Cecil Day-Lewis

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Gravestone of Cecil Day-Lewis

Cecil Day-Lewis CBE (born April 27, 1904 in Ballintubber, County Laois , Ireland , † May 22, 1972 in London ) was an Irish- British writer and poet who initially wrote socially critical prose and later became court poet . From 1935 to 1966 he wrote a number of detective novels under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake.

Life

During his studies at Wadham College of Oxford University concluded he was one of WH Auden and Stephen Spender influenced Marxist to writers circle. He published his first volume of poetry in 1925. After completing his studies, he worked as a teacher until he established himself as a freelance writer from 1935 onwards. He secured his livelihood by writing detective novels under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake . His detective is the eccentric, literary Nigel Strangeways, whose uncle holds a high position at Scotland Yard. By 1966 he created a series of 16 novels and several stories. He made use of an idealism inspired by TS Eliot and wrote works such as The Magnetic Mountain (1933) in a time marked by social unrest , in which he also made use of contemporary jargon .

After the Second World War , Day-Lewis broke away from Marxist ideology and turned to the private spheres of life in his poetry. From 1951 to 1956 he was the Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. Queen Elisabeth II appointed him Poet Laureate (court poet) in 1968 , an office that obliges the holder to write poems for court and state celebrations.

He married Constance Mary King in 1928. He divorced her in 1949/50 after having had a nine-year partially public affair with the author Rosamond Lehmann . He then married Jill Balcon, the daughter of British film producer Michael Balcon , in 1953 ; their son is the actor Daniel Day-Lewis .

In 1966 he was elected as an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Works (selection)

as Cecil Day-Lewis
  • The Buried Day. Poems . 2nd edition Chatto & Windus, London 1969.
  • Jill Balcon (Ed.): Complete Poems . Sinclair-Stevenson, London 1992, ISBN 1-85619-130-3 .
  • The Lyric Impulse . Chatto & Windus, London 1965.
  • The Magnetic Mountain . Hogarth Press, London 1933.
  • Revolution in Writing . Haskell House Publishing, New York 1976, ISBN 0-8383-2115-1 (reprinted London 1938 edition).
as Nicholas Blake
  • Q File - Top Secret. Detective novel ("Minute for murder"). Pinguin-Verlag, Berlin 1948.
  • The beast. Detective novel ("The beast must die"). Goldmann, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-442-04889-3 .
  • End of chapter. Roman ("End of chapter"). Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-257-23133-4 .
  • An angel is supposed to die. Detective novel ("The sad variety"). Goldmann, Munich 1967.
  • The patient killer . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1964 - see: A tricky story
  • My crime. Roman ("The beast must die") Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-257-22931-3 .
  • Morning after death. Detective novel ("The morning after death"). Goldmann, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-442-03276-8 .
  • A patriarch disappears. Detective novel ("The worm of death"). Rowohlt, Reinbek 1964.
  • The enigmatic corpse. Detective novel ("Head of Traveler"). Pinguin-Verlag, Berlin 1950.
  • Shot into the unknown ("Long shot"). Scherz Verlag, Munich 1972. This is the title-giving short story of an anthology by several authors.
  • Scotland Yard is traveling with you. Detective novel ("The widow cruise"). Goldmann, Munich 1967.
  • Voices in the twilight. Detective novel ("The whisper in the gloom"). Rowohlt, Reinbek 1963.
  • Action after action. Detective novel ("There's trouble brewing"). Goldmann, Munich 1969.
  • The bird of the dead. Detective novel ("The deadly joker"). Scherz Verlag, Munich 1966.
  • A tricky story. Roman ("Thou shell of death"). Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-257-22861-9 (former title: The patient murderer )
  • Which was to be proved. Roman ("A question of proof"). Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-257-23113-X .

Film adaptations

literature

  • Sean Day-Lewis: C. Day-Lewis: An English Literary Life . Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London 1980, ISBN 0-297-77745-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Honorary Members: Cecil Day-Lewis. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 8, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Day-Lewis, Cecil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blake, Nicholas (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish-British writer and poet and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Ballintubber (County Laois) , County Laois , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1972
Place of death London Borough of Enfield , London