[ilds] Gifford's "Late Modernism's Migrations"

[Bruce Redwine]

James,

I think you’re right that Durrell’s ending to Justine (1962 ed.) — “So that . . . ” — is a deliberate allusion to Pound’s “Canto I,” which also ends with “So that.”  I haven’t read Durrell’s 1957 review of Pound, but Durrell was probably mimicking a modern epic convention, as established by Pound at the beginning of the Cantos.  Like his mentor at Faber in London, Durrell was also acknowledging il miglior fabbro.  There’s a lot of irony here, for Pound had strong fascist sympathies (a notorious fact in 1957), and Durrell was anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian, as you make clear.  I guess Durrell’s “kingdom of the imagination” is apolitical in some respects.

Nor have I read Read’s, Miller’s, and Durrell’s letters side-by-side.  It’s hard to say exactly what prompted Durrell to discover his “Heraldic Universe.”  As you argue, the original impulse could well have been anti-authoritarian.  The final product, however, was metaphysical.  I don’t find this change alarming.  It takes a while to know what you know.

I think more can be done with Duncan’s and Durrell’s “unknown self,” namely, just what it represents.  I find the analogy and connections between the two poets fascinating.  Thanks for pointing this out.  And thanks for clarifying “desublimation” and “interpellaltion.”

Bruce





> On Apr 30, 2015, at 3:17 PM, James Gifford <james.d.gifford at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I should have added, in the book and article, I'm really looking at the 1930s-40s Durrell (and perhaps as late as 1962), but that doesn't in any way negate your contention:
> 
>> Durrell’s “Heraldic Universe,” in all its complexity and
>> evolution and confusion, is a big aspect of both of these concerns.  I
>> tend to treat the matter metaphysically/metaphorically, as Durrell
>> himself describes in /A Smile in the Mind’s Eye/ (New York, 1982), that
>> is, as some imaginative dimension:  “the alchemical sigil or signature
>> of the individual; what’s left with the ego extracted.  It is the pure
>> nonentity of the entity for which the poem stands like an ideogram” (p.
>> 86).  My approach follows Ray Morrison’s as he explains Durrell’s Taoism
>> in his excellent article, “The City and Its Ontology in Lawrence
>> Durrell’s /Alexandria Quartet (Mosaic/ 46 [2013]).
> 
> That "meta-" and anti-egoic discussion in /A Smile/ is 46 years later than the first appearance of the term, although the "Tao and its Glozes" was originally published in 1939.
> 
> I would, however, point to "ideogram" and Ezra Pound.  I do still believe the "So that..." that ends the revised Justine (in the 1962 omnibus) reflects Durrell's reading (and reviewing) of Pound in 1957 (Canto I ends with the same phrase that Durrell adds close Justine).
> 
> Cheers,
> James
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