Political Poems: 'Autumn Journal' by Louis MacNeice

Video Description

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. This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecryt In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsyt ABOUT CLOSE READINGS Close Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books exploring different periods of literature through a selection of key works. Enjoy an introductory grounding like no other from Europe's leading literary journal: fluent, rigorous, irreverent and never boring. Find more episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0K Running in 2024: ON SATIRE with Colin Burrow and Clare Bucknell HUMAN CONDITIONS with Adam Shatz, Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards AMONG THE ANCIENTS II with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones MEDIEVAL LOLS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley POLITICAL POEMS with Seamus Perry and Mark Ford Also included in the Close Readings subscription, the full series of: AMONG THE ANCIENTS I with Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones MEDIEVAL BEGINNINGS with Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley THE LONG AND SHORT with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry MODERN-ISH POETS: SERIES 1 with Mark Ford and Seamus Perry ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.