LIVING IN TIME This page intentionally left blank LIVING • IN • TIME ALBERT GELPI New York • Oxford Oxford University Press 1998 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1998 by Albert Gelpi Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gelpi, Albert, Living in rime : the poetry of C. Day Lewis / by Albert Gelpi. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-509863-3 i. Day Lewis, C. (Cecil), 1904-1972—Criticism and interpretation. I. Tide. PR6007.A95Z68 1997 82i'-9!2—dc2i 96-45410 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Erratum Gelpi/'Living in Time ISBN 0-19-509863-3 An inadvertent typographical error appears on page 145 in the chapter subtitle. The word "Thantos" should have appeared as "Thanatos." This page intentionally left blank This book is, as ever, for Barbara; and this time also for Edward, dear friend and comrade ofMeriden Court This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THE GENESIS OF THIS book goes all the way back to the academic year 1964- 65 at Harvard, when I met C. Day Lewis. He had come as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor to deliver, in the fall and spring, the series of lec- tures later published as The Lyric Impulse; I was an assistant professor with a brand-new Ph.D. But the differences in age and culture and experience somehow worked to kindle the regard and friendship we instantly felt for each other and found in each other. I was beginning to study the American poetic tradition, and it was daunting and thrilling that he came to my lectures on American poets whenever he could. I was deeply moved when he told me that if I were ever to write about his poetry, he would be very pleased. I knew even at the time that I had to gain the knowl- edge and perspective and critical distance necessary for such a task, and today, three decades later, I date these words of acknowledgment in completion of the first critical assessment of the whole body of his work in verse. From the outset Jill Balcon, the poet's widow, has been encouraging and unfailingly helpful, giving me access to the papers, manuscripts, and books in her possession, even making copies of unpublished lectures and letters for me. I worked many hours, out of time, in the panelled study at Grooms Hill, under the pencil sketch of Thomas Hardy, where Day Lewis had worked for the last decades of his life, and later in the snug, book- lined study at Vine Cottage, looking out at the gently declining vista of Jill's beautiful garden.