[ilds] heraldic universe

[James Gifford]

I'm interested in where this leads!

I argued last year in /jml/ that the Henry Miller - Herbert Read 
correspondence casts a new light on Durrell's most famous use of the 
term Heraldic in his letters to Miller.  The gist is that Miller was 
criticizing Read for his promotion of Communism in his written works 
following the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition, and 
Miller was promoting his anarchist views contra Read's supposed 
Communism.  Both authors were in contact with Emma Goldman, but Read 
only made his anarchist views public in 1938.

In any case, the point is that Durrell's 1936 letter discussing the 
Heraldic Universe is, in context (in my reckoning), a point by point 
response to Read in Miller's correspondence (which Miller had been 
copying to Durrell, and in which he quoted Durrell's letter to Read). 
It also means the letter is probably misdated in MacNiven and was likely 
a month or so later than the estimated August 1936.

In context, I contend the Heraldic notion carries a great deal of 
sympathy for Miller's anarchism and the anti-Marxist politics of the 
epistolary discussion.  In that sense, the personal enacted in the 
Heraldic carries a very particular politics.  "Personalism" seems to 
have followed in the 40s in London at least in part as a response to 
Durrell and largely as a development from Read's "Politics of the 
Unpolitical."

This sense of the Heraldic Universe runs contrary to much of what 
already exists in the critical works on Durrell, so I'm waiting to see 
if anything more pops up that pulls it in different directions -- Warton 
could be important...

Best,
Jamie

On 26/06/11 12:34 PM, Godshalk, William (godshawl) wrote:
> 1774    T. Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry I. xi. 336   The pompous
> circumstances of which these heraldic narratives consisted, and the
> minute prolixity with which they were displayed.
>
> Durrell was a student of poetry as well as a poet. Also he is known
> among Durrellians for his references to the Heraldic Universe --
> which has been linked to various schools of thought.
>
> I'm wondering if Durrell  might have come across the phrase "heraldic
> narratives" in Warton
>
> and later began to think of his own narratives as heraldic, and the
> world that they evoke as his "heraldic universe."
>
> Bill _______________________________________________ ILDS mailing
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