David Cecil (writer)

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Lord Edward Christian David Gascoyne-Cecil CH (born April 9, 1902 in Hatfield House , Hertfordshire , England ; † January 1, 1986 in Cranborne , Dorset , England) was a British university professor and writer known for his under the title The Knitting Deer : or The Life of Cowper published biography on William Cowper in 1929 the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize .

Life

He comes from the aristocratic Cecil family and was the youngest child of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury , from his marriage to Lady Cicely Gore, daughter of Arthur Gore, 5th Earl of Arran . As the younger son of a marquess , he used the courtesy salutation "Lord".

After attending Eton College , he studied at Christ Church at the University of Oxford and was a fellow at Wadham College between 1924 and 1930 after completing his studies . While working there, he wrote a biography of the poet William Cowper under the title The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper , published in 1929, for which he received the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1929. In the 1930s he was a member of the Inklings , a literary discussion group of Christian men, which was formed at the University of Oxford around the lecturer and writer CS Lewis .

Between 1939 and 1969 he was a Fellow at New College, Oxford University, and then became an Honorary Fellow. In addition, he initially accepted a professorship for rhetoric at Gresham College in 1947 , but changed to professor of English literature at the University of Oxford in 1948 , where he taught until 1970.

His most important work, however, was the biography of Jane Austen published in 1978 with the title A Portrait of Jane Austen . As a writer and biographer, Cecil combined scholarly accuracy with the elegance of his linguistic style and was widely recognized for his instinctive feel for a narrative technique shaped by the urban style. By avoiding the complex and abstract, he always kept his work close to the plot and in relation to the characters involved, so that his not necessarily original works were always fresh and legible.

He received his own literary appreciation in the 1990 published memoir Best Friends by the writer Julian Fane .

In 1969 Cecil was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Works

  • Sir Walter Scott: The Raven Miscellany (1933)
  • Early Victorian Novelists: essays in revaluation (1934)
  • Jane Austen (1936)
  • The Young Melbourne and the Story of his Marriage with Caroline Lamb (1939)
  • The English Poets (1941)
  • The Oxford Book of Christian Verse , editor (1941)
  • Men of the RAF , co-author William Rothenstein (1942)
  • Hardy the Novelist: an Essay in Criticism (1942)
  • Antony and Cleopatra, the fourth WP Ker memorial lecture delivered in the University of Glasgow, 4 May, 1943 (1944)
  • Poetry of Thomas Gray (1945)
  • Two Quiet Lives , biography of Dorothy Osborne and Thomas Gray (1948)
  • Poets & Story-tellers , Essays (1949)
  • Reading as One of the Fine Arts (1949), inaugural lecture at the University of Oxford on May 28, 1949
  • Lord M, or the Later Life of Lord Melbourne (1954)
  • Walter Pater - the Scholar Artist (1955)
  • Augustus John: Fifty-two Drawings (1957)
  • The Fine Art of Reading and Other Literary Studies (1957)
  • Modern Verse in English 1900–1950 , Associate Editor Allen Tate (1958)
  • Max , biography about Max Beerbohm (1964)
  • The Bodley Head Beerbohm , editor (1970)
  • Max Beerbohm: Selected Prose , editor (1970)
  • Visionary and Dreamer: two poetic painters: Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones (1969)
  • A Choice of Tennyson's Verse , editor (1971)
  • The Cecils of Hatfield House: a Portrait of an English Ruling Family (1973)
  • Walter de la Mare (1973)
  • A Victorian Album: Julia Margaret Cameron and her Circle , co-author Graham Ovenden (1975)
  • Library Looking-Glass , Anthology (1975)
  • Lady Ottoline's Album (1976)
  • A Portrait of Charles Lamb (1983)
  • Desmond MacCarthy, the Man and His Writings , editor (1984)
  • Some Dorset Country Houses (1985)
in German language
  • The great fear or the life of William Cowper , original title The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper , 1947
  • Lord M.: The premier of the young Queen , original title Lord M. or the later life of Lord Melbourne , 1956

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Who Were the Inklings? (ignatius.com)
  2. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 15, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Cecil, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Edward Christian David (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Hatfield House , Hertfordshire , England
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1986
Place of death Cranborne , Dorset , England