In this work, first published in 1953, C. Day Lewis, former Professor of Poetry at Oxford, chooses a form that enables his various gifts to be displayed to advantage and to sustain rapt interest in a poem longer than convention now favours.
It is a poem in seven parts: 'Dialogue at the Airport'; 'Flight to Italy'; 'A Letter from Rome'; 'Bus to Florence'; 'Florence: Works of Art'; 'Elegy Before Death: at Settignano'; 'The Homeward Prospect'. The whole resembles a suite in music; various metres are used, and each part is self-contained, though all are on the same subject — a journey to and in Italy. The poet has used his first impressions of the country to illustrate certain deeper themes indicated by the epigraph: '… an Italian visit is a voyage of discovery, not only of scenes and cities, but also of the latent faculties of the traveller's heart and mind.'
If anybody has had the slightest doubt about Mr. Day Lewis's ability to practice what he professes so eloquently and vigorously in his lectures, An Italian Visit should be convincing proof that its author is a poet in the full and splendid exercise of his powers.' Eric Gillett in the National Review.
