Donald Davie facts for kids

Donald Davie

Donald Alfred Davie (born July 17, 1922 – died September 18, 1995) was an important English poet and literary critic. He was known as a "Movement poet," which was a group of British writers in the 1950s. Davie's poems often explored deep thoughts and ideas, but they also painted vivid pictures of different places and nature.

Life and Education

Donald Davie was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England. His parents were Baptists. He started his schooling at Barnsley Holgate Grammar School. Later, he went to St Catharine's College, Cambridge University.

War Service and Marriage

His university studies were paused when he joined the Royal Navy during World War II. He served in Arctic Russia, where he even taught himself the local language. In the final year of the war, he married Doreen John in Devon. After the war, in 1946, he went back to Cambridge. There, he earned his B.A., M.A., and PhD degrees.

Teaching Career

Davie had a long and successful career teaching at universities.

• From 1954 to 1957, he was a fellow at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.
• From 1959 to 1964, he was a fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
• In 1964, he became the first Professor of English at the new University of Essex in England. He taught there until 1968.
• He then moved to the United States. He taught at Stanford University until 1978.
• Finally, he moved to Vanderbilt University, where he taught until he retired in 1988.

Davie's Poetry and Criticism

Donald Davie was known for both his poetry and his literary criticism. He often wrote about how poetry is made.

Writing Style

Davie's writing style was special because he was interested in both modern and older ways of writing poetry.

• In his book Under Briggflatts, he wrote kindly about British modernist poetry.
• In Thomas Hardy and British Poetry, he supported older styles of verse.
• Many of his poems have been compared to those of Philip Larkin, another traditional poet.
• However, some of his other works were influenced by the poet Ezra Pound.
• Davie's work was featured in the Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse in 1980.

Connecting Poets

In the 1960s, Davie helped connect different groups of poets. He was a link between the Cambridge poets and the Black Mountain poets from America.

His Unique Voice

Writer Calvin Bedient described Davie's unique style. Davie believed that a poet should speak for a "social tradition," not just for themselves. This made his work different from many modern poets of his time. His poems often had a strong "English" sound, using traditional language. His style was similar to that of the Augustan poets, who wrote in a sophisticated and polished way. He also wrote with great confidence, sharing his thoughts without fear.

Works

• Brides of Reason: A Selection of Poems (Fantasy Press, 1955)
• Articulate Energy: An Inquiry into the syntax of English Poetry (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955)
• A Winter Talent and Other Poems (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957)
• The Forests of Lithuania (The Marvell Press, 1959), adapted from Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz
• New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1961)
• Events & Wisdoms (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964)
• Ezra Pound: Poet As Sculptor (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964)
• Essex Poems (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969)
• Thomas Hardy and British Poetry (Oxford University Press, 1972)
• The Shires (Oxford University Press, 1974)
• Ezra Pound (Penguin, 1976)
• The Poet In The Imaginary Museum, Essays of Two Decades (Carcanet, 1977)
• In the Stopping Train and other poems (Carcanet Press, 1977)
• Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1985)
• Across the Bay (Carcanet Press, 1986)
• Trying To Explain (Carcanet Press, 1986)
• To Scorch Or Freeze (Carcanet Press, 1988)
• Under Briggflatts (Carcanet Press, 1989)
• Slavic Excursions (Carcanet Press, 1990)
• These the Companions (Carcanet Press, 1990)
• Studies in Ezra Pound (Carcanet Press, 1991)
• Older Masters (Carcanet Press, 1992)
• Purity of Diction in English Verse and Articulate Energy (Carcanet Press, 1994)
• Church Chapel and the Unitarian Conspiracy (Carcanet Press, 1995)
• Poems & Melodramas (Carcanet Press, 1996)
• With The Grain: Essays on Thomas Hardy and British Poetry (Carcanet Press, 1998)
• Two Ways Out of Whitman:American Essays (Carcanet Press, 2000)
• Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2002)
• A Travelling Man: Eighteenth Century Bearings(Carcanet Press, 2003)
• Modernist Essays(Carcanet Press, 2004)
• Purity of Diction in English Verse and Articulate Energy (Carcanet Press, 2006)

See also

In Spanish: Donald Davie para niños