Cecil Day-Lewis

Education

High School: Sherborne School

Career

Assistant master at Summer Fields, Oxford, 1927-1928, Larchfield, Helensburgh 1928-1930, Cheltenham College, 1930-1935. Editor books and pamphlets Ministry of Information, 1941-1946. Clark lecturer Trinity College, Cambridge, 1946-1951.

Professor poetry University of Oxford, 1951-1956. Charles Eliot Norton professor of poetry Harvard University, 1964-1965. Also writer detective novels under pseudonym Nicholas Blake.

Director Chatto & Windus, publications Vice president of the London Library.

Works

• article

  • A hope for poetry: (reprint with a postscript)

    (A hope for poetry: (reprint with a postscript) [C Day Lew...)

• book

  • The Buried Day

    (The Buried Day [C. Day Lewis] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipp...)

• lectures

  • The Poetic Image

    (Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating bac...)

• poetry

  • Collected Poems 1929-1933

    (Collected Poems 1929-1933 [C Day Lewis] on Amazon.com. *F...)

  • From feathers to iron (Hogarth living poets ; no. 22)

    (From feathers to iron (Hogarth living poets ; no. 22) [C ...)

  • The Whispering Roots and Other Poems.

    (The Whispering Roots and Other Poems. [C. DAY LEWIS] on A...)

  • A time to dance and other poems

    (Physical description; 64 p. ; 22 cm. Subjects; English po...)

  • The Magnetic Mountain. Second Impression.

    (The Magnetic Mountain. Second Impression. [C. Day Lewis] ...)

  • Overtures to Death

    (Overtures To Death)

  • Collected poems 1929 to 1933: Transitional poem, From feathers to iron, The magnetic mountain

    (book)

Politics

In his youth Day-Lewis adopted communist views, becoming a member of the Communist party from 1935 to 1938, and his early poetry was marked by didacticism and a preoccupation with social themes. In 1937 he edited The Mind in Chains: Socialism and the Cultural Revolution. In the introduction he supported a popular front against a "Capitalism that has no further use for culture". He explains that the title refers to Prometheus bound by his chains, quotes Shelley's preface to Prometheus Unbound and says the contributors believe that "the Promethean fire of enlightenment, which should be given for the benefit of mankind at large, is being used at present to stoke up the furnaces of private profit". The contributors were: Rex Warner, Edward Upward, Arthur Calder-Marshall, Barbara Nixon, Anthony Blunt, Alan Bush, Charles Madge, Alistair Brown, J. D. Bernal, T.A.Jackson and Edgell Rickword. After the late 1930s he gradually became disillusioned with communism.[4] Among his works is his autobiography, Buried Day (1960), in which he renounces his communist views,while his detective story, The Sad Variety (1964), contains a scathing portrayal of doctrinaire communists, the repression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, and the ruthless tactics of Soviet intelligence agents.

Membership

Fellow Royal Society Literature (vice president). Member American Academy Arts and Letters (honorary), Irish Academy Letters.

Connections

Married Constance Mary King, 1928 (divorced 1951).; married second, Jill Angela Henrietta Balcon, 1951. Children: Sean Francis, Nicholas Charles.

Father:

Review F. C. Day-L.

Mother:

Kathleen Blake (Squires) Day-L.

Spouse:

Constance Mary King

Spouse:

Jill Angela Henrietta Balcon

child:

Sean Francis Day-Lewis

child:

Nicholas Charles Day-Lewis