As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001), Layton fought Puritanism throughout his life:[1] Layton's work had provided the bolt of lightning that was needed to split open the thin skin of conservatism and complacency in the poetry scene of the preceding century, allowing modern poetry to expose previously unseen richness and depth.Irving Layton was born on March 12, 1912, as Israel Pincu Lazarovitch in Târgu Neamţ to Romanian Jewish parents, Moses and Klara (née Moscovitch) Lazarovitch.

[2] He migrated with his family to Montreal, Quebec in 1913, where they lived in the impoverished St. Urbain Street neighbourhood, later made famous by the novels of Mordecai Richler.

There, Layton and his family (his father died when Irving was 13) faced daily struggles with, among others, Montreal's French Canadians, who were uncomfortable with the growing numbers of Jewish newcomers.

Layton graduated from Alexandra Elementary School and attended Baron Byng High School, where his life was changed when he was introduced to such poets as Tennyson, Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley; the novelists Jane Austen and George Eliot; the essayists Francis Bacon, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, and Jonathan Swift; and also Shakespeare and Darwin.

Royal Avenue, and I vividly recall the first lesson: Virgil's Aeneid, Book II:I[6] ...hearing Klein roll off the Virgilian hexameters in a beautiful orotund voice that rose above the traffic, I think it was then that I realized how lovely and very moving the sound of poetry could be.

I must confess my Latin wasn't sufficient to appreciate the sense that Virgil was making with his marvelous hexameters, but Klein's zeal and enthusiasm, his forceful delivery, his very genuine love of language, of poetry, all came through to me at that time.

...[7]Klein published Layton's first poem in The McGilliad, the underground campus journal he was editing at McGill University.

When Layton graduated from Macdonald College in 1939, he moved with Faye to Halifax, where he worked odd jobs, including a stint as a Fuller Brush salesman.

Indecisive about his future and enraged by Hitler's violence toward Jews and destruction of European culture, Layton enlisted in the Canadian army in 1942.

In 1943 Layton was given an honourable discharge from the army and returned to Montreal, where he became involved with several literary magazines including the seminal Northern Review, which he co-edited with John Sutherland.

While for a time he still considered himself a Marxist, he became anti-Communist at the lectures Lewis gave at YPSL[9] and broke with many on the left with his support of the Vietnam War.

Three years later he began teaching English, history, and political science at the Jewish parochial high school Herzliah (a branch of the United Talmud Torahs of Montreal).

Although he was still living with Aviva, Irving and Harriet began an affair that continued for four years, culminating in their legal marriage in November 1978.

In order to marry Harriet, Irving finally took the required legal action to divorce Betty, which he had neglected to do until this time.

Layton then met Anna (Annette) Pottier and invited her to be his housekeeper, although it soon became apparent that she would play a far greater role in his life.

They lived briefly in Niagara-on-the-Lake in the fall of 1982 and then spent nearly a year in Oakville, Ontario, before moving to the Montreal district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce at the end of 1983.

It was here that Layton wrote his memoir Waiting For the Messiah and with Pottier's support saw to the publication of his final books and translations.

[3] In his lifetime Layton attracted some criticism for his abrasiveness, egotism, and acrimonious feuds, including one with biographer Elspeth Cameron.