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’.
Seamus Perry delivered this Winter Lecture at Conway Hall on 30 January 2026.
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. He is currently working on an intellectual biography of W.H. Auden, as well as finishing a collection of critical essays about modern poetry. 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, including the new series on Narrative Poetry.
