Seamus Perry and Mark Ford consider poems that have been understood, admired and perhaps criticised for their politics, ranging across several hundred years of literary history.
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
Political Poems is part of the Close Readings podcast collection from the London Review of Books. Listen to this episode ad free, and get full access to all our Close Readings series, including more from Mark and Seamus:
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Seamus Perry and Mark Ford consider poems that have been understood, admired and perhaps criticised for their politics, ranging across several hundred years of literary history.
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
Political Poems is part of the Close Readings podcast collection from the London Review of Books. Listen to this episode ad free, and get full access to all our Close Readings series, including more from Mark and Seamus:
Sign up to the Close Readings subscription to listen ad free and to all our series in full:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignup
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignup
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Wordsworth was not unusual among Romantic poets for his enthusiastic support of the French Revolution, but he stands apart from his contemporaries for actually being there to see it for himself (‘Thou wert there,’ Coleridge wrote). This episode looks at Wordsworth’s retrospective account of his 1791 visit to France, described in books 9 and 10 of The Prelude, and the ways in which it reveals a passionate commitment to republicanism while recoiling from political extremism. Mark and Seamus discuss why, despite Wordsworth’s claim of being innately republican, discussion of the intellectual underpinnings of the revolution is strangely absent from the poem, which is more often preoccupied with romance and the imagination, particularly in their power to soften zealotry.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
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Further reading in the LRB:
Seamus Perry:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n24/seamus-perry/regrets-vexations-lassitudes
E.P. Thompson
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n22/e.p.-thompson/wordsworth-s-crisis
Colin Burrow:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n13/colin-burrow/a-solemn-and-unsexual-man
Marilyn Butler
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n12/marilyn-butler/three-feet-on-the-ground
Thomas Keymer
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n12/thomas-keymer/after-meditation
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