belief at the time that women should be educated. And her poetry, like Cavendish's,


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[Assistant] There's a poem which I want to read out, which is called enigmatically Glass. Now Glass is an object which is traditionally associated with woman's vanity. It's something paradoxically which you look into to see your own reflection and look through, through to see the world outside.


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[Assistant] This in fact is a, is a conceit. Nuff Inch as we gather is in fact address, addressing both the window in her living room.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and at the same time alluding to the looking glass in her boudoir. This is the poem.


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[Assistant] Oh man, interesting way for a poem by a woman to start. Oh man, what inspiration was thy guide who taught thee light and air thus to divide as the window does? To let in all the useful beams of day, yet force as subtle winds without thy sash to stay.


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[Assistant] To extract from embers by a strange device, then polish fair these flakes of solid ice using the glass as a magnifying glass. And a burning glass.


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[Assistant] The things which a woman would see about her every day. A mirror, a window, a vase, a glass vase. Now,


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[Assistant] Had we but world enough and time, you remember that quotation from Andrew Marvell who's very appropriate I think in this company. Had we but world enough and time, one could look at other poetesses such as Anna Letitia Barbo, wonderful name, Joanna Bailey, Hannah Moore.


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[Assistant] And, and there are many, many more than, than, than our list, than our literary histories customarily make room for.


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[Assistant] I hope that in this lecture we've actually reviewed enough to make an important point.


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[Assistant] However repressed, in a general sense, women may have been. Nonetheless, literature, specifically...


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[Assistant] Characteristic kind of poetry forced its way through the barriers, the, as it were, the things that were holding women down.


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[Assistant] And if we listen, there are always women's voices. They might be on the edge and we might have to cock an ear to catch them. And those women's voices are interestingly and differently, and this is the key word, womanly.


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[Assistant] It's a, it's a very fine anthology which we can put together of what I've called private women's poetry and one should really visit it. It should not be excluded to go back to what I was talking about at the beginning.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. We were told in the clue that one monk was a cheeky monkey and was gonna tell us lies. And one monk was a truth-telling monkey.


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[Assistant] Elizabeth was melmaningering the situation. Put your foot in front and kick her over.


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[Assistant] I did get a tiny bit of help, but I was already well on my way to knowing the answer by the time that help came.


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[Assistant] I thought it might be a very good idea for health and safety reasons that we do the other challenge. You just put a bandage on it and we keep going. But she's trooper, she's pressing on. Let's play this one. This one.


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[Assistant] Like it's got that really good crunch from the pine nuts and the pop of the pomegranate seeds. The meat is cooked really well with the eggplant. Yeah, good flavor.


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[Assistant] Chapter 57. A Guessing Game.


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[Assistant] But we must, said the old woman of the wind.


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[Assistant] The sky cleared, and the tiger immortal shook with anger.


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[Assistant] He cried. Bajie laughed at him.


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[Assistant] The Tang monk's mouth fell open. But...


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[Assistant] The Tiger Immortal soon came back with a small box.


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[Assistant] Then he made himself tiny and squeezed through a crack in the box. Inside the box was a ripe peach. Quickly he ate the peach, leaving only the pit.


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[Assistant] A moment later, he was standing next to the Tang monk again.


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[Assistant] Wukong leaned toward the monk and whispered, It's a peach pit.


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[Assistant] Said the monk nervously. Ha! Said the tiger immortal.


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[Assistant] This is the second of the Jane Austen lectures and it will focus on Pride and Prejudice. We've considered many great works of literature in this course.


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[Assistant] That one cent, in one sense that's the, the ticket price. Uhm, it's, it's, it's the entry qualification for any exercise such as this, a course of literature.


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[Assistant] But on the subject of greatness, let me open with a conundrum. The desert island question, one might call it. What is the greatest of these great books?


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[Assistant] Now if you ask, if you ask the British people in 2007 that question, the answer would be unequivocal.


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[Assistant] Pride and Prejudice was voted the most essential book in a huge poll, a Vox Populi Britannia poll in March 2007 to commemorate World Book Day.


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[Assistant] Pride and Prejudice was voted in its top position five places higher than the Bible. Higher than Shakespeare even.


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[Assistant] Why should this novel, only a novel, as Jane Austen would ironically describe it, be so celebrated, so necessary, so ubiquitous, so essential? Phew.


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[Assistant] Readers and few people of taste, one may confidently assert, would have concurred in 1813 to 14. A period which was wild about Byron's child, Harold's Pilgrimage and Scotts Waverley.


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[Assistant] Works which sold by the ten thousand, while Miss Austin's, a lady's, mild fiction, did well to clear a few hundred.


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[Assistant] Child Harold and Waverley were, probably unnecessary to say, reckoned to be singularly inessential.


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[Assistant] The oddity remains, however, a moat to trouble the mind's eye, as Hamlet would say. Why this novel?


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[Assistant] It could be seen as the crest or perhaps even the froth of a wave. 2007 was the year of Jane Austen on TV and a large screen in cinemas and movie theatres. Every one of the six great novels was adapted for TV or cinema that year.


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[Assistant] Also there was a biopic of quite extraordinary probability about her love life called Becoming Jane.


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[Assistant] Jane Austen, a writer who studiously preserved her anonymity and guarded her privacy, was as familiar a name...


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[Assistant] In the 21st century, and her intimate character is mulled over by the public as, as Princess Diana's.


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[Assistant] Now as I say, the wheel of literary taste turns in very strange ways.


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[Assistant] No one of course did or would have predicted it in 1813 when Pride and Prejudice was published. It was published anonymously by the firm of Edgerton, not then a big name in the London book world.


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[Assistant] The more famous third edition, which came out in 1817, was reprinted by John Murray, Byron's publisher, and the most esteemed Tory publishing house in London. Now the reader's report...


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[Assistant] Uh, Mr. Gifford writing for Mr. John Murray is very revealing. This is what Gifford wrote about Pride and Prejudice in 1817.


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[Assistant] I have for the first time looked into Pride and Prejudice, and it is really a very pretty thing. No dark passages, no secret chambers, no wind howlings in long galleries, no drops of blood upon a rusty dagger, he's thinking Mrs. Radcliffe, things that should now be left to ladies maids and sentimental washerwomen.


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[Assistant] How condescending and masculine that offhand description is. A very pretty thing.


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[Assistant] Will one say such a thing about, say, King Lear or the Knight's Tale by Torsten? No, one wouldn't.


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[Assistant] Nor for many decades afterwards would knowing judges of literature have rated Pride and Prejudice as supremely high, supremely great.


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[Assistant] When, for example, in 1881, Antony Trollope, great writer, great novelist, in his autobiography nominated Pride and Prejudice as one of the, one of the best novels in the, in the language, it was regarded as a typically cross-grained opinion by the chronicler of Barsicure.


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[Assistant] He was a man who loved running against the current of popular opinion, and it was thought common sense. Jane Austen greater than Scott? Greater than Dickens? Nonsense.


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[Assistant] As well say that Trollope was greater than George Meredith.


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[Assistant] In posterity's view, alas, it is no contest. Uh, the author, Meredith of the Ordeal of Richard Feverell, have you ever heard of it? No, I thought not. He's died to death.


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[Assistant] While we're on the subject of dates, Pride and Prejudice was written for the delectation initially of the author's family audience under the title First Impressions, and it was written between 1796 and 1797 as best week and hazard.


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[Assistant] The title, First Impressions, is significant. It can stand as the central theme of much of Jane Austen's moral fiction.


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[Assistant] Her feeling is that serious attachment needs to grow. It needs many impressions.


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[Assistant] First impressions, love at first sight for example, they're invariably untrustworthy.


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[Assistant] If there's one motto which should blaze in the sky of the Austin universe, it is, marry in haste, repent in leisure.


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[Assistant] The Bennets, Mr. Bennet, married the ineffably stupid and by no means wealthy Mrs. Bennet all those years ago.


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[Assistant] We're never directly told the reason, but it was evidently impetuous, he was in love or desirous, lustful as the un-ladylike might think. And he repents bitterly misanthropic in his study every day of his life.


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[Assistant] Having made that, that hasty union all those years ago.


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[Assistant] Every one of the major Austen heroines, with the possible exception of Anne Elliot in persuasion, has an offer before making the right choice, which it would have been disastrous for her to accept. Consider for example Emma and Mr Elton.


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[Assistant] One of the finest comic scenes in, in, in the novels, all the novels, is that in which the astonished heroine, returning alone with the reverend gentleman, Mr. Elton, from a Christmas party at the Westerns in a carriage, actually realizes that the squishy fellow, having drunk too much of Mr. Western's good wine, is making love to her.


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[Assistant] Making love is certainly means something different to her, Jane Austen, than it means to us.


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[Assistant] Would Emma Elton have been happy? No. But should a 21-year-old woman like Emma, even a woman of fortune, marry an eligible, handsome, well-educated clergyman, who would say that she was making a terrible mistake? She could well have taken him. He was not a bad option at that period.


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[Assistant] Over the years of her marriage, it would have


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[Assistant] Transpired to have been a terrible mistake. Had Emma Woodhouse, for instance, succumbed in that carriage to the, as it were, the extravagant, more extravagantly sort of, uh, uh, uh, uh, proposing, uh, Reverend Elton.


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[Assistant] With Catherine Moreland in Northanger Abbey, it is John Thorpe who makes the first offer, which must, if the heroine is to fulfill her destiny, be declined.


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[Assistant] Even though Miss Moreland is penniless and at this stage of her growing up, not a very accomplished young woman, it would have been a mistake. With Marion Dashwood,


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[Assistant] It's, it's Willoughby and one could go through the list. Uhm, but the main point is beware first impressions. They're treacherous.


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[Assistant] With Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of our novel Pride and Prejudice, the first offer comes from her distant cousin, the Reverend Mr. Collins.


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[Assistant] On the face of things, it would be an eminently suitable match.


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[Assistant] There is a complex legal background as there often is in Jane Austen's novels.


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[Assistant] There's a settlement, the, the house in which the Bennets live, Elizabeth and her family, must go to a male heir.


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[Assistant] One reason that Mr Bennett has so many daughters is that he's been trying for years to have a son.


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[Assistant] Now, of course, Mrs. Bennet is in her post-natal years. It is too late. And the estate, the house in which it's a farm as well, but where the Bennets live must go on his death, and he's manifestly older than his wife and possibly not in good health, must go to a remote male offspring of the family. That's Mr. Collins.


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[Assistant] It's a catastrophe which, or potential catastrophe which, which Austen examines in more detail in the opening chapters of Sense and Sensibility, in which the inheritance laws of England, which are biased always to male heirs, evict the Dashwood woman from their house in which they've lived all their lives, rendering them effectively vagrants, genteel vagrants.


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[Assistant] Now, the legal status of a woman is one of the issues engaged with in, in Austin's fiction. One of the things which makes her fiction, despite its apparently unworldly plots very often, so socially and historically relevant. But I repeat, she doesn't protest against those laws, she looks at the complications they produce.


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[Assistant] In Pride and Prejudice, a marriage between Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Collins would keep the family home long, long-born in the family. In the event of Mr. Bennet's premature decease, which is not improbable, it would secure the future of six women, which is otherwise not terribly secure.


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[Assistant] He's attached, parasite-like, to the even more obnoxious snob, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and he's very dull.


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[Assistant] He has that, that cardinal sin in Jane Austen's universe. He is stupid and dull. It's his right to turn him down.


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[Assistant] Right by her own lights, that is. Morally, the decision is absolutely correct. But her lights are not everyone's lights. Jane Austen likes to play with these, these kind of problems in her fiction. When Elizabeth's best friend, Charlotte Lucas, accepts Mr. Collins, a few hours later, he rebounds from his rejection angrily.


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[Assistant] Uhm, the rejection which she's had from the ungrateful Miss Bennet. And he goes almost immediately to her best friend and repeats his offer to her.


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[Assistant] When that happens, when Elizabeth finds out about this, there ensues what I personally find one of the most illuminating exchanges in all Austen's fiction on the subject of marriage, and that, as I say, is a central concern of hers.


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[Assistant] When Elizabeth is told by Charlotte that she, Charlotte, has accepted Mr. Collins,


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[Assistant] A little bit astounded. How could you, a woman of sense, do this? How could you accept this man? And then Charlotte returns the objection, returns the criticism on


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[Assistant] of, of Elizabeth with, with a very eloquent speech which actually suddenly sort of changes the whole perspective which we've had so far in the novel. Remember that


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[Assistant] If you know the novel, that Charlotte is the incarnation of sense, good sense, rational sense, and also she is older.


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[Assistant] You're in your late twenties and certainly by the time you're approaching your thirties in Jane Austen's world.


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[Assistant] The door is closed. You're going to be a spinster for life, like the lucklessness baits, for instance, in, in Emma, and it is not, it is not a destiny which is appealing. But anyway, this is what Charlotte says when she observes the surprise, which


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[Assistant] Elizabeth of Vince's at her, Charlotte's having accepted Mr. Collins.


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[Assistant] I see what you are feeling, replies Charlotte. You must be surprised, very much surprised, so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you.


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[Assistant] But when you've had time to think it over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I've done. I am not romantic.


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[Assistant] And considering Mr. Collins' character, connection and situation in life, I'm convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.


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[Assistant] Horrible prospect opens for Elizabeth, that Charlotte may one day be the mistress of the house in which she, Elizabeth, is now living, long-born, because it's going to descend by the laws of inheritance to Mr. Collins.


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[Assistant] Elizabeth quietly answered, uh, uh, undoubtedly.


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[Assistant] And after an awkward pause, they return to the rest of the family. As is often the case in Jane Austen.


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[Assistant] That awkward pause, that white space speaks volumes.


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[Assistant] I think I'm right here in saying that Charlotte's speech is one of the longest in Jane Austen's fiction. She doesn't normally give women long speeches. Certainly, it's one of the most forceful and articulate.


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[Assistant] When characters in Joan Austen need to make long statements, they usually do it by letter, but Charlotte here speaks very, very powerfully.


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[Assistant] She's speaking eminently, wonderfully good sense. One can't contradict the logic.


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[Assistant] She's in her late twenties, her bloom is fast fading. How much longer, for example, can she compete with five younger Bennett girls, all coming to eligibility with their bloom intact in the great marriage market? Bloom is a very important word in Jane Austen's.


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[Assistant] Charlotte simply can't consult her heart. She can't even consult her moral judgement in some ways. It must be her head which dictates the response she makes to Mr. Collins. Now she's admittedly a cold fish, but nonetheless her arguments are imbued with that valued quality in Joan Morales' universe to repeat the word sense.


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[Assistant] Has Elizabeth, we wonder at this juncture in the novel, been too rash in turning down an acceptable suitor? It's all very well opting for spinsterhood, if like Emma Woodhouse in that other novel, you have £10,000 a year. But Elizabeth has only £2,000 settled on her. Jane Austen's always very precise about money.


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[Assistant] That money's in the consuls, government 3% bonds, which again are often referred to in Jane Austen's fiction. That would yield scarcely enough to live on as, as a comfortably or...