Seamus Perry: Pluralism and the Modern Poet
About this episode
Seamus Perry discusses the relationship between pluralism and modern poetry, exploring how poets respond to the demands of plurality.
Many thinkers have characterised modernity by its investment in the idea of pluralism, ‘of things being various’, in Louis MacNeice’s phrase. How do the virtues of plurality and difference fit with the more traditional virtues of poetic unity and imaginative order? Seamus Perry considers the ways in which modern poets have responded to the demands of pluralism, and whether Auden was right in thinking that a poem that exemplified the pluralist values of liberal democracy would be ‘formless, windy, banal and utterly boring’. From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: https://lrb.me/crlrbpod LRB Audiobooks: https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: https://lrb.me/storelrbpod Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
People in this episode
Guest: Seamus Perry
Topics covered
- pluralism
- modern poetry
- poetic unity
- imaginative order
- liberal democracy
- Auden's critique
Keywords
- pluralism
- modern poetry
- poetic unity
- Auden
- Louis MacNeice
- imaginative order
- liberal democracy
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The London Review of Books
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