• Political Poems: 'Autumn Journal' by Louis MacNeice

  • Sep 28 2024
  • Length: 13 mins
  • Podcast

Political Poems: 'Autumn Journal' by Louis MacNeice

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  • Summary

  • In his long 1938 poem, Louis MacNeice took many of the ideals shared by other young writers of his time – a desire for relevance, responsiveness and, above all, honesty – and applied them in a way that has few equivalents in English poetry. This diary-style work, written from August to December 1938, reflects with ‘documentary vividness’, as Ian Hamilton has described, on the international and personal crises swirling around MacNeice in those months. Seamus and Mark discuss the poem’s lively depiction of the anecdotal abundance of London life and the ways in which its innovative rhyming structure helps to capture the autumnal moment when England was slipping into an unknowable winter.

    Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

    Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4dbjbjG

    In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

    Read more in the LRB:

    Samuel Hynes: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v11/n05/samuel-hynes/like-the-trees-on-primrose-hill

    Ian Hamilton: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n05/ian-hamilton/smartened-up


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