C. Day-Lewis : a life / Peter Stanford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stanford, Peter, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Day Lewis, C. (Cecil), 1904-1972.

Day Lewis, C.

Poets, English--20th century--Biography.

Poets, English.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

x, 368 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum, 2007.

Summary:

Cecil Day-Lewis died in 1972: a celebrated national figure, the Poet Laureate since 1968, a familiar face on television and an even more familiar voice on radio. Day-Lewis had a turbulent and sometimes very public private life divorcing his wife and leaving his lover Rosamund Lehmann simultaneously in 1951 in a blaze of newspaper coverage to marry the actress Jill Balcon, 21 years his junior. The biography will describe both the man and the poet, taking into account his other writing too: his three novels in the 1930s, various children's books, several works of non-fiction on the history and politics of verse, and 20 detective novels under the pen-name Nicholas Blake. He had one modest wish for his reputation after death: Such immortality as I ever want is for a few people to read my poems for a few years after I am dead

Contents:

Part 1 Youth

Chapter 1 Never of a Land Rightfully Ours 3

Chapter 2 A Hostile Land to Spy 11

Chapter 3 A Land of Milk and Honey 21

Chapter 4 Black Frost of my Youth 29

Chapter 5 Rip Van Winkle Forest 37

Chapter 6 The Sunless Stream 45

Chapter 7 Eldorados Close to Hand 55

Part 2 The Thirties

Chapter 8 The Tow-Haired Poet 65

Chapter 9 Lust to Love 75

Chapter 10 Farewell Adolescent Moon 83

Chapter 11 Radiance from Ashes Arises 95

Chapter 12 Make Your Choice 107

Chapter 13 Terra Incognita 119

Chapter 14 On a Tilting Deck 131

Chapter 15 Dreams Dared Imagine 139

Chapter 16 No Man's Land 149

Chapter 17 Earth Shakes Beneath Us 161

Part 3 At War

Chapter 18 Where are the War Poets? 175

Chapter 19 The Magic Answer 185

Chapter 20 The Maturing Field 195

Chapter 21 That It Should End So 205

Chapter 22 Grinding Himself to Powder 215

Chapter 23 Now Comes the Zero 223

Chapter 24 In a Dream 233

Part 4 A Kind of Peace

Chapter 25 The Estate of Simple Being 245

Chapter 26 Find our Balance 255

Chapter 27 Self-Betrayal 263

Chapter 28 Change of Address 273

Chapter 29 Easing Away 283

Chapter 30 Haunted by Darkness 293

Chapter 31 Second Childhood 303

Chapter 32 Old Captain Death 313.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-349) and index.

ISBN:

9780826486035

0826486037

OCLC:

77796706