Episode 2
Poet Helen Mort explores the contemporary hunger for apology, reflecting on when we say sorry to justify our actions rather than express contrition.
Poet Helen Mort continues her journey exploring the complexities and subtexts of apology, drawing on both her own lifelong tendency to say sorry for almost anything and on remarkable poetic apologies including Ralph Waldo Emerson's The Apology.
She reflects on how we often use apology to justify or explain our behaviour rather than express contrition and examines the motives of those posting under the hashtag #sorrynotsorry.
Do we sometimes say sorry as a pre-emptive defence against criticism, she asks? And is this a modern phenomenon or a return to apology's roots as a rhetorical or argumentative device?
Producer Zita Adamson
An Overtone Production for 麻豆社 Radio 3
Last on
More episodes
Previous
Broadcasts
- Tue 25 Feb 2020 22:45麻豆社 Radio 3
- Tue 18 May 2021 22:45麻豆社 Radio 3
Death in Trieste
A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.
Watch: My Deaf World
Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.
The Book that Changed Me
Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.
Download The Essay
Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.
Podcast
-
![]()
The Essay
Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
