[ilds] Durrell's Complete Poems

[Bruce Redwine]

As everyone surely knows, Durrell’s poetry begs for an edition of his complete poems, 1931-1990.  In 1980, Faber published James A. Brigham’s revised edition of the poetry from 1931-1974.  Durrell continued to write poetry after 1974, much of it very good.  I especially like the last poems in CVG—they glow with a sad and mysterious light.  In 2006, Faber published Peter Porter’s edition of Durrell’s Selected Poems, a mere fragment of the corpus but containing an interesting introduction by a highly respected poet, who calls Durrell “one of the best of the past hundred years.”  For all that, I don’t think Porter fully understood or appreciated Durrell.  A complete edition with annotations would also be most helpful (the kind that Ricks and McCue have recently done for T. S. Eliot) .  But given Durrell’s fallen reputation, I doubt Faber would support such a massive undertaking.

Bruce





> On Jul 17, 2016, at 2:05 PM, Richard Pine <pinedurrellcorfu at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Bruce Redwine quotes from my "Mindscape". The full text of the book is now available on the new website of the Durrell Library of Corfu (www.durrelllibrarycorfu.org <http://www.durrelllibrarycorfu.org/>) where Bruce has recently posted an interesting query regarding LD's collected poems (on the Notes & Queries page).
> RP
> 
> On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 11:38 PM, Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net <mailto:bredwine1968 at earthlink.net>> wrote:
> Richard Pine and Charles Sligh agree that Durrell was reading in translation Spengler’s Decline of the West at an early stage in his career, maybe before Corfu (1935).  The usual take on Spengler’s influence is that it leads to a decadent view of European society, so Pine writes in Mindscape (2005):  the “Decline of the West underpinned much of the thinking in The Revolt” (123).  This is undoubtedly true.  Spengler’s influence, however, may be even deeper and extend to Durrell’s “Heraldic Universe.”  Spengler was very much in the Germanic tradition, particularly with respect to Goethe’s Faust and the conclusion to Part II, where the chorus sings, “Alles Vergängliche / Ist nur ein Gleichnis” (12104-05), that is, “Everything transitory / Is only a metaphor.”  Spengler believes this, and so does Durrell — to wit, another ethereal reality underlies everyday reality.  Moreover, like Spengler, Durrell also delights in aphorisms and obscurity (the latter being a German obsession).  I’m not suggesting that Durrell picked up some of his ideas and stylistics from Spengler (who also picked up his ideas from his predecessors), rather that Durrell found a friend in Spengler who mirrored his own instincts.  This may help to explain why the Germans seem more receptive to Durrell than his native Englishmen.
> 
> Bruce
> 
> 

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