[ilds] Durrell's Complete Poems

[Richard Pine]

Bruce has kindly allowed us to add his comments to the Note on the Durrell
Library website (www.durrelllibrarycorfu.org) as we are anxious that a
discussion of this kind should reach a wider (and participatory) readership
than it meets only through the ILDS list.
RP

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 8:55 PM, Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> 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) 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> 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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