Philip Larkin was terrified of death from an early age; Thomas Hardy contemplated what the neighbours would say after he had gone; and Sylvia Plath imagined her own death in vivid and controversial ways. The genre of self-elegy, in which poets have reflected on their own passing, is a small but eloquent one in the history of English poetry.

In this episode, Seamus and Mark consider some of its most striking examples, including Chidiock Tichborne’s laconic lament on the night of his execution in 1586, Jonathan Swift’s breezy anticipation of his posthumous reception, and the more comfortless efforts of 20th-century poets confronting godless extinction.

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Read more in the LRB:

Jacqueline Rose on Plath:

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldself1

David Runciman on Larkin and his father:

https://lrb.me/ldself2

John Bayley on Larkin

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldself3

Matthew Bevis on Hardy:

⁠⁠https://lrb.me/ldself4

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