The Sense of Poetry; Ode to a Grecian Urn

Barlow, Lew · November 28, 1957

In this episode, "Professor and Lowell Television Lecturer at Harvard University" I. A. Richards reads and interprets Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and related works. He sits at a desk and addresses the camera; texts read at length scroll down the screen. Richards's discussion focuses on the relationship between beauty and truth, love and knowledge. The professor parses a number of poetic uses of term "beauty," proclaims that "Poetry, like music, is an art of sound," and announces that Keats's Urn represents "Life seen from the angle of death." Summary and select metadata for this record was submitted by John Marx & Mark Cooper. The prime aim of The Sense of Poetry is to put great poetry before the large and varied public for whom simultaneous reading and listening offers a clearer and fuller presentation than either can apart. Commentary, explanation, and criticism have been subordinated to this joint presentation and have been chiefly concerned to supply again by print and voice together passages of earlier prose and verse which assist in the exploration of the poem under study. The poems were selected and arranged so that this illustration by quotation might be cumulative. The series as a whole is an introduction to the theme: Platonism is English Poetry, and the passages cited from Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and others are among the essential roots of Western culture. This series of eight lectures, by a man of Professor I.A. Richards background and insight, as well as his dramatic flair, provides an exciting introduction to poetry that will capture the imagination of almost any group. This series was produced by WGBH-TV, with Lewis Barlow as producer. The 8 half-hour episodes that comprise this series were originally recorded on kinescope. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)