8 min listen
S3E5: "Epitaph on a Tyrant" by W. H. Auden
ratings:
Length:
10 minutes
Released:
Jun 7, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Welcome to Season 3 of The Well Read Poem podcast. In this third season we will explore six lyric poems by the great English modernist W. H. Auden. The study of Auden’s poetry is in many respects a study of the 20th Century itself, and of its religious, philosophical, and political concerns. Auden was one of the great chroniclers of the so-called “Age of Anxiety,” a term he coined, and a brilliant and sympathetic analyst of modern man’s fears and hopes, beliefs and unbeliefs. Poem begins at timestamp 7:58. Epitaph on a Tyrant by W. H. Auden Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
Released:
Jun 7, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (90)
S4E4: “Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Highness” by Alexander Pope: Welcome to Season 4 of The Well Read Poem with poet and classicist Thomas Banks. This series of poetry readings will focus on poems having animals as the subject. Some poems will be by well known poets, while others will be by less popular poets. This... by The Well Read Poem