Davie, Donald, 1969
Scope and Content
Poem " To Helen Keller." Signed. 1 leaf.
Dates
- Creation: 1969
Creator
- From the Collection: Acosta, Mercedes de, 1893-1968 (Person)
- From the Collection: Allmond, Marcus Blakey (Person)
- From the Collection: Andros, R. S. S. (Richard Salter Storrs) (Person)
- From the Collection: Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh) (Person)
- From the Collection: Burgess, Gelett (Person)
- From the Collection: Cooper, James Fenimore (Person)
- From the Collection: Davie, Donald (Person)
- From the Collection: Gioia, Dana (Person)
- From the Collection: Gosse, Edmund (Person)
- From the Collection: Herford, Oliver (Person)
- From the Collection: Howard, Robert, Sir (Person)
- From the Collection: Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920 (Person)
- From the Collection: Lindsay, Vachel (Person)
- From the Collection: Lofting, Hugh (Person)
- From the Collection: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (Person)
- From the Collection: Mabie, Hamilton Wright (Person)
- From the Collection: Maeterlinck, Maurice (Person)
- From the Collection: Morley, Christopher, 1890-1957 (Person)
- From the Collection: Norris, Frank, 1870-1902 (Person)
- From the Collection: Page, Thomas Nelson, 1853-1922 (Person)
- From the Collection: Perkoff, Stuart Z. (Person)
- From the Collection: Porter, Cole (Person)
- From the Collection: Read, Thomas Buchanan (Person)
- From the Collection: Roberts, Charles George Douglas, Sir (Person)
- From the Collection: Runyon, Damon (Person)
- From the Collection: Ruskin, John (Person)
- From the Collection: Saltus, Edgar (Person)
- From the Collection: Sherman, Frank Dempster (Person)
- From the Collection: Stevenson, Robert Louis (Person)
- From the Collection: Vale, Eugene (Person)
- From the Collection: Van Dyke, Henry, 1852-1933 (Person)
- From the Collection: Weismiller, Edward Ronald (Person)
- From the Collection: Wells, Carolyn (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Advance notice is required for access.
Biographical note
Donald Alfred Davie, (b. July 17, 1922, Barnsley, Yorkshire, Eng.—d. Sept. 18, 1995, Exeter, Devon), British poet, literary critic, and teacher who was a major conservative influence on British poetry in the 1950s.
Davie served in the Royal Navy during World War II and obtained bachelor’s (1947) and doctoral (1951) degrees from the University of Cambridge. He taught at Trinity College, Dublin (1950–57), Cambridge (1958–64), the University of Essex (1964–68), and Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (1968–78).
Davie was a principal figure in The Movement, a group of British poets in the 1950s who expressed antiromantic ideals and purposely avoided experimentation in their verse. His earliest critical works, Purity of Diction in English Verse (1952) and Articulate Energy (1955), explored the moral dimensions of poetic style. His poetry has been characterized as Neo-Augustan, austere, and elegant. His first book of verse, Brides of Reason (1955), was followed by A Winter Talent (1957), Essex Poems (1969), Six Epistles to Eva Hesse (1970), In the Stopping Train & Other Poems (1977), and To Scorch or Freeze (1988), among other volumes. His Collected Poems 1950–70 was published in 1972. Davie’s poetry was characterized by meticulous syntax and plain diction and tended to be philosophical and quietly moralistic in tone. His later critical works included Ezra Pound: Poet as Sculptor (1964), The Poet in the Imaginary Museum (1977; essays), Czesław Miłosz and the Insufficiency of Lyric (1986), and Under Briggflatts: A History of Poetry in Great Britain, 1960–1988 (1989).
"Donald Alfred Davie." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 24 Nov. 2010 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/152689/Donald-Alfred-Davie.
Extent
From the Collection: 0.42 Linear Feet (1 legal-size document box)
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
Repository Details
Part of the USC Libraries Special Collections Repository
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0189 United States
specol@usc.edu