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? This lecture will consider 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’.

Seamus Perry is a fellow of Balliol College and professor of English at the University of Oxford. He has published numerous books on poetry and criticism, including most recently editions of Matthew Arnold and William Empson. With Christopher Ricks and Freya Johnston, he is editor of the journal Essays in Criticism. He regularly contributes to the London Review of Books and, with Mark Ford, has presented several series for the LRB’s Close Readings podcast (a new series on narrative poetry will begin in January).