Too often one hears it said, with all the assurance of a measured criticism, that poetry is dead - or all but dead - in England today. Where, these 'critics' ask, are your Brownings, your Shelleys, your Keats? But, as Mr. Ridley will point out tonight in his last talk within the series, the first duty is to find out what the poets are doing and then to weigh the question as to how far they are succeeding, rather than denounce them for what they are not doing. If Mr. Ridley does not essay the lengthy task of showing us what the modern poets are after, he will, anyway, show us the necessity of an intelligent appraisal.