born Feb. 28, 1909, London, Eng.
died July 16, 1995, London
English poet and critic.
While an undergraduate at Oxford, Spender met the poets W.H. Auden and C. Day-Lewis . In the 1930s they became identified with politically conscious, leftist "new writing." His poems, expressing a self-critical, compassionate personality, appear in volumes from Poems (1933) to Dolphins (1994). He was better known for his perceptive criticism, as in The Destructive Element (1935), The Making of a Poem (1955), and The Struggle of the Modern (1963), and for his association with the influential review Encounter (195367). He also wrote short stories, essays, and autobiography.