Episode 2 of Season four again sets the foundation for the Modernist movement, looking at the two superb poetic craftsman, Thomas Hardy and A.E. Housman.  What is noteworthy about the two, besides their aesthetic excellence, is the way they capture a fin-de-siecle cultural despair and express its pervasive sense of alienation.  While the First World War will devastate much of Western Christendom, it is important to note that the dissonant notes to the leitmotif of social progress are already being sounded by these two important poets.