Background

Laurence Binyon was born August 10, 1869, in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom. His parents were Frederick Binyon, a clergyman of the Church of England, and Mary Dockray. Mary's father, Robert Benson Dockray, was a main engineer of the London and Birmingham Railway.

Education

Binyon studied at St Paul's School, London. Then he read Classics (Honour Moderations) at Trinity College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1891.

Career

Immediately after graduating in 1893, Binyon started working for the Department of Printed Books of the British Museum, writing catalogs for the museum and art monographs for himself. In 1895 his first book, Dutch Etchers of the Seventeenth Century, was published. In that same year, Binyon moved into the Museum's Department of Prints and Drawings.

Since 1904, Binyon belonged to a circle of artists, as a regular patron of the Wiener Cafe of London.

Moved by the opening of what was then called the Great War and the already high number of casualties of the British Expeditionary Force, in 1914 Laurence Binyon wrote his "For the Fallen", with its "Ode of Remembrance".

In 1915, despite being too old to enlist in the armed forces, Laurence Binyon volunteered at a British hospital for French soldiers, Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois, Haute-Marne, France, working briefly as a hospital orderly. He returned in the summer of 1916 and took care of soldiers taken in from the Verdun battlefield. He wrote about his experiences in For Dauntless France (1918) and his poems, "Fetching the Wounded" and "The Distant Guns", were inspired by his hospital service in Arc-en-Barrois.

After the war, he returned to the British Museum and wrote numerous books on art; in particular on William Blake, Persian art, and Japanese art. In 1931, his two-volume Collected Poems appeared. In 1932, Binyon rose to be the Keeper of the Prints and Drawings Department, yet in 1933 he retired from the British Museum. He continued writing poetry.

In 1933–1934, Binyon was appointed Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. He delivered a series of lectures on The Spirit of Man in Asian Art, which were published in 1935. Binyon continued his academic work: in May 1939 he gave the prestigious Romanes Lecture in Oxford on Art and Freedom, and in 1940 he was appointed the Byron Professor of English Literature at University of Athens. He worked there until forced to leave, narrowly escaping the German invasion of Greece in April 1941.

Between 1933 and 1943, Binyon published his acclaimed translation of Dante's Divine Comedy in an English version of terza rima, made with some editorial assistance by Ezra Pound.

During the Second World War Binyon continued writing poetry including a long poem about the London Blitz, "The Burning of the Leaves". At his death, Binyon was working on a major three-part Arthurian trilogy, the first part of which was published after his death as The Madness of Merlin (1947). He died in Reading, on 10 March 1943 after an operation.

Achievements

• Laurence Binyon is best known for his poetry and, in particular, "For the Fallen", which was first published in The Times newspaper, is often recited at Remembrance Sunday services in the UK; is an integral part of Anzac Day services in Australia and New Zealand and of 11 November Remembrance Day services in Canada. In addition to many works on the art of the Far East, he wrote six plays, a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, and "The Madness of Merlin".

Works

More photos

• book

  • Poems of Two Wars
  • Selected Poems of Laurence Binyon
  • The Secret: Sixty Poems
  • Lyric Poems

Views

During his career, Binyon became interested in experimental versification. He had been influenced by John Masefield, who argued that verse should be spoken aloud, and, at Oxford, Robert Bridges had shared with him the complex rhythms of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s sprung verse, whose poetry could not yet be found in print. His experiments were not as radical, however.

Personality

Binyon was often described as a perfectionist, a skilled and respected poet and man of letters in his time.

Quotes from others about the person

• Williams quotes James Granville Southworth, writing for the Sewanee Review: “In contrast to the poetry of Mr. T. S. Eliot, Mr. Binyon affects a reconstruction of beauty against the forces of disintegration - forces against which Mr. Eliot seems powerless to act. Mr. Eliot’s poetry is a balm to the contemporary who lacks the strength to combat the anticultural forces of the present day. Mr. Binyon’s poetry is a constant challenge to a fuller life.”

Connections

In 1904 Laurence married historian Cicely Margaret Powell, and the couple had three daughters Helen, Margaret and Nicolete, who became artists.

Father:

Frederick Binyon

Mother:

Mary (Dockray) Binyon

Spouse:

Cicely Margaret Powell

Grandfather:

Robert Benson Dockray

great-nephew :

T. J. Binyon

Friend:

Ezra Pound

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 181
• Sowing the Spring