The Poetry of Day Lewis by Cecil Day Lewis
Cecil Day Lewis, an influential English poet, began his literary journey in the 1930s alongside notable contemporaries such as W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender. His early works, like "Transitional Poem," showcased a diverse range of styles and classical references, distinct from the sharper, more ironic voices of his peers. As his career progressed, he tackled themes of social critique and the stark realities of industrial life, particularly in poems like "From Feathers to Iron" and "The Magnetic Mountain," where he called for social reform and a more profound human connection.
Over time, Day Lewis shifted his focus from societal issues to personal reflections, influenced by the tumult of World War II. His later works, including "An Italian Visit," reveal a conversational style and a deep appreciation for art and tradition, reflecting a more introspective and gentle approach to satire. Though he may not have been a revolutionary poet, his diverse body of work captures thoughtful observations on love, life, and culture, earning him recognition as a significant literary figure of his time. Ultimately, Day Lewis is remembered for his accessible verse and the depth of his humanistic concerns.
On this Page
The Poetry of Day Lewis by Cecil Day Lewis
First published:Beechen Vigil and Other Poems, 1925; Country Comet, 1928; Transitional Poem, 1929; From Feathers to Iron, 1931; The Magnetic Mountain, 1933; A Time to Dance and Other Poems, 1935; Overtures to Death, 1938; Poems in Wartime, 1940; Word over All, 1943; Short Is the Time: Poems, 1936-1943, 1943; Poems, 1943-1947, 1948; An Italian Visit, 1953; Pegasus and Other Poems, 1957
Type of work: Poetry
Critical Evaluation:
Cecil Day Lewis began writing poetry at Oxford along with his literary friends, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Louis MacNeice, but his early work shows little resemblance to that of his contemporaries. His first well-known work, TRANSITIONAL POEM, was a long, Whitmanesque, searching work containing different styles and verse forms and filled with classical allusions. Although a few of its sections satirized contemporary life, it was generally diffuse and had little in common with the early sharp, ironic Auden or the early lyric MacNeice. It was followed by another long poem, FROM FEATHERS TO IRON. More carefully controlled and more somber in tone, this work displayed a shrewd observation of contemporary English life. In it, Day Lewis criticized the flat, industrial suburb and contrasted the hardness of the iron life of most men in modern society. The poet also praised the natural process of birth, pitting the idea of creation and the child against the overwhelming industrialism of the age. He felt that there was, however, some limited amount of space left for the natural and spiritual. In this early poem several characteristics of Day Lewis’ work are evident: his contemporary references and language and the loose, conversational quality of his style.
Day Lewis’ poetry became more like that of his contemporaries, at least in theme, with his next long poem, THE MAGNETIC MOUNTAIN. Here he attacks the complacent person who ignores social issues, the fool who does not see them, and the escapist who purposely avoids them. The poem satirizes the old English, public-school tradition, the tradition which assumes that invariable guides for conduct exist, formulas for meeting every problem of society. Day Lewis pleads for all who would reform society, who would fashion a world based on the heart of man, to join him in his journey to the “Magnetic Mountain.” The mountain symbolizes both the heart or faith of man and the enduring power or iron in his character, for iron is a magnetic and compelling substance. In his attack on the English colonizing and commercial past, Day Lewis calls for social action, for a “communal sense” in order that man may realize his full potentiality. His stinging reproach to the gray, gritty present and his great faith in the possibility of a new social order, as well as the qualities revealed in his earlier writing, are in evidence throughout this work. In this rhetorical declaration of faith, Day Lewis’ writing is loose and allusive, with none of the hard, cryptic quality of Auden’s work. Yet the looseness of Day Lewis’ structure is frequently, as in the above passage, balanced by unexpected, musical alliteration.
Day Lewis’ faith in the new social order began to wane in his next volume, A TIME TO DANCE AND OTHER POEMS, a volume including a number of shorter lyrics. Although his allegiances were still just as strong to the new social order, he began to demonstrate an awareness of some of the difficulties of bringing about a reformation. He claimed, however, that he still wrote his poems in order to keep his faith and courage. The following volume, Overtures to Death, demonstrates an even keener realization that man was not likely to become perfect within a generation or so by joining in a communal assault on the “Magnetic Mountain.” The verse in this book is crisper, less shrill, and less rhetorical, conveying a deeper insight into man and the issues that face him. Although Day Lewis still attacks the complacent and those who love tradition for the simple reason that it is tradition, he realizes that he, too, may be bound to some sterile tradition, some impossible notion of human conduct. He develops this theme in one of his best short poems, “Regency Houses.” The vague influence of Yeats in this poem has given it a terseness and power not always present in Day Lewis’ work. At the same time the introspective quality, the realization of his own limitations, has given the poem a depth not apparent in his earlier calls to social action.
Day Lewis, alert to the dangers of Nazism, had attacked the complacent people who refused to acknowledge that war was imminent. During the war, however, his poetry became less social, less political, more personal. He began to write autobiographical poems dealing with childhood memories and concerns. He also wrote a number of poems on the theme of love, presenting both its pleasures and its difficulties. The range of the subjects he treated widened greatly: the life of the simple countryman, the impact of the war, places, poems in praise of literary figures such as Thomas Hardy and Walter de la Mare, the pleasures of Christmas. His thoughtful and introspective side continued, but his subjects grew more personal, more concerned with direct experience, and less dominated by the intensity of a single vision for mankind’s salvation. In this shift of interest to more personal and direct concerns, Day Lewis mirrored the changing trend of a whole generation of English writers and intellectuals. Day Lewis still used satire, as he does in his most recent volume, PEGASUS AND OTHER POEMS, but it was, and has continued to be, a far more gentle and understanding kind of satire.
In 1953, Day Lewis published AN ITALIAN VISIT, a long versified account of a journey to Italy. This is a thoughtful, descriptive work, full of powerful and often startling images. The style is conversational, like the easy flow of imaginative language and rich contemplation from an urbane and cultured gentleman. It is perhaps this kind of loose, ruminative writing that best suits Day Lewis’ talent, for he has never been, save in rare moments, a poet of great intensity or linguistic magic. The poem, in its descriptions of Rome, Florence, and numerous smaller towns, also displays a deep appreciation of both art and tradition. Day Lewis is, for the contemporary reader, far more convincing as the guardian of tradition and culture than he was as the voice crying out for a new order. His conversational ease, along with his skill in fashioning images, is evident in the following passage which can also serve as his final comment on his pseudoprophetic role in the 1930’s:
We who ’flowered’ in the Thirties
Day Lewis has become the intelligent gentleman of letters, able, with both richness and humor, to see his past convictions in perspective. Never a poetic innovator, he has been overshadowed, in critical accounts of his generation, by his more brilliant contemporaries. But he has produced a great variety of thoughtful and introspective verse, and he has written with honesty and intelligence on a wide range of subjects. In his maturity he has found the kind of verse and the kind of subject, as well as the gentle and ruminative tone, that he is making definitely his. Poems like the AN ITALIAN VISIT and “Moods of Love” in his most recent volume are admirably readable and demonstrate the poetic attractions of a witty, cultured gentleman reporting on his travels, his observations of people, his feelings about himself. Cecil Day Lewis, though not a great poet, is an honest and attractive one.