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

[Bruce Redwine]

James,

Thanks for the elaboration.  As you quote below, Durrell’s letter to Miller suggests that he already had in mind his “Heraldic Universe” when he shot off a response to Herbert Read’s ideas about the artist as “Marxian Socialist.”  Clearly, Durrell and Read had incompatible philosophies about the role of the artist.

It’s fascinating to watch this “network” evolve over space and time, if you will.  There’s a certain grandeur to what was taking place during the 30s, 40s, and 50s among a small group of artists.  Nowadays all such activity has shrunk and diminished.

Bruce




> On May 2, 2015, at 11:17 AM, Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: James Gifford <james.d.gifford at gmail.com <mailto:james.d.gifford at gmail.com>>
>> Date: May 1, 2015 at 4:02:56 PM PDT
>> To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
>> Subject: Re: [ilds] Gifford's "Late Modernism's Migrations"
>> Reply-To: odos.fanourios at gmail.com <mailto:odos.fanourios at gmail.com>, ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
>> 
>> Hi Bruce,
>> 
>> I should have added an example for the Read-Miller-Durrell letters bit.
>> 
>> Read's speech and letter about the London Surrealist Exhibition (both sent to Miller after July 4th 1936) comment on binding reality with the dream.  He also argues "the Surrealist is naturally a Marxian Socialist, and generally claims that he is a more consistent Communist than many," and then ends the speech with "let us, in short, as artists no less than as Socialists, work for the transformation of this imperfect world."
>> 
>> Durrell's first Heraldic Universe letter (copied by Miller to Read as a response to Read's work on 16 October 1936, written by Durrell some time before this, likely August) then runs:
>> 
>> "I firmly believe in the ideals of cementing reality with the dream, but I do not believe the rest of this stuff. That the artist must be a socialist, for example. That he wants to transform the world. (He wants to transform men.) Listen, Miller, what I feel about it is this...." and then he gives his first definition of the Heraldic Universe we all know so well and ends the letter with an otherwise inexplicable "P.S. Fuck Herbert Read, don't you think, really, on the whole?  I can't help feeling that quietly."  The sentiment is not surprising given Read's full endorsement of communism in the material Durrell was reading in 1936 (Read only declared for anarchism in 1938), and Miller politely didn't include that post-script in the copy he sent Read.
>> 
>> Yes, Henry Miller could be polite at times...
>> 
>> There are plenty of other markers (in addition to the above) showing how this odd triple-correspondence worked.  It was also setting up a larger network of shared materials that would stretch for the next ten years from Shanghai to Cairo to Berkeley to Vancouver and plenty of places between.  The same pathways allowed Durrell to send Albert Cossery's & Georges Henein's anarcho-surrealist materials from Alexandria to San Francisco for publication via Circle, etc...
>> 
>> All best,
>> James
>> 
>> On 2015-05-01 2:08 PM, Bruce Redwine wrote:
>>> 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 <mailto:james.d.gifford at gmail.com>
>>>> <mailto:james.d.gifford at gmail.com <mailto: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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