Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to this Prom's Plus programme, in which in 20 or so short, packed minutes,

we're going to examine the achievement of Wilfred Owen, the poet who, more than any other,

created the idea of the First World War in the popular literary imagination,

and who made huge strides towards a new language to describe and interpret

conditions that had never been experienced before. And his work inspired Britain's war requiem.

Joining me on stage here at the Royal College of Music are two of our leading poets, Michael Longley

and Fred de Gar. So Michael, Wilford Oyn once famously said that his subject was war and the pity of war

and the poetry is in the pity. And do you think that's why Britain found his work so inspiring?

I think it is really. Britain chose his own poems very carefully. The problem with Owen's portrait, if you're a composer,

is that the poetry itself is so intensely musical

that it doesn't leave a lot of space for a composer's music.

How he fitted in music between these intense, dense, verbally rich lines, I don't know.

But in one way, Britain and Oyn were an unlikely pairing, because Oyn was a soldier who lost

his life in the conflict and Britain was a lifelong pacifist.

Yes. I don't think that makes any difference.

I wouldn't say in Owen there's anything bellicose.

No.

He's a reluctant soldier.

And he's a young man of genius,

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