Cecil Day-Lewis Critical Essay | Critical Essay by D. E. S. Maxwell

Critical Essay by D. E. S. Maxwell

SOURCE: "C. Day Lewis: Between Two Worlds," in Poets of the Thirties, 1969. Reprint by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1971, pp. 83-126.

In the following excerpt, Irish educator and author Maxwell explores the poetic theories presented in Day Lewis's essay collection Revolution in Writing, particularly noting Marxist influences evident in Day Lewis's aesthetic

[C] Day Lewis wrote Transitional Poem before his introduction to marxism. When he did turn to it, it offered him, because it appeared to grow from obvious facts, a system of ideas that he could use. In it, idea and fact seemed to be identified. On the one hand, deserted factories, slums, unemployed workers, low prices; on the other, the Materialist Dialectic, the Revolutionary Proletariat, Surplus Value. Far from distracting one from sensuous observation, the doctrine positively demanded it; and it had a place for anything that, in the light of the doctrine, one saw. Having...
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