Lewis, C. Day

video|right|300px right|300px C. Day Lewis (1904-1972) was an Anglo-Irish poet, novelist, essayist, translator, and professor of poetry who was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. After receiving his education at Wadham College, Oxford, Lewis became part of W.H. Auden's circle and published his first book of verse Beechen Vigil in 1925. He was a member of the communist party from 1935-1938 and described himself as a "churchy agnostic," desiring immediate social changes that would lift the human spirit. In 1935--in order to supplement his income--he began publishing crime novels under the pen name Nicholas Blake, and was henceforth able to support himself on his writing alone. During WWII he worked for the British Ministry of Information, during which time his verse moved away from the influence of Auden and became more lyrical. Following the war, he served as poetry professor at Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard and in 1960 published his autobiography The Buried Day. He is considered by some one of the most important British poets of the 20th century, especially for the socially conscious vitality he produced in his verse during a comparatively dull time for British poetry. He is the father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis and documentary filmmaker Tamasin Day-Lewis.
Stevens quotes one of Lewis' translations of Virgil in his essay "Effects of Analogy."