Day-Lewis, C(ecil) (1904-1972)

Irish poet. With W H Auden and Stephen Spender, he was one of the influential left-wing poets of the 1930s. His later poetry moved from political concerns to a more traditional personal lyricism. He also wrote detective novels under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake. He was British poet laureate 1968-72.

His poetry, which includes From Feathers to Iron (1931) and Overtures to Death (1938), is marked by accomplished lyrics and sustained narrative power. The Complete Poems was published in 1992.

Day-Lewis was born in Ballinbubbert, County Laois, Ireland, brought up in England, and studied at Oxford University. He was professor of poetry at Oxford from 1951-56.

Other books of poetry are Collected Poems (1954), Word Over All (1943), Pegasus (1957), The Room and Other Poems (1965), and The Whispering Roots (1970). He translated from Latin Virgil's Georgics (1940) and the Aeneid (1952). Critical works include A Hope for Poetry (1934), The Poetic Image, and The Grand Manner (1952). Among Day-Lewis's novels are The Friendly Tree (1936), Starting Point (1937), and Child of Misfortune (1939), but better known are the Nicholas Blake detective stories, including A Question of Proof (1935) and The Case of the Abominable Snowman (1941). His autobiography is The Buried Day (1960).