Stephen Spender facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sir Stephen Spender CBE
Spender in 1933
Born	(1909-02-28)28 February 1909 Kensington, London, England
Died	16 July 1995(1995-07-16) (aged 86) St John's Wood, London, England
Occupation	Poet, novelist, essayist
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University College, Oxford
Spouse	Inez Pearn ​ ​ (m. 1936; div. 1939)​ Natasha Litvin ​ (m. 1941)​
Children	Elizabeth Matthew

Sir Stephen Harold Spender (born February 28, 1909 – died July 16, 1995) was an English writer. He was a poet, novelist, and essayist. His writings often focused on ideas of social fairness and the struggles between different social classes. In 1965, he was named the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress in the United States.

Stephen Spender's Early Life

Stephen Spender was born in Kensington, London. His father, Harold Spender, was a journalist. His mother, Violet Hilda Schuster, was a painter and poet. Her family had German Jewish roots.

Stephen went to several schools, including Hall School and Gresham's School. He later attended University College School in Hampstead, which he liked very much. After school, he traveled to Nantes and Lausanne. Then he went to University College, Oxford. He became an honorary fellow there much later in 1973.

Spender often said he never passed any exams. One of his closest friends and a big influence on him was W. H. Auden. Auden introduced him to Christopher Isherwood. Spender even helped print an early version of Auden's book, Poems. Stephen left Oxford without a degree. In 1929, he moved to Hamburg, Germany. Isherwood invited him to Berlin, and Spender would return to England every six months.

Spender knew many other writers. These included Louis MacNeice, Edward Upward, and Cecil Day-Lewis. He was also friends with David Jones. Later, he met famous writers like William Butler Yeats, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Hughes, and T. S. Eliot. He also knew members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially Virginia Woolf.

Stephen Spender's Career as a Writer

Stephen Spender started writing a novel in 1929. It was finally published in 1988 and called The Temple. This book is about a young man who travels to Germany. He finds a culture that seems more open than England's. However, he also sees worrying signs of Nazism, which he finds confusing.

T. S. Eliot, an editor at Faber and Faber, discovered Spender in 1933.

Early Poetry and Social Themes

Spender's early poems, like those in Poems (1933), often talked about social issues. He lived in Vienna and wrote about his beliefs in Forward from Liberalism. His long poem Vienna (1934) praised the 1934 uprising of Austrian socialists. He also wrote Trial of a Judge (1938), a play in verse against fascism.

At the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris, famous writers sometimes read their work. Ernest Hemingway even agreed to read in public if Spender would read with him. Spender agreed, and Hemingway made a rare public appearance.

In 1936, Spender joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. He was asked to write for the Daily Worker newspaper. In late 1936, Spender married Inez Pearn.

Spanish Civil War and Disillusionment

In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the Daily Worker sent Spender to Spain. He was meant to observe and report on a Soviet ship that had sunk. He tried to enter Spain but was sent back. He then traveled to Valencia, where he met Hemingway.

In July 1937, Spender attended the Second International Writers' Congress. Many writers, including Hemingway, discussed how intellectuals should view the war. Spender was briefly held in Albacete. In Madrid, he met André Malraux. Because of health issues, he returned to England. In 1939, he divorced Inez Pearn.

Spender translated works by Bertolt Brecht and Miguel Hernández in 1938.

Spender felt a strong connection to Jewish people. His mother was partly Jewish, and his second wife, Natasha, whom he married in 1941, was also Jewish. In 1942, he volunteered for the fire brigade in London. He also met the poet Edwin Muir.

After World War II, Spender changed his views on communism. He wrote about his disappointment in the essay collection The God that Failed (1949). Many people, including Spender, were very disappointed by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. Like other writers who opposed fascism in the 1930s, Spender did not serve in the military during World War II. He was initially not fit for service due to health issues. However, he managed to be re-examined and served in the London Auxiliary Fire Service.

After the war, Spender helped restore civil authority in Germany as part of the Allied Control Commission.

Editing and Teaching

Spender helped start Horizon magazine and was its editor from 1939 to 1941. From 1947 to 1949, he visited the US many times. He was also the editor of Encounter magazine from 1953 to 1966. He resigned when it was revealed that the magazine was secretly funded by the CIA. Spender said he did not know about the funding source.

He taught at several American universities, including the University of California at Berkeley. In 1954, he became the Elliston Chair of Poetry at the University of Cincinnati. In 1961, he became a professor of rhetoric at Gresham College, London.

Spender helped create the magazine Index on Censorship. He was also involved in starting the Poetry Book Society and worked for UNESCO. In 1965, he was appointed the 17th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

In the late 1960s, Spender often visited the University of Connecticut. He said it had the "most friendly teaching staff" he had met in the United States.

Spender was a Professor of English at University College London from 1970 to 1977. He then became a professor emeritus. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1962. He was also knighted in 1983, which means he received the title "Sir."

Stephen Spender and the World of Art

Stephen Spender also had strong connections with the art world. He worked with artists like Picasso and Henry Moore. Henry Moore created etchings and lithographs to go with the writings of authors like Charles Baudelaire and Spender. An exhibition of Moore's work with literature was held at The Henry Moore Foundation.

Spender collected art and became friends with many artists. These included Frank Auerbach, Bacon, Freud, Hockney, and Picasso. In a book called The Worlds of Stephen Spender, Frank Auerbach chose artworks by these masters to go with Spender's poems.

In 1982, Spender wrote China Diary with the artist David Hockney. It was published by Thames & Hudson. The Soviet artist Wassily Kandinsky also created an etching for Spender called Fraternity in 1939.

Stephen Spender's Family Life

In 1936, Stephen Spender married Inez Pearn. Their marriage ended in 1939. In 1941, Spender married Natasha Litvin, who was a concert pianist. They remained married until his death.

They had two children: a daughter named Elizabeth Spender and a son named Matthew Spender. Elizabeth, who was an actor, is married to the Australian actor Barry Humphries. Matthew is married to the daughter of the Armenian artist Arshile Gorky.

Stephen Spender's Death

Stephen Spender passed away on July 16, 1995, from a heart attack in Westminster, London. He was 86 years old. He was buried in the graveyard of St Mary on Paddington Green Church in London.

The Stephen Spender Trust

The Stephen Spender Trust is a charity. It was created to help people learn more about 20th-century literature, especially the writers Spender knew. It also promotes literary translation. The trust organizes poetry readings, academic conferences, and works with schools. It also runs the Guardian Stephen Spender Prize, an annual poetry translation competition.

Awards and Honours

Stephen Spender received the Golden PEN Award in 1995.

Stephen Spender's Works

See Also

In Spanish: Stephen Spender para niños

• List of Gresham Professors of Rhetoric