Eastern Illinois University The Keep Masters Theses Student Theses & Publications 1975 The rC eative Imperative: A Metaphysic in Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet" Stephen Franklin Eastern Illinois University This research is a product of the graduate program in English at Eastern Illinois University. Find out more about the program. Recommended Citation Franklin, Stephen, "The rC eative Imperative: A Metaphysic in Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet"" (1975). Masters Theses. 3549. https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/3549 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses & Publications at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CREATIVE IMPERATIVE : A METAPHYSIC IN LAWRENCE DURRELL'S "ALEXANDRIA QUARTET" (TITLE) BY STEPHEN FRANKLIN ,.,.. THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL, EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS 1975 YEAR I HEREBY RECOMMEND THIS THESIS BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE GRADUATE DEGRE�ITED ABOVE PAPER CERTIFICATE #2 TO: Graduate Degree Candidates who have written formal theses. SUBJECT: Permission to reproduce theses. ' The University Library is receiving a number of requests from other institutions asking permission to reproduce dissertations for inclusion in their library holdings. Although no copyright laws are involved, we feel that professional courtesy demands that permission be obtained from the author before we allow theses to be copied . Please sign one of the following statements: Booth Library of Eastern Illinois University has my permission to lend my thesis to a reputable college or university for the purpose of copying it for inclusion in that institution's library or research holdings. � - Date I respectfully request Booth Library of .Eastern Illinois University not allow my thesis be reproduced because Date Author pdm In a recent issue of Time magazine , a critic rather glib ly dismissed 1 Lawrence Durrell' s novels as "essentially uns erious ." To view Durrell' s experimental effort in the "Alexandria Quartet" as "essentially unserious , " seems to me a my opi c critical vi ew, focus ing perhaps on the exotic color, th e rich imagistic details , or th e lush , ornate language of the tetralogy, 2 wh ile mi ssing the experimental and visionary nature of the work . And the "Quartet" truly is visionary , attempting to establish nothing less than a metaphys ic for modern man. Our attempt to unders tand this metaphysic will invo lve three steps . First, we have to discern any causal influence on Durrell's thinking and at titudes . This is easy enough to do. In addition to the epigrams and prefatory notes at th e beginning of all four parts of th e "Quartet ," he states unequivocal ly in !;;,_Key to Modern British Poetry : As for the main bias of my own thinking (if I may , for want of a better word, call it that) , it has developed out of a study of anthropologists like Ty lor, Frazer , Rivers , etc. : of psychologists like Jung, Rank , Groddeck and their great master, Freud : of scientists like Eddingt on , Wh itehead and Einstein . 3 Remembering, of cours e, D.H. Lawrence 's advice to trust th e tale and not th e teller, our second step will be to go to the text of the "Quartet" and see wh at Durrell draws from these disparate thinkers and how he incorporates th eir findings into his own particular dis cipline : the writing of literature . In other words , wh at has Durrell distilled from the new fi ndings in science and psychology, and how has he app lied this to literature? And finally, once we know wh o has influenced Durrell, and to wh at extent he has drawn on their findings , we can advance our own provisional hypotheses : that Durre ll 1 2 has witnessed an evolving movement away from th e mechanistic univers e of Newtoni an physics toward the more dynami c notions of Einsteini an physics; and that simu ltaneous with this ch ange in th e notion of th e phys ical univers e has occurred a simi lar ch ange in th e notion of human pers onality--the self--away from the more mechanistic approach of pre-Freudian think ers, towards the dynamic thought of Jung and beyond, to Groddeck, and a vi ew of the dynami c, creative nature of th e self; so that finally, Durre ll sees a coincidence in the outer world of the physical univers e and the inner world of our selves . His art attempts to emb ody and elucidate the coincidence . In form and content, the "Quartet" is an effort to show the aggregate and synthesi zing nature of man 's consciousness, from which is born a sharpened vision : a vision, it seems to me, whi ch recognizes th at the dynami c processes of man's mind approximate th e dynami c work ings of the physical universe. Furth ermore, it is this creative activi ty--the constant re­ ordering and continual reworking of the mind--that must finally command our trust and devotion . For it is th at creative energy which determines th e continuity and purpose of human experi ence, and wh i ch is the process by wh i ch we re-establish our lives . I wi 11 call this creative activi ty th e Creative Imperative, and see it as th e endless metamorphosis of the human mind as it aspires toward meaning. That said, by way of introduction, we mi ght again look at Durrell 's � Key .!£_ Modern Bri tish Poetry, a book wh ich antedates the "Quartet" by some five or six years, but which contains mos t of the ideas of the "Quartet" in germinal form, and wh ich is indispensible to an understanding of Durrell's art. Although th e book is about poetry, we will see just how c los ely related are poetry and fi cti on in Durrell's mind. Durrell tells us 3 that our historical age is one in wh ich "all the arts and sciences are simply di fferent dialects of the same language, all contributing towards an attitude to life" (Key-1). We know, then, that our interpretation of th e univers e, as far as Durrell is concerned, must include all our modes of thinking, all disciplines . "I have always regarded these various fields of thought as interlocking and mutually fertilizing, and have never hesitated to borrow an idea from one to apply in another" (Key-xii), he claims , and we know for Durrell the armature of scientifi c thought is necessary for any attempt at art . Science and art are "mutual ly fertilizing;" one provides a framework for the other. In the 20th Century, when men strive for a complete account of the world in whi ch they live, it is only in the uni ty of sci ence and art that there will be an intelligibility and measure to their search . To insure that we not miss what he is attempting, Durre ll says in his prefatory note to Balthazar : Modern literature offers us no Unities, so I have turned to science and am trying to complete a four-decker nove l whos e form is based on the relativity proposition. Three sides of space and one of time constitute the soup-mix recipe of a continuum. Th e four novels follow th is pattern . The three firs t parts , however, are to be dep loyed spatially (h ence the us e of "sibl ing" not "sequel") and are not linked in a serial form . They interlap, interweave, in a purely spatial relation . Time is stayed. The fourth part alone will represent time and be a true sequel. Th e subject-object relation is so important to relativi ty that I have tried to turn the novel through both subjective and ob jective modes . The third part , Mountolive, is a straight naturalistic novel in wh ich th e narrator of Justine and Balthazar becomes an object, i.e., a charact er. This is not Proustian or Joycean method--for they illustrate Bergs onian "Duration" in my op inion, not "Space-Time ." The central topic of th e book is an investigation of modern love. 4 Th es e considerations sound perhaps somewh at immodest or even pompous . But it would be worth trying an experiment to see if we cannot dis cover a morphological form one might appropriately call ttclassical" --for our time . Even if th e result proved to be a "science-fiction" in the true sense CB-prefatory note) . Here, Durrell has presented his plan to reconcile science and art . I quote the entire passage becaus e therein lies the foundation for any interpretation of Durrell's work . If we don't at least partially unders tand the theory of relativity, for instance, we will not be ab le to understand how or why Durrell approximates it in his novel. Nor could we unders tand the significance of Space-Time as oppos ed to Space and Time . Durrell 's novel is a result of sweeping and profound changes in beliefs and values realized ih the 20th Century, and clearly, he is interested in the sum total of all the efforts man is making in his attempt to unders tand the uni verse. Knowing, then, that he believes all ideas "cross fertilize" each other, and are to be understood in terms of each other, our first step is to see just wh at it is that Durrell got from Albert Einstein.