Helen Joy Davidman (April 18, 1915 - July 13, 1960) was an American poet and writer. Often referred to as a prodigy, he earned a master's degree from Columbia University in English literature in 1935. For his poetry book, Letters to a Comrade he won the Yale Series Poet Competition at Yale 1938 and Russell Loines Awards for Poetry in 1939. He is the author of several books, including two novels.
While an atheist and after becoming a member of the American Communist Party, he met and married the first husband and father of two of his sons, William Lindsay Gresham, in 1942. After a troubled marriage, and after he converted to Christianity, they divorced and he left America to leave to England with his sons.
Davidman published his most famous work, Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments, in 1954 with the introduction by C. S. Lewis. Lewis affected his work and his conversion, and became her second husband after his permanent relocation to England in 1956. He died of a metastatic carcinoma involving bone in 1960.
The growing relationship between Davidman and Lewis has been featured in BBC television movies, stage plays, and movie theaters called Shadowlands . Lewis published A Grief Observed under a pseudonym in 1961, from a notebook he kept after his wife's death expressed his tremendous sadness and period of questioning God.
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Helen Joy Davidman was born on April 18, 1915 to a secular middle class Jewish family in New York City, a background of Polish and Ukrainian. His parents, Joseph Davidman and Jeanette Spivack (married 1909), arrived in America at the end of the 19th century. Davidman grew up in the Bronx with his younger brother, Howard, and with both parents working, even during the Great Depression. She was given good education, piano lessons and family holiday trips. Davidman wrote in 1951: "I am a straight-thinking, righteous thinking materialism... I am an atheist and an atheist's daughter".
Davidman is a prodigy, who scores over 150 on IQ tests, with exceptional critical, analytical and musical skills. He read H. G. Wells The Outline of History at the age of eight and was able to play Chopin's score on the piano, after reading it once and not seeing it again. At an early age, he read the children's book of George MacDonald and his adult fantasy book, Phantastes . He writes about the influence of these stories: "They developed in me a taste of lifelong fantasies, which took me a few years later to C. S. Lewis, who in turn took me to religion." The sickly child, suffering from a crooked spine, dengue fever and anemia during his school years, and attending classes with his older classmates, he later referred to himself as "nerd, overly mature and arrogant".
After finishing high school at Evander Childs High School at the age of fourteen, he read books at home until he entered Hunter College in the Bronx at the age of fifteen, earning his BA in nineteen years. In 1935, he received a master's degree in English literature from Columbia University in three semesters, while also teaching at Roosevelt High School. In 1936, after some of Davidman's poems were published in Poetry, editor Harriet Monroe asked him to work in a magazine as a reader and editor. Davidman withdrew from his teaching position to work full time in writing and editing.
During the Great Depression, several incidents, including witnessing the suicide of a hungry orphan jumping from the roof at Hunter College, are said to have caused him to question the fairness of capitalism and the American economic system. He joined the American Communist Party in 1938.
For his collection of poems, Letters to a Comrade , he won the Yale Series Poet Competition in 1938. He was elected by Stephen Vincent BenÃÆ'Â © t, who praised Davidman for his "various forms of command" and bold powers. "In 1939, he won the Russell Loines Award for Poetry for this same book of poetry.Although much of his work during this period reflects his politics as a member of the American Communist Party, this volume of poetry is much more than the title implies, and contains forty-five poems written in traditional and free verse related seriously, time topics such as the Spanish Civil War, the inequalities of class structure and the problem of male-female relationships The style of Davidman in these poems shows an influence by Walt Whitman's
He was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1939 to live six months in Hollywood writing a movie script. He wrote at least four, but they were not used and he returned to New York City to work for The New Masses where he wrote a controversial film column, reviewing Hollywood movies in a way described as "without forgiveness in his critics. "His famous first novel Anya was published in 1940. Between 1941 and 1943 he was employed as a book observer and poetry editor for The New Masses with publications in many problems.
Maps Joy Davidman
Living with William Lindsay Gresham
He married his first husband, author William Lindsay Gresham, on August 24, 1942 having met him through their common interest in communism. They have two sons, David Lindsay Gresham (born March 27, 1944) and Douglas Howard Gresham (born November 10, 1945). Bill Gresham had become disillusioned with the Communist Party when volunteering in Spain during the Spanish Civil War against fascism and influencing Davidman to leave the party after the birth of their son. During the wedding, Gresham wrote his most famous Nightmare Alley in 1946, while Davidman did freelance work and took care of the house and children.
The marriage was marred by difficulties that included financial problems, as well as alcoholism and infidelity of her husband. Gresham sometimes has a heady explosion, once hitting his guitar on a chair. Davidman writes that her husband had called him, one day in the spring of 1946, telling him that he had a nervous breakdown, and did not know when he would return home. After that, he suffered a defeated emotional state. He has the experience he describes as: "for the first time my pride is compelled to admit that I am not, after all, 'the lord of my fate'... All my defenses - all the walls of arrogance and pride and self love behind which I hide from God - down a bit - and God came in. "When Gresham returned home, the couple started looking for a religion for answers. Davidman originally studied Judaism, but decided to study all religions and concluded that "the Redeemer who has made himself known, whose personality I will recognize among the ten thousand - He is Jesus." Through their religious lessons, the couple, in particular, began to read and be influenced by the books of C.S. Lewis.
When Gresham received large sums for film rights for Nightmare Alley, the family moved into an old house with acres in rural New York, where Davidman began writing his second novel, Weeping Bay and Gresham also started his second novel, Limbo Tower . In 1948, they became members of the Pleasant Plains Presbyterian Church. Gresham initially had the same Christian beliefs as Joy but promptly rejected them; she continues to have extramarital affairs and develop interest in tarot and I Ching cards. Both experimented with L. Ron Hubbard's theories about Dianetics and 'audited' with each other and his friends. The couple became tenuous, though they continued to live together. After the introduction by a fellow American writer, Chad Walsh, Davidman began a correspondence with C. S. Lewis in 1950.
Living with C. S. Lewis
Davidman became interested in C. S. Lewis while still in America. He first met the author C. S. Lewis (Jack) in August 1952, when he traveled to England, after two years of correspondence with him. He plans to finish his book on the Ten Commandments he has done, and which shows an influence by Lewis's apologetic style. After several lunch meetings and walks accompanying Davidman and his brother, Warren Lewis wrote in his diary that a "quick friendship" has developed between his younger brother and Davidman, whom he describes as "a Jewish follower of the Jewish race, tall being, a good figure, a framed horn specification, quite unbelievably unhindered. "He spent Christmas and two weeks at The Kilns with the brothers. Although Davidman is very much in love with Lewis, there is no reciprocity on his side.
He returned home in January 1953, after receiving a letter from Gresham that he and his cousin had an affair and he wanted a divorce. Cousin RenÃÆ' Â © e Rodriguez has moved to Gresham's home and guarded the home for the family while he was away. Davidman intends to try to save the marriage, but he agrees to divorce after a violent encounter with Gresham, who has returned drinking. She married Rodriguez when the divorce became final in August 1954.
Claiming as "complete Anglomaniac", Davidman returned to England with his sons in November 1953. Cynthia Haven speculated that HUAC activities might be a factor in his decision to emigrate and not return, given his political affiliations in the past. Davidman found a flat in London and enrolled David and Douglas at Dane Court Preparatory School, but he soon suffered financial difficulties when Gresham stopped sending money for support. Lewis pays school fees and finds Davidman and his son have a home in Oxford near The Kilns. Lewis initially thought of him as just an intimate friend of intellectuals and personal friends. Warren Lewis writes: "For Jack, the attraction was initially undoubtedly intellectual, Joy was the only woman he met... who possessed a brain compatible with himself in flexibility, wide-reaching, and in analytical sense, and above all in humor and pleasure. "
She is my daughter and my mother, my disciple and my teacher, my subject and my sovereignty; and always, holding all of this in solution, my trusted friend, friends, shipmates, fellow warriors. My mistress; but at the same time all male friends (and I have good ones) have been to me. Maybe more.
C. S. Lewis
Lewis began to ask Davidman's opinions and criticisms when he wrote and he served as inspiration for Orual, the central character in Till We Have Faces (1956). Other works that he or she influenced or helped include Reflections on Psalms (1958) and The Four Loves (1960). Davidman's Book Smoke on Mount: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments was published in 1955 in England with the introduction by C. S. Lewis. It sold 3,000 copies, double the US sales.
In 1956, Davidman's visitor visa was not renewed by the Central Office, requiring him and his children to return to America. Lewis agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with him so that he could continue living in England, telling a friend that "the marriage was purely a matter of friendship and expediency". Civil marriage took place at the registration office, 42 St. Giles', Oxford, on April 23, 1956.
The couple continued to live apart after the civil marriage. In October 1956, Davidman walked in his kitchen as he tripped over the telephone wire and fell to the floor, thus breaking his left upper leg. At Churchill Hospital, Oxford, she was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, with bone metastases from breast cancer. It was at this point that Lewis realized that he had fallen in love with her, realizing how sad he would be to lose it. He wrote to a friend: "New beauty and new tragedies have entered my life.You will be shocked (or maybe you will not?) To know how many strange types of happiness and even joy amongst us." Davidman underwent several surgeries and radiation treatments for cancer. In March 1957, Warren Lewis wrote in his diary: "One of the most painful days of my life The death penalty has been passed on to Joy, and ultimately only a matter of time."
The relationship between Davidman and C. S. Lewis has grown to the point that they seek Christian marriage. It was not easy in the Church of England at the time because he was divorced, but a friend and an Anglican priest, Reverend Peter Bide, performed a ceremony in Davidman's hospital bed on March 21, 1957. The marriage did not win widespread approval among Lewis's social circles, and some friends and colleagues avoid new partners.
After leaving the hospital a week later, he was taken to The Kilns and immediately enjoyed the pardon of cancer. He helped Lewis with his writings, arranged his financial records and wardrobe, and the house was renovated and redecorated. The couple went on a late honeymoon to Wales and then by air to Ireland. In October 1959, an examination showed that the cancer had returned, and by March 1960, had not responded to radiation therapy, as before. In April 1960, Lewis took Davidman on holiday to Greece to fulfill his lifetime desire to visit there, but his condition deteriorated rapidly after returning from the journey, and he died on July 13, 1960.
As a widower, Lewis writes A Grief Observed which he published under the pseudonym N.W. The officer, describing his feelings and paying tribute to his wife. In the book, he recounts his shaky faith because of the tremendous sadness he suffered after Davidman's death, and his struggle to regain that belief. Lewis developed a heart condition two years later and went into a coma, from where he recovered, but he died a year later - three years after his wife.
Shadowlands
Shadowlands is a dramatized version of Davidman's life with C. S. Lewis by William Nicholson who has been filmed twice. In 1985, a television version was made by BBC One, starring Joss Ackland as Lewis and Claire Bloom as Davidman. Production The BBC won the BAFTA award for best game and best actress in 1986. Nicholson's work was partly taken from Douglas Gresham's Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and CS Lewis. It was also performed in London as award-winning stage play in 1989-90. The drama was successfully transferred to Broadway in 1990-91 with Nigel Hawthorne and Jane Alexander starring, and also revived in London in 2007. The film version of the cinema was released in 1993, with Anthony Hopkins as Jack (CS Lewis) and Debra Winger as Joy Davidman.
Epitaph
C. S. Lewis wrote his original tombstone about the death of Charles Williams; he adjusted it to be placed in his wife's grave.
Working
- Mail to Cameroon . Yale University Press, 1938. Foreword by Stephen Vincent Benet. ISBN 978-0-404-53837-8
- Anya . The Macmillan Company, 1940. ASIN B0006AOXFW
- The United Nations War Memorial: Songs and the Battle of Crying the World in the War: Three Hundred Poems. One hundred and Fifty Poets of Twenty Nations . Dial Dial, 1943, ASIN B000BWFYL2
- Cry for Shadow . The Macmillan Company, 1950. ASIN B0006ASAIS
- Smoke on Mount: An Interpretation of Ten Commandments in Current Conditions . The introduction by C. S. Lewis. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954. ISBNÃ, 978-0-664-24680-8 Davidman, Joy (2009), King, Don W, ed., Out of My Bone: Letter of Joy Davidman < , ISBN 978-0-8028-6399-7 Ã, .
- Davidman, Joy (2015), King, Don W., ed., A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to CS Lewis and Other Poems , William B. Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-7288-3 .
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