Editing Cecil Day-Lewis

{{Short description|Irish-born British poet (1904–1972)}}
{{for|British writer and lay theologian|C. S. Lewis}}
{{redirect|Nicholas Blake}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
{{Infobox poet
| name             = Cecil Day-Lewis
| honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}}
| image            = Cecil Day-Lewis.jpg
| imagesize        = 
| caption          = 
| module           = {{Infobox officeholder|embed=yes
| office           = [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom]]
| monarch          = [[Elizabeth II]]
| term_start       = 2 January 1968
| term_end         = 22 May 1972
| predecessor      = [[John Masefield]]
| successor        = [[John Betjeman]]}}
| birth_name       = 
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1904|04|27|df=yes}}
| birth_place      = [[Ballintubbert]], Queen's County (now [[County Laois]]), [[Ireland]]
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1972|05|22|1904|04|27|df=yes}}
| death_place      = [[Monken Hadley]], [[Greater London]], [[England]]
| resting_place    = St Michael's Church, [[Stinsford]], [[Dorset]], England
| alma_mater       = [[Wadham College, Oxford]]
| occupation       = {{cslist|Poet|novelist}}
| nationality      = {{cslist|British|Irish}}
| period           = 
| genre            = 
| subject          = 
| movement         = 
| notableworks     = 
| spouse           = {{ubl|{{marriage|Constance Mary King|1928|1951|end=divorced}} | {{marriage|[[Jill Balcon]]|1951}}}}
| partner          = 
| children         = 4, including [[Tamasin Day-Lewis|Tamasin]] and [[Daniel Day-Lewis|Daniel]]
}}

'''Cecil Day-Lewis''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}} (or '''Day Lewis'''; 27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often written as '''C. Day-Lewis''', was an [[Anglo-Irish]] poet and [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom]] from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym '''Nicholas Blake''', most of which feature the fictional detective [[Nigel Strangeways]].

During World War II, Day-Lewis worked as a publications editor in the UK government's [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Information]] and also served in the [[Musbury]] branch of the [[Home Guard (United Kingdom)|Home Guard]].<ref>[[Leo McKinstry|McKinstry, Leo]], ''Operation Sealion: How Britain Crushed the German War Machine's Dreams of Invasion in 1940''. London: John Murray Publishers, 2015, 201. {{ISBN|1848547048}}.</ref> He was the father of actor [[Daniel Day-Lewis]], and documentary filmmaker and television chef [[Tamasin Day-Lewis]].

==Life and work==

Day-Lewis was born in 1904 in Ballintubbert, [[Athy]]/[[Stradbally]] border, Queen's County (now known as [[County Laois]]), Ireland.<ref>{{cite web | title = The Garden at Ballintubbert: Stradbally, County Laois |website=ballintubbert.com| url = http://www.ballintubbert.com/ | access-date = 23 January 2012  }}</ref> He was the son of Frank Day-Lewis, a [[Church of Ireland]] rector of that parish, and Kathleen Blake (née Squires; died 1906).<ref>{{cite book|first=C. S. |last=Lewis|author-link=C. S. Lewis|title=The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 – 1963|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wPYhDojB6sUC&pg=PA1657|year=2009|publisher=HarperOne|isbn=978-0-06-194728-5|page=1657}}</ref> Some of his family were from England and the family had originally been from [[Berkhamsted]], in [[Hertfordshire]], and settled in Ireland in the late 1860s. His father took the surname "Day-Lewis" as a combination of his own birth father's ("Day") and adoptive father's ("Lewis") surnames.<ref>{{cite book|author-link=Peter Stanford|first=Peter|last=Stanford|title=C Day-Lewis: A Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M3jUAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5|year=2007|publisher=London and New York: Continuum|isbn=978-0-8264-8603-5|page=5}}</ref> 
In his autobiography ''The Buried Day'' (1960), Day-Lewis wrote: "As a writer I do not use the hyphen in my surname – a piece of inverted snobbery which has produced rather mixed results."<ref>{{Cite book |first=Cecil |last=Day-Lewis |title=The Buried Day |year=1960 |page=17}}</ref>

{{Quote box|align=left|bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=left
|quote =<poem>
IS IT FAR TO GO?

''Is it far to go?''
A step — no further.
''Is it hard to go?''
Ask the melting snow,
The eddying feather.

''What can I take there?''
Not a hank, not a hair.
''What shall I leave behind?''
Ask the hastening wind,
The fainting star.

''Shall I be gone long?''
For ever and a day.
''To whom there belong?''
Ask the stone to say,
Ask my song.

''Who will say farewell?''
The beating bell.
''Will anyone miss me?''
That I dare not tell —
Quick, Rose, and kiss me. </poem>
(c. 1940)<ref>"Is It Far to Go?" in N. Das Gupta (ed.), ''Modern English Poetry'' (1963), Vol. 2, p. 92.</ref>}}

After the death of his mother in 1906, when he was two years old, Cecil was brought up in London by his father, with the help of an aunt, spending summer holidays with relatives in [[County Wexford]]. He was educated at [[Sherborne School]] and at [[Wadham College, Oxford]]. In Oxford, Day-Lewis became part of the circle gathered around [[W. H. Auden]] and helped him to edit ''Oxford Poetry 1927''. His first collection of poems, ''Beechen Vigil'', appeared in 1925.<ref name=greenwichpast/>

In 1928, Day-Lewis married Constance Mary King, the daughter of a Sherborne teacher. Day-Lewis worked as a schoolmaster in three schools, including Larchfield School, [[Helensburgh]], Scotland (now [[Lomond School]]).<ref name=greenwichpast>[http://wwp.greenwichpast.com/vip/writers/day-lewis.htm Cecil Day-Lewis] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060427062702/http://wwp.greenwichpast.com/vip/writers/day-lewis.htm |date=27 April 2006 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/31/helensburgh.heroes|title=Helensburgh lays claim to title of UK's most talented town|first1=Paul|last1=Kelbie|first2=Caroline|last2=Davies|newspaper=The Observer |date=30 August 2008|access-date=9 July 2019|via=www.theguardian.com}}</ref> During the 1940s, he had a long and troubled love affair with the novelist [[Rosamond Lehmann]], to whom he dedicated his 1943 poetry collection ''Word Over All''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://michaelarditti.com/non-fiction/c-day-lewis/|title=Non-fiction {{!}} C Day-Lewis [Review of C DAY-LEWIS by PETER STANFORD]|website=michaelarditti.com|first=Michael|last=Arditti|access-date=21 December 2023}}</ref> In 1948, Day-Lewis met actress [[Jill Balcon]], daughter of [[Michael Balcon]], at the recording of a radio programme and began an affair with her that year. He conducted simultaneous relationships with his wife Constance Mary, who lived with their two sons in [[Dorset]], with Lehmann, who lived in [[Oxfordshire]], and with Balcon. Finally he broke with his wife and Lehmann, and after his marriage was dissolved in 1951, he married Balcon, but he was no more faithful to her than he had been to his wife or Lehmann. Jill's father was deeply unhappy about the scandalous affair since she was named publicly as co-respondent in Day-Lewis' divorce. He disinherited her and cut off all relationships with her and Day-Lewis.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/20/jill-balcon-obituary |title= Jill Bacon Obituary|first=Peter |last=Stanford|author-link=Peter Stanford|newspaper= The Guardian|access-date= 14 December 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/jul/26/jill-bacon-tribute |title= A Star is Born|first= Peter |last=Stanford| work= The Guardian|date= 26 July 2009| access-date= 14 December 2022}}</ref>

During the Second World War, Day-Lewis worked as a publications editor in the [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Information]], an institution satirised by [[George Orwell]] in his dystopian ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', but equally based on Orwell's experience of the [[BBC]]. During the Second World War, his work was less influenced by Auden and he was developing a more traditional style of [[lyric poetry|lyricism]]. Some critics believe that he reached his full stature as a poet in ''Word Over All'' (1943), when he finally distanced himself from Auden.<ref name=bbc>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/daylewisc2.shtml|title=BBC|access-date=9 July 2019|archive-date=14 May 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514070213/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/daylewisc2.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref> After the war, he joined the publisher Chatto & Windus as a director and senior editor.

In 1946, Day-Lewis was a lecturer at [[Cambridge University]], publishing his lectures in ''The Poetic Image'' (1947). Day-Lewis became a [[Order of the British Empire|Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire]] in the [[1950 Birthday Honours]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=38929 |date=2 June 1950 |page=2785  |supp=y}}</ref> He later taught poetry at [[Oxford University|Oxford]], where he was [[Professor of Poetry]] from 1951 to 1956.<ref name=greenwichpast/> During 1962–1963, he was the Norton Professor at [[Harvard University]]. Day-Lewis was appointed Poet Laureate in 1968, in succession to [[John Masefield]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=44494 |date=2 January 1968 |page=89}}</ref> His appointment came after appointments secretary John Hewitt consulted with [[Dame Helen Gardner]], the [[Merton Professor of English]] at the [[University of Oxford]] (who stated that Day-Lewis "produced run of the mill poetry but nothing particularly outstanding") and Geoffrey Handley-Taylor, chair of the [[Poetry Society]] (who stated that Day-Lewis was "a good administrative poet" and "a safe bet").<ref name="BBC2023">{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66224984|work=[[BBC News]]|title=No 10 turned down Larkin, Auden and other poets for laureate job|date=19 July 2023|first=Sanchia|last=Berg}}</ref>

Day-Lewis was chairman of the [[Arts Council of Great Britain|Arts Council]] Literature Panel, vice-president of the [[Royal Society of Literature]], an Honorary Member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]], a Member of the Irish Academy of Letters and a [[Gresham Professor of Rhetoric|Professor of Rhetoric]] at [[Gresham College]], London.
[[File:Cecil Day Lewis headstone, geograph.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Headstone of Cecil Day-Lewis in the [[Stinsford]] churchyard.]]
Cecil Day-Lewis died from [[pancreatic cancer]] on 22 May 1972, aged 68, at [[Lemmons]], the Hertfordshire home of [[Kingsley Amis]] and [[Elizabeth Jane Howard]], where he and his family were staying. As a great admirer of [[Thomas Hardy]], he arranged to be buried near the author's grave at St Michael's Church in [[Stinsford]], [[Dorset]].<ref name=greenwichpast/>

Day-Lewis was the father of four children.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Cecil Day-Lewis, poet laureate, dies|newspaper=[[The Montreal Gazette]]|date=22 May 1972|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yYIuAAAAIBAJ&pg=3428,2147956|access-date=15 March 2010}}</ref> His first two children, with Constance Mary King, were [[Sean Day-Lewis]] (3 August 1931–9 June 2022), a TV critic and writer, and Nicholas Day-Lewis, who became an engineer. His children with Balcon were [[Tamasin Day-Lewis]], a television chef and food critic, and Sir [[Daniel Day-Lewis]], who became an award-winning actor.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rainey |first=Sarah |date=1 March 2013 |title=My brother Daniel Day-Lewis won't talk to me any more |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/9902698/My-brother-Daniel-Day-Lewis-wont-talk-to-me-any-more.html |work=The Telegraph |access-date= 6 March 2018}}</ref> Sean Day-Lewis wrote a biography of his father, ''C. Day-Lewis: An English Literary Life'' (1980).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2022/06/17/sean-day-lewis-journalist-author-spent-three-decades-telegraph/|title=Seán Day-Lewis, journalist and author who spent three decades with the Telegraph and wrote a biography of his father Cecil – obituary|website=The Telegraph|date=17 June 2022|access-date=17 June 2022}}</ref>

Sir Daniel Day-Lewis donated his father's archive of poetry to the [[Bodleian Library]].<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Daniel Day-Lewis donates poet father's archive |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20124596 |work=[[BBC News]] |date=30 October 2012 |access-date=28 March 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Bodleian library celebrates acquisition of Cecil Day-Lewis archive |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9642767/Bodleian-library-celebrates-acquisition-of-Cecil-Day-Lewis-archive.html |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |date=30 October 2012 |access-date=28 March 2016}}</ref>

==Nicholas Blake==

In 1935, Day-Lewis decided to increase his income from poetry by writing a detective novel, ''[[A Question of Proof]]'', under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake. He created [[Nigel Strangeways]], an amateur investigator and [[gentleman detective]] who, as the nephew of an Assistant Commissioner at [[Scotland Yard]], has access to official crime investigations.<ref name="neglected">{{Cite web|url=http://www.deadlypleasures.com/Scowcroft.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20060508130138/http://www.deadlypleasures.com/Scowcroft.htm|url-status=dead|title=Neglected British Crime Writers {{!}} Nicholas Blake|first=Philip L. |last=Scowcroft|archive-date=8 May 2006|access-date=9 July 2019}}</ref> He published nineteen further crime novels. (In the first Nigel Strangeways novel, the detective is modelled on [[W. H. Auden]], but Day-Lewis developed the character as a far less extravagant and more serious figure in later novels.)<ref name=greenwichpast/> From the mid-1930s, Day-Lewis was able to earn his living by writing.<ref name=greenwichpast/> Four of the Blake novels – ''[[A Tangled Web (1956 novel)|A Tangled Web]]'', ''[[A Penknife in My Heart]]'', ''[[The Deadly Joker]]'', ''[[The Private Wound]]'' – do not feature Strangeways.

''[[Minute for Murder]]'' is set against the background of Day-Lewis's Second World War experiences in the Ministry of Information. ''[[Head of a Traveller]]'' features as a principal character a well-known poet, frustrated and suffering writer's block, whose best poetic days are long behind him. Readers and critics have speculated whether the author is describing himself or one of his colleagues or has entirely invented the character.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}

==Political views==

In his youth and during the disruption and suffering of the [[Great Depression]], Day-Lewis adopted communist views, becoming a member of the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] from 1935 to 1938. His early poetry was marked by didacticism and a preoccupation with social themes.<ref name=infoplease>[http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0814844.html Day Lewis, C], Infoplease</ref> 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 [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]]'s preface to ''[[Prometheus Unbound (Shelley)|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, which were marked by the widespread purges, repression, and executions under [[Joseph Stalin]] in the Soviet Union, Day-Lewis gradually became disillusioned with communism.<ref name=greenwichpast/> In his autobiography, ''The Buried Day'' (1960), he renounces former communist views.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.artehistoria.com/frames.htm?http://www.artehistoria.com/historia/personajes/7266.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070310171718/http://www.artehistoria.com/frames.htm?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.artehistoria.com%2Fhistoria%2Fpersonajes%2F7266.htm|url-status=dead|title=Arte Historia Personajes|archive-date=10 March 2007|access-date=9 July 2019}}</ref> His detective novel, ''[[The Sad Variety]]'' (1964), contains a scathing portrayal of doctrinaire communists, the Soviet Union's repression of the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|1956 Hungarian uprising]], and the ruthless tactics of Soviet intelligence agents. {{Citation needed|date=January 2012}}

==Selected works==

===Poetry===

[[File:C. Day-Lewis - Blue plaque.jpg|thumb|right|[[English Heritage]] [[blue plaque]] of Cecil Day-Lewis in [[Greenwich]], London]]
* ''Transitional Poem'' (1929)
* ''From Feathers to Iron'' (1931)
* ''Collected Poems 1929–1933'' (1935)
* ''A Time to Dance and Other Poems'' (1935)
* ''Overtures to Death'' (1938)
* ''Word Over All'' (1943)
* ''Short Is the Time'' (1945)
* ''Selected Poems'' (1951)
* ''Walking Away'' (1956)
* ''Collected Poems'' (1954)
* ''Pegasus and Other Poems'' (1957)
* ''The Gate, and Other Poems'' (1962)
* ''The Whispering Roots and Other Poems'' (1970)<ref name=infoplease/>
* ''The Complete Poems of C. Day-Lewis'' (1992)<ref name=bbc/>
* Editor (with [[L. A. G. Strong]]): ''A New Anthology of Modern Verse 1920–1940'' (1941)
* Editor (with [[John Lehmann]]): ''The Chatto Book of Modern Poetry 1915–1955'' (1956)

===Essay collections===

* ''A Hope for Poetry'' (1934)<ref name=infoplease/>
* ''Poetry for You'' (1944)
* ''The Poetic Image'' (1947)

===Translations===

*[[Virgil]]'s ''[[Georgics]]'' (1940)<ref>An extract from this, "Orpheus and Eurydice", appeared in ''[[The Queen's Book of the Red Cross]]''.</ref>
*[[Paul Valéry]]'s ''Le Cimetière Marin'' (1946)
*Virgil's ''[[Aeneid]]'' (1952)
*Virgil's ''[[Eclogues]]'' (1963)<ref name=bbc/><ref name=infoplease/>

===Novels written under his own name===

===Novels===

* ''The Friendly Tree'' (1936) 
* ''Starting Point'' (1937)
* ''Child of Misfortune'' (1939)

===Novels for children===

* Dick Willoughby (1933)
* ''[[The Otterbury Incident]]'' (1948)

===Novels written as Nicholas Blake===

===[[Nigel Strangeways]]===

* ''[[A Question of Proof]]'' (1935); First US edition by Harper and Brothers (1935) 
* ''[[Thou Shell of Death]]'' (1936; First US edition by Harper and Brothers published as ''Shell of Death'') (1936)
* ''[[There's Trouble Brewing]]'' (1937)
* ''[[The Beast Must Die (novel)|The Beast Must Die]]'' (1938), adapted for the cinema by [[Román Viñoly Barreto]] in Argentina (1952) and by [[Claude Chabrol]] in France (1969), and in Britain in 2021 as ''[[The Beast Must Die (TV series)|The Beast Must Die]]'' television series.
* ''[[The Smiler with the Knife]]'' (1939). Serialised ''[[News Chronicle]]'', 1939
* ''Malice in Wonderland'' (1940; also published as ''Murder with Malice''. U.S. title: ''The Summer Camp Mystery'')
* ''[[The Case of the Abominable Snowman]]'' (1941; also published as ''The Corpse in the Snowman'')
* ''[[Minute for Murder]]'' (1947)
* ''[[Head of a Traveller]]'' (1949)
* ''[[The Dreadful Hollow]]'' (1953)
* ''[[The Whisper in the Gloom]]'' (1954; also published as ''Catch and Kill'')
* ''[[End of Chapter]]'' (1957)
* ''[[The Widow's Cruise]]'' (1959)
* ''[[The Worm of Death]]'' (1961)
* ''[[The Sad Variety]]'' (1964)
* ''[[The Morning after Death]]'' (1966)

===Non-series novels===

* ''[[A Tangled Web (1956 novel)|A Tangled Web]]'' (1956; also published as ''Death and Daisy Bland'')
* ''[[A Penknife in My Heart]]'' (1958)
* ''[[The Deadly Joker]]'' (1963)
* ''[[The Private Wound]]'' (1968)

===Short stories===

* "A Slice of Bad Luck" (''[[The Bystander]]'', 1 December 1935. Reprinted in ''Detection Medley'', ed. John Rhode [Hutchinson, 1939]. Also published as "The Assassin's Club". Reprinted in ''Murder by the Book'', ed. Martin Edwards, 2021)
* "Mr Prendergast and the Orange" (''Sunday Dispatch'', 27 March 1938. Reprinted in ''Bodies from the Library'', Volume 3, ed. Tony Medawar [2020]. Also published as "Conscience Money".)
* "It Fell to Earth" (''[[The Strand Magazine]]'', June 1944. Also published as "Long Shot". Reprinted in ''Murder at the Manor'', ed. Martin Edwards, 2016)
* "The Snow Line" (''The Strand Magazine'', February 1949. Also published as "A Study in White" and "A Problem in White". Reprinted in ''Silent Night'', ed. Martin Edwards, 2015)
* "Sometimes the Blind See the Clearest" (''[[Evening Standard]]'', 18 March 1963. Also published as "Sometimes the Blind". Reprinted in ''The Long Arm of the Law'', ed. Martin Edwards, 2017)

===Radio plays===

* ''Calling James Braithwaite''. BBC Home Service, 20 and 22 July 1940. (Published in ''Bodies from the Library'', Volume 1, edited by Tony Medawar [2018].)

===Autobiography===

* ''The Buried Day'' (1960)

==Bibliography==
*Sean Day-Lewis, ''Cecil Day-Lewis: An English Literary Life'' (1980)
*Peter Stanford, ''C. Day-Lewis: A Life'' (2007) [https://newcriterion.com/issues/2007/10/not-saying-anything review]

==See also==
{{Portal|Poetry|Children's literature}}
*List of [[Gresham Professor of Rhetoric|Gresham Professors of Rhetoric]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==

{{Wikisource author}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{commonscat}}
*{{IMDb name|86671|Cecil Day-Lewis}}
* {{Books and Writers |id=nblake |name=Cecil Day-Lewis}}
*[http://www.cleo.net.uk/resource/newsreel Day-Lewis's poem '"Newsreel" read over footage from 1930s Pathe newsreels]
*[http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=login-bl-list ''C. Day Lewis, A Revised Bibliography, 1929–39 and Index of MSS Locations with Introductory Notes''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091026163422/http://www.geocities.com/helenvict0r/Doudney_works.html |date=26 October 2009 }} by Nick Watson, (a 65-page booklet, Radged Press, 2003)
*[http://www.extrageographic.org/magazine/arts/2005/050502_ode_to_international_brigade.html The Volunteer – An ode to the International Brigade by Cecil Day Lewis]

{{Poets Laureate of the United Kingdom}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daylewis, Cecil}}
[[Category:1904 births]]
[[Category:Anglo-Irish people]]
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