What Is Love?

A history of ideas. Presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices.

Each week Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week he's asking 'What is Love?'.

Helping him answer it are theologian Giles Fraser, writer Lisa Appignanesi, classicist Edith Hall and psychotherapist Mark Vernon.

For the rest of the week Giles, Lisa, Edith and Mark will take us further into the history of ideas about love with programmes of their own. Between them they will examine Freud's ideas on erotic love, Jesus and altruism, the first guidance on how to be a loving parent, by Rousseau and Aristophanes' speech which explains how love was born.

Producer: Melvin Rickarby.