LAWRENCE DURRELL: the MINDSCAPE Also by Richard Pine

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

LAWRENCE DURRELL: the MINDSCAPE Also by Richard Pine LAWRENCE DURRELL: THE MINDSCAPE Also by Richard Pine OSCAR WILDE THE DUBLIN GATE THEATRE *THE DANDY AND THE HERALD Manners, Mind and Morals from Brummell to Durrell BRIAN FRIEL AND IRELAND'S DRAMA WILDE AND IRISHNESS HOMECOMINGS Ireland and the Post-Colonial World *From the same publishers Lawrence Durrell: The Mindscape Richard Pine M St. Martin's Press © Richard Pine 1994 Previously unpublished material by Lawrence Durrell © estate of Lawrence Durrell1994 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1994 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published in Great Britain 1994 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-23414-1 ISBN 978-1-349-23412-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-23412-7 First published in the United States of America 1994 by Scholarly and Reference Division, ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., 175 Fifth A venue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-12157-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pine, Richard. Lawrence Durrell : the mindscape I Richard Pine. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-12157-0 1. Durrell, Lawrence--Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. PR6007.U76Z83 1994 828' .91209-dc20 94-234 CIP for Judy You, life's quiddity, velvet tiger curling in the loin of my mind recalling 24 May 1990, at Emlaghmore when the world made love and sense Contents Preface ix Chronology xi List of Abbreviations xiii Acknowledgement xiv Introduction 1 Part 1 The Child 19 1 'Une vie artistique' 21 2 'Quests, Confessions and Puzzles' 55 3 The Child and the House 80 Part 2 The Island 105 4 'Islomania' 107 5 'Pessaries of Grace' 123 6 An 'Ionian Quartet' 146 Part 3 The City 167 7 The City as Field 169 8 The City as Metaphor 207 vii viii Contents 9 The City as Court of Love 223 Part4 The Refusal 245 10 Subversions 247 11 Ireland as a State of Mind 274 12 Sperectomy 292 PartS The Miracle 323 13 The Unreadable Book 325 14 'Why?': The Question of Writing 351 15 The Heart Evolved 376 Notes and References 388 Select Bibliography 438 Index 444 Preface I first met Lawrence Durrell during his only visit to Ireland, in January 1972; I met him once again in October 1988. In the mean­ time we corresponded, trying in vain to create another meeting: in the intervening years, his support for this book was unhesitating. He greeted my first attempt at establishing his 'literary genealogy', The Dandy and the Herald: Manners, Mind and Morals from Brummell to Durrell (1988) with enthusiasm, and contributed helpfully to the present volume. Most of this book was written before his death in 1990, but has been reconsidered and reshaped in the light of that 'disappearance', and the new availability of research material both in France and the USA. I owe very considerable debb; of gratitude to many Durrellians: most of all to his official biographers, Ian MacNiven and Susan MacNiven, who shared many confidences and have proved superb colleagues; equally Shelley Cox, Keeper of Special Collections at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, which houses the most substantial Durrell archive, has been a pillar of support, knowledge and helpfulness; at University of California, Los Angeles, Special Collections, Anne Caiger was generous in supplying copies of Durrell material; in Ireland, Charles Benson, Keeper of Older Printed Books at Trinity College, Dublin, was indispensable in locating copies of Pied Piper of Lovers and Panic Spring. Charles Acton lent me his set of the 1932 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan­ nica, which was the edition Durrell used. At the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Lawrence Durrell in Sommieres, Fran<;oise Kestsman has been a friend; another, Mary Byrne, once of Dublin and now of St Jean de Fos, was an invaluable go-between with Lawrence Durrell in his last years; the editor of Durrell's poems, Jay Brigham, gave charming and humorous support and advice; Carol Peirce, doyenne of Durrell scholars, and Stephanie Moore, first winner of the Prix Lawrence Durrell, both contributed significantly; Emily Pine made a notable debut as a research assistant; other Durrell scholars, too numerous to mention here, are, I trust, satisfactorily acknowledged in my notes. Regular friendship manifested itself in a concern for the progress of this book: for quite different reasons Tony Roche, Tom McGrath ix X Preface and Sebastian Garrett gave sustenance exactly when and where it was needed: the first, because he empathised with the need to write; the second, because over the past decade he has made it possible for me to live these books by finding them in myself; and the third, my oldest friend, because not only did he know the landscape of the book and could tell whether or not I was making sense, but also was able to reduce an unwieldy typescript to manageable proportions and to make many sensible and helpful suggestions - a rare honour. Nor should I neglect to acknowledge, wholeheartedly, the privilege of residing, on several occasions, at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan. But above all, this book belongs, and is dedicated, to the woman who made it happen and for whom, ultimately, it has been written: who helped me to understand why 'life is elsewhere', and who shared with me the most exciting, most real and most magical year of my life. The Long House, RICHARD PINE Emlaghmore Chronology 1912 Lawrence Durrell born, 27 February 1935 Pied Piper of Lovers [novel] 1937 Panic Spring [novel] 1938 The Black Book [novel] 1943 A Private Country [poems] 1945 Prospera's Cell [Corfu] 1946 Cities, Plains and People [poems] 1947 CefalU [novel] (as The Dark Labyrinth, 1961 edition) 1948 On Seeming to Presume [poems] 1950 Sappho [play] 1952 A Key to Modern British Poetry [lectures] 1953 Reflections on a Marine Venus [Rhodes] 1955 The Tree of Idleness [poems] 1956 Selected Poems 1957 Bitter Lemons [Cyprus] Esprit de Corps [sketches of diplomatic life] Justine [novel] White Eagles Over Serbia [novel] 1958 Balthazar [novel] Mountolive [novel] Stiff Upper Lip [diplomatic sketches] 1960 Clea [novel] Pope Joan [novel, translation] Complete Poems (new edition, 1980) 1962 Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea published as The Alexandria Quartet 1963 An Irish Faustus [play] 1965 Acte [play] 1966 Sauve Qui Peut [diplomatic sketches] Esprit de Corps, Stiff Upper Lip, Sauve Qui Peut published 1985 as Antrobus Complete The Ikons [poems] 1968 Tunc [novel] 1969 Spirit of Place [letters, essays] 1970 Nunquam [novel] Tunc, Nunquam published 1974 as The Revolt of Aphrodite• xi xii Chronology 1973 Vega [poems] 1974 Monsieur [novel] 1977 Sicilian Carousel [Sicily] 1978 Livia [novel] The Greek Islands [travel] 1980 A Smile in the Mind's Eye [philosophy] 1982 Constance [novel] 1983 Sebastian [novel] 1985 Quinx [novel] Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian, Quinx published 1992 as The Avignon Quintet 1988 The Durrell-Miller Letters 1990 Caesar's Vast Ghost [Provence] Durrell dies, 7 November *The one-volume edition of The Revolt of Aphrodite retains the original pagination of Tunc and Nunquam as individual volumes. List of Abbreviations AC Antrobus Complete (Esprit de Corps, Stiff Upper Lip and Sauve Qui Peut) BB The Black Book BL Bitter Lemons CP Complete Poems CVG Caesar's Vast Ghost DL The Dark Labyrinth DML The Durrell-Miller Letters GI The Greek Islands IF An Irish Faustus Key A Key to Modern British Poetry PC Prospero's Cell PPL Pied Piper of Lovers PS Panic Spring Quartet The Alexandria Quartet Uustine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea) Quintet The Avignon Quintet (Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx) RMV Reflections on a Marine Venus SME A Smile in the Mind's Eye SP Spirit of Place The Revolt The Revolt of Aphrodite (Tunc and Nunquam) xiii Acknowledgement The author and publishers would like to thank Curtis Brown Ltd, London, for permission to reproduce the extracts from published and unpublished works by Lawrence Durrell, copyright the estate of Lawrence Durrell. xiv .
Recommended publications
  • Ethnic Identity in Graeco-Roman Egypt Instructor
    Egypt after the Pharaohs: Ethnic Identity in Graeco-Roman Egypt Instructor: Rachel Mairs [email protected] 401-863-2306 Office hours: Rhode Island Hall 202. Tues 2-3pm, Thurs 11am-12pm, or by appointment. Course Description Egypt under Greek and Roman rule (from c. 332 BC) was a diverse place, its population including Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Nubians, Arabs, and even Indians. This course will explore the sometimes controversial subject of ethnic identity and its manifestations in the material and textual record from Graeco-Roman Egypt, through a series of case studies involving individual people and communities. Topics will include multilingualism, ethnic conflict and discrimination, legal systems, and gender, using evidence from contemporary texts on papyrus as well as recent archaeological excavations and field survey projects. Course Objectives By the end of the course, participants should understand and be able to articulate: • how Graeco-Roman Egypt functioned as a diverse multiethnic, multilingual society. • the legal and political frameworks within which this diversity was organised and negotiated. • how research in the social sciences on multilingualism and ethnic identity can be utilised to provide productive and interesting approaches to the textual and archaeological evidence from Graeco-Roman Egypt. Students will also gain a broad overview of Egypt’s history from its conquest by Alexander the Great, through its rule by the Ptolemies, to the defeat of Cleopatra and Mark Antony and its integration into the Roman Empire, to the rise of Christianity. Course Requirements Attendance and participation (10%); assignments (2 short essays of 4-5 pages) and quizzes/map exercises (50%); extended essay on individual topics to be decided in consultation with me (c.
    [Show full text]
  • Lawrence Durrell's Bitter Lemons and Rodis Roufos
    1Journal Nicholas of Mediterranean Coureas Studies, 2016 ISSN: 1016-3476 Vol. 25, No. 2: 000–000 CYPRUS AND THE NOT-SO-SOFT POWER OF CULTURAL POLITICS: LAWRENCE DURRELL‘S BITTER LEMONS AND RODIS ROUFOS‘ THE AGE OF BRONZE ARGYRO NICOLAOU Harvard University This article builds on postcolonial readings of Lawrence Durrell‘s work and offers a comparative analysis of Bitter Lemons and the 1960 novel The Age of Bronze by Rodis Roufos, a Greek diplomat and journalist, who wrote it in direct response to Durrell‘s text. My main objective is to show that any critical analysis of Durrell‘s work on Cyprus should take into account both the literary and political criticism that the work incited among the non-British, non-Anglophone intellectual circles of the time as well as the specific cultural political power dynamics that have allowed Durrell‘s work to dominate as the uncontested, monologic authority on the subject of Cyprus‘ decolonization. By presenting an extensive, in-depth textual analysis of a suppressed section of Roufos‘ novel, first published by David Roessel in 1994, my paper aims to demonstrate that beyond the veneer of its overwhelmingly positive reception, Bitter Lemons was in fact the subject of cross-cultural, international debate that bears testament to the capacity of cultural objects to shape political realities. Interpreting both texts as examples of cultural politics, the article also illustrates the powerful legacy of colonization in current European political discourse. Durrell’s Legacy on Cyprus It is ironic, yet in many ways entirely unsurprising, that the most famous book on Cyprus is a British author‘s account of the turbulent years of the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA) uprising against the British crown from 1955 to 1959 and the Greek Cypriots‘ demand for Enosis, or political union with Greece.
    [Show full text]
  • 644A Disciple Has Crossed Over by Water': an Analysis of Lawrence
    64 4A disciple has crossed over by water’: an Analysis of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet in its Egyptian Historical and Intellectual Contexts.” Mike Diboll. Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Leicester. University College Northampton August 2000 UMI Number: U139322 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U139322 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 <DIAOI2 AAEEANAPEY2IN Dedicated to Phyllis (1908 - 1994) and Joan (1916 - 2000). Abstract: “ ‘A disciple has crossed over bv water’: Lawrence Diirrell's Alexandria Quartet in its Egyptian Historical and Intellectual Contexts” by Mike Diboll. This dissertation examines Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet in its various Egyptian contexts. It contests the idea that the Alexandria of the Quartet is essentially a city of the imagination which bears little or no relation to the real city of history. It argues that various strata of Alexandrian history, from antiquity to the nineteen- fifties, are deeply embedded in Durrell’s Quartet. Of particular interest is the tetralogy’s representation of the history of Egypt's Wafdist independence movement in the years 1919 - 1952, and Britain's responses to it.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Sponsored by the International Lawrence Durrell Society And
    1 Sponsored by The International Lawrence Durrell Society and Louisiana Tech University Provisional Program Schedule Wednesday, July 7, 2010 (7-9pm) Informal reception at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone Thursday, 8 July Registration—8:00 (and continuing throughout the day) Welcome (8:45-9:00): —Don Kaczvinsky, President Session I (9:00—10:45) “Owed to America: Durrell, New Orleans, and the American Experience” – Chair, Don Kaczvinsky 1 "Of Oysters, Watermelon, Rice, and Thyme: Food Imagery in the Alexandria Quartet and the Historical Cuisines of Alexandria and New Orleans"—Merianne Timko (Houston, Texas) 2. "Historical Fiction at Its Best: The Landscape and Mores of Durrell's Alexandria and Frank Yerby's New Orleans"--Normajean MacLeod (Nashville, Indiana) 2 Thursday, 8 July, Session I (continued) 3. "Reverie of Utopia and Actuality in the City: The Cases of Justine and Blanche DuBois"—Michiko Kawano (Bukkyo University) 4. "'Where the blue Algonquin flows': Durrell and the American Environment"—Donald P. Kaczvinsky (Louisiana Tech University) Plenary Session I (11:00-12:00) Alan Friedman (University of Texas) Lunch Break Session IIA (1:30-2:45) “Cityscapes of Modernism” – Chair, Charles Sligh 1. "'Roses, faeces and vampires': The Carnivalesque in Durrell"—Fiona Tomkinson (Yeditepe University, Istanbul) 2. "The Landscape of War, part 1: London, 1939-1941"-- Pamela J. Francis (Rice University) 3. "Anarchism and Poetics in Late Modernism: Paris, Cairo, San Francisco, London"—James Gifford (Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vancouver) Session IIB (1:30-2:45) “City Spaces and Urban Places” – Chair, Anne Zahlan 1. "'The City Begins and Ends in Us': Durrell's City as Interior Space"—Linda Stump Rashidi (Mansfield University of Pennsylvania) 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Synthesis: an Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies
    Synthesis: an Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies Vol. 0, 2017 A Selected Fiction? Lawrence Durrell and the Overgrown Typescript of Bitter Lemons Roessel David Stockton University https://doi.org/10.12681/syn.16245 Copyright © 2017 David Roessel To cite this article: Roessel, D. (2019). A Selected Fiction? Lawrence Durrell and the Overgrown Typescript of Bitter Lemons. Synthesis: an Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies, 0(10), 82-102. doi:https://doi.org/10.12681/syn.16245 http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 26/09/2021 15:38:57 | A Selected Fiction? Lawrence Durrell and the Overgrown Typescript of Bitter Lemons David Roessel Abstract This article looks at previously unmined archival documents in order to explore the pre- and post-publication history of Lawrence Durrell’s Bitter Lemons, a travelogue written during the ‘emergency years’ of the EOKA campaign against British rule and for union with Greece. It examines the ways in which paratextual documents surrounding this publication history illuminate the awkward, sometimes contradictory, relationship between Durrell’s book and the last years of the British colonial government in Cyprus, a government for which Durrell worked as an employee in the Public Information Office. Pursewarden, the famous novelist that Durrell created as a character in the Alexandria Quartet, remarked, “We live...lives based on selected fictions” (Balthazar 138). As Durrell’s masterpiece unfolds, the reader is made keenly aware of how important Pursewarden’s observation is to the narrative. Balthazar, in the volume named after him, corrects Darley’s account in Justine by making a new, interlinear text with the comment: our view of reality is conditioned by our position in space and time—not by our personalities as we like to think.
    [Show full text]
  • Characters and Characterisation in Durrell's the Alexandria Quartet
    CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERISATION IN DURRELL'S THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET Dr. Anna Pratt When The Alexandria Quartet appeared in the late fifties (Justine 1957; Balthazar 1958; Mountolive 1958; Clea 1960) it was given a very mixed reception. Some critics were enthusiastic, making sometimes exaggerated claims for Durrell's originality and greatness; others were more sceptical. George Steiner for instance praised the richness of Durrell's style, saying : "No one else writing in English today has a comparable command of the light and music of language ... Who is to say ... that The Alexandria Quartetwill not lead to a 1 renascence of prose" ? ( ) , while Angus Wilson disagreed, claiming that "Durrell's aims are magnificent, but his execution is often slipshod and pretentious, and the language floridly vul­ 2 gar" . ( ) It is interesting to note that Durrell's most severe critics tended to be British, and his popularity was much greater in America and on the Continent than in his own country. Dur­ rell's biographer, G.S. Fraser, says that the prevailing view in England was that the Alexan­ dria Quartet "is a most impressive but in some ways flawed or imperfect work, extraordinarily 3 vivid, but too rich, too gaudy" . ( ) A similar difference of opinion can be noticed in critical comments on Durrell's methods of characterisation and his ability to create convincing characters. Here again, most British critics were not impressed by characters in The Quartet . The following quotations illustrate the dominant attitude : "For the most part the characters in these novels remain flat surfaces . .. they never become three-dimensional figures ..
    [Show full text]
  • Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell's Novels
    Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels By C. Ravindran Nambiar Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels, by C. Ravindran Nambiar This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by C. Ravindran Nambiar All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5315-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5315-6 Dedicated to my wife Prabha I know that the bone structure of my work is metaphysically solid, so to speak, and that’s what counts. —Lawrence Durrell TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .................................................................................. viii Foreword .................................................................................................... xi Dr. Corinne Alexandre-Garner Introduction ............................................................................................. xvii Prof. Ian S. MacNiven List of Abbreviations ............................................................................... xxii Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Durrell
    [Show full text]
  • ILCEA, 28 | 2017, « Passages, Ancrage Dans La Littérature De Voyage » [En Ligne], Mis En Ligne Le 06 Mars 2017, Consulté Le 23 Septembre 2020
    ILCEA Revue de l’Institut des langues et cultures d'Europe, Amérique, Afrique, Asie et Australie 28 | 2017 Passages, ancrage dans la littérature de voyage Catherine Delmas (dir.) Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ilcea/4069 DOI : 10.4000/ilcea.4069 ISSN : 2101-0609 Éditeur UGA Éditions/Université Grenoble Alpes Édition imprimée ISBN : 978-2-84310-374-2 ISSN : 1639-6073 Référence électronique Catherine Delmas (dir.), ILCEA, 28 | 2017, « Passages, ancrage dans la littérature de voyage » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 06 mars 2017, consulté le 23 septembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ ilcea/4069 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ilcea.4069 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 23 septembre 2020. © ILCEA 1 Les articles qui composent ce numéro portent sur la problématique du passage et de l’ancrage dans la littérature de voyage. Ils portent sur la littérature italienne, hispanique et anglophone, du Moyen Âge à l’ère contemporaine. La période, large, allant du Moyen Âge avec l’étude d’Enea Silvio Piccolomini, humaniste du XVe siècle dont Serge Stolf est le spécialiste, à l’ère contemporaine avec les articles d’Isabelle Keller-Privat portant sur Lawrence Durrell ou de Françoise Besson sur la relation de l’homme au monde, permet de mieux cerner le genre hybride de la littérature de voyage, la fonction du voyage et des usages des lieux traversés, comme le souligne Gilles Bertrand pour la Méditerranée, et la problématique posée par les notions de passage et d’ancrage. Le passage vers l’ailleurs que relate le récit de voyage met en lumière des points d’ancrage qui peuvent être géographiques, culturels, politiques et génériques, et a contrario l’ancrage peut être vecteur d’émancipation, d’ouverture à l’Autre, grâce au medium qu’est le texte.
    [Show full text]
  • Lawrence Durrell: Panic Spring: a Romance
    Lawrence Durrell: Panic Spring: A Romance Notes &c. __________ _ Objectives __________ 1. To describe the concept of Late Modernism. _ 2. To recognize that Modernism occurred in a variety of locations __________ and times, and hence, postcolonial criticism overlaps with it. _ 3. To relate international, racial, and imperial, and colonial __________ discourses with those we have encountered in Modernism. 4. To describe the influence of the modernists on the generation of authors who came of age during the Second World War. 5. To demonstrate understanding of how the reader is made active in some texts. Reading Assignment Durrell, Lawrence. Panic Spring: A Romance. 1937. Ed. James Gifford. Victoria: ELS Editions, 2008. Print. Adam, Peter. “Spirit of Place: Lawrence Durrell’s Greece.” BBC. 9 July 1984. https://youtu.be/EIOjaroRfEI Commentary This unit takes our readings beyond the typical end point for Modernism: 1928 or at best 1934. Many older modernist scholars prefer not to pursue “Modernism” beyond any hint of World War II even though many of the authors we have read continued to be very active well beyond this date – in fact, Woolf, Eliot, and Lewis published some of their major works after 1939, and Joyce published his last major novel in that year. Much recent research has been dedicated to this notion of “Late Modernism,” including Tyrus Miller’s Late Modernism, Marina MacKay’s Modernism & World War II, and Robert Genter’s Late Modernism: Art, Culture, & Politics in Cold War America. Other scholars, like Jean-François Lyotard, have argued that postmodernism is largely a late development of Modernism itself.
    [Show full text]
  • 37I TIME in the ALEXANDRIA QUARTET THESIS Presented to The
    37I TIME IN THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By Gayle P. Marechal, B. A. Denton, Texas August, 1976 Marechal, Gayle P., Time in The Alexandria Quartet. Master of Arts (English), August, 1976, 105 pp., biblio- graphy, 36 titles. Any study of The Alexandria Quartet would be incomplete without a discussion of Durrell's concept of time. His space- time relativity proposition is central to the work and, there- fore, must be fully understood if The Alexandria quartet is to be appreciated. This investigation proposes to examine Durrell's relativity proposition as it is presented in The Alexandria Quartet. The study will begin with a general discussion of time from both a scientific and philosophical point of view. This introduction will focus on the modern cyclic view of time, or mind-time, as opposed to the more traditional linear concept of time. After the introductory presentation, the study will deal with the view of time as presented by Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet and will concentrate on time and setting, on time and modern love, on time and reality as seen from the varying points of view of the many characters, and finally on time and the artist. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. TIME: A MODERN VIEW . 1 II. TIME AND SETTING . .!.." . 21 III. TIME . AND LOVE . * 0 . 39 IV. TIME AND REALITY: CHARACTER AND POINT OF VIEW IN THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET . .. * . 68 V. ART AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS IN THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET .
    [Show full text]
  • THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET: LOVE AS METAPHYSICAL ENQUIRY By
    THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET: LOVE AS METAPHYSICAL ENQUIRY by ELIZABETH LEE JOHNSTON 3.A., Sir George Williams University, 1974 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October, 1976 (fc\ Elizabeth Lee Johnston, 1976 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of <f-K gj 1 > < U The University of British Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V.6T 1W5 Date cTcx.,x tl ^ 1% n 1 1 ABSTRACT This thesis is based on a conviction that Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet is a metaphysical romance in a truly modern sense; a parable which uses the terminology of modern psychology and romantic love to describe a search for gnosis, or self-knowledge. The characters are prototypes whose enemies are the warring forces within the psyche: the romantic imagination, which manufactures the Illusions of love, and the intellectual examination which may destroy the illusion, but leaves nothing in its place. Durrell shows that his prototype characters must learn to value the naked experience of an emotional moment with a balanced spontaneity of perception divorced from the extremes of both the romantic imagination and the intellect.
    [Show full text]
  • Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zmto Road Am Arbor, Michigan 40100 J 1 I 74-3364
    INFORMATION TO USERS This malarial was producad from a microfilm copy of tha original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, tha quality is heavily dependant upon tha quality of tha original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from tha document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing paga(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pagas to insure you complete continuity. 2. Whan an imaga on die film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that tha photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus causa a blurred image. You w ill find a good image o f tha page in the adjacent frame. 3. Whan a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed tha photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" tha material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper le ft hand comer of a large sheet and to continue photoing from le ft to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again - beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that tha textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be mads from "photographs" if essential to tha understanding of tha dissertation.
    [Show full text]