[ilds] Melissa -- as mask

[James Gifford]

Bill, I'm quite sure that's taken from an interview in the 1960s, 
although I haven't recorded which one.  Sorry.

I did once ask Margo Durrell if 'Larry' had based Ruth in _Pied Piper_ 
(a Melissa prototype) on someone who had died during his London years. 
Her enigmatic response was: "Now, I don't think he'd want me talking 
about her."  Regardless of the biographical element, false or fortified, 
she's certainly a recurring trope.

After all, how much Melissa (from the poems) is in Melissa, how much in 
Iolanthe, how much in Gracie from the Black Book, and how much in Ruth, 
etc.?

Jamie

william godshalk wrote:
>> *Roger Bowen in "The Artist at His Papers": Durrell, Egypt, and the 
>> Poetry of Exile* (/Twentieth Century Literature/ ) records that 
>> Durrell used Melissa as one of his masks. 
> 
> Bill
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