[ilds] A History Lesson

[James Gifford]

Fine observations here, David!  I'd also note the improving prescription 
for Gibbon's /Decline and Fall/ in Durrell's /The Black Book/ as well, 
which seems to be as much for prose style as any historical content.

Best,
James

On 2014-10-01 5:04 PM, Denise Tart & David Green wrote:
> "In England history has always been considered a manifestation of
> literature rather than of scholarship. There has been a blurring of
> formal boundaries, quite unlike the disciplined or theoretical
> historical inquiries of France and Germany (the United States????). The
> sixteenth century theatre, for example, witnessed the particularly
> English manifestation of the 'history play', and the models for 19th
> century painting were derived  as much from fiction as from history. *No
> account of the English imagination is complete without an understanding
> of this strange yet very practical conflation in which myth or fiction
> is mixed with observed facts and details."*
> - Peter Ackroyd, Albion: the Origins of the English Imagination (p 255)
> Ackroyd goes on to cite John Milton's 'History of England' in which he
> declared:
> "that which has received approbation from so many, I have chosen not to
> omit. Certain or uncertain, be that upon the credit of those who follow.."
> I could not help but think, as I read these words, how much they apply
> to Lawrence Durrell. Durrell may have eschewed 'pudding island' but he
> certainly wrote out of a very English tradition. There is a clear
> pointer here to idea of amateur, literary historical scholarship to
> which Durrell indeed belonged. He is, in all his works, a great blender
> of myth, fiction, history and observed details; a particularly good
> example of this being 'The Dark Labyrinth', but I would would put up the
> island books as well as the great novel sets. Perhaps it is indeed these
> qualities that make Durrell such an appealing writer and one which drew
> me to him all those years ago when I fell upon Prospero's Cell and being
> entranced, transported and conscious of having experienced a sea change.
> David Green
> 16 William Street
> Marrickville NSW 2204
> +61 2 9564 6165
> 0412 707 625
> www.denisetart.com.au <http://www.denisetart.com.au>
>
>
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