The first episode explores the stylistic shifts in poetry as the 20th century dawned, when poets began to jettison tradition for modern forms of expression. They would reject the sentiment and moralising of Victorian poetry and call for a new directness and economy of language fitting for a postwar generation. Featuring the works of Ezra Pound, TS Eliot, Edith Sitwell, WH Auden, Stevie Smith, John Betjeman, RS Thomas and Dylan Thomas.