Sir Michael Tippett in this series of highly personal films takes for his title Poets in a Barren Age.

What useful purpose is served by the creative artist in society? In a harsh world where millions starve, do poems or paintings or symphonies have any relation to events which actually affect men's lives?

In this film Sir Michael Tippett, one of Britain's most eminent composers, examines the changing relationship between the artist and society. Looking at contemporary life with its mixture of humanity and violence, he suggests that we are living at a time in which there is growing hunger for the satisfaction of the inner world to which the artist speaks.

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