In 1927, Cecil Day-Lewis eliminated the hyphen from his writing name as a gesture of "inverted snobbery." But according to his son, Sean Day-Lewis, he tried to restore it at the end of his life when he mistakenly came to believe that Day had Irish origins. Both actions reflect his "divided self," the vacillations he called "my own chronic malady." Mainly the division was between an old social order and a new one. This conflict represents the concern at the core of his generation's literary history. Poetry was the "point of his life," the son has written, but the father's prolixity has resulted in as many volumes of fiction as of poetry (as well as translations, criticisms, and editions of other poets). The literary reputation of Cecil Day Lewis culminated in his acclaim as poet laureate in 1968. His poetic reputation was gained mainly in association with W. H. Auden...