Talk by A. Alvarez
The poem is read by Christopher Hassall before and after the talk

In this series critics are invited to take a single poem and examine it in as much detail as they see fit in order to bring out the full meaning.

'Modern poetry,' Mr. Alvarez says, 'has brought about a queer change in our tastes and reading habits. Nowadays we take the very obscure poetry of the seventeenth century quite in our stride. Romantic poetry, so much simpler in language and even in aims, we find more difficult.' In the ode Dejection, 'there is an informal intimacy, a coolness and candour which add up to the prime poetic virtue: creative objectivity.'