In the first episode of their new Close Readings series on political poetry, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’ by Andrew Marvell, described by Frank Kermode as ‘braced against folly by the power and intelligence that make it possible to think it the greatest political poem in the language’.

Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.

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Read the poem here

Further reading in the LRB:

Blair Worden: Double Tongued: https://lrb.me/wordenpp

Frank Kermode: Hard Labour: https://lrb.me/kermodepp

David Norbrook: Political Verse: https://lrb.me/norbrookpp

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