From clawson at gmail.com Fri Aug 5 14:19:24 2016 From: clawson at gmail.com (James Clawson) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:19:24 -0500 Subject: [ilds] Durrell in Kentucky Message-ID: <86CD9645-AE3B-4EAE-9FA3-280D9E93CFD8@gmail.com> Dear Durrellians, Please consider joining us and presenting in Louisville this February at the annual conference on Literature and Culture since 1900. The conference is friendly and well organized, the food in Louisville is great, and (perhaps best of all) you?re guaranteed to have an audience knowledgeable of and interested in Durrell?s writing. Participants in the past have been students, faculty members at all stages, retirees, and independent scholars. Charles Sligh has put together an exciting topic for the society?s sponsored panel (see below), and he?s soliciting proposals by early September. I always look forward to Louisville as a chance to discover new perspectives on Durrell?s and other literature, as an opportunity to meet new people, and as an occasion for enjoying the company of old friends. I hope to see some of you there! Best wishes, James Clawson President, International Lawrence Durrell Society === CFP: Indebtedness & Influence 45th Annual Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900 Louisville, Kentucky 23?25 February 2017 One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. ? T. S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood (1920) Poetry, science of intimacies, In you his early roots drove through The barbarian compost of our English To sound new veins and marbled all his verses Through and through like old black ledgers, Hedging in pain by form, and giving Quotations from the daily treaty poets make With men, possessions or a private demon. ? Lawrence Durrell, ?Anniversary (For T. S. Eliot)? (1948) The International Lawrence Durrell Society invites proposals for papers exploring the broad theme of ?Indebtedness & Influence? in literature and culture since 1900. Possible starting points for this topic include: ? Literary Borrowing (Explicit, Illicit, Covert, or Otherwise) ? Attribution & Allusion ? Parody & Pastiche ? Imitation, Forgery, Historicism, & Homage ? Tradition & the Individual Talent ? Influence & Anxiety ? Quotation, Epigraphs & Intertextuality ? Collaboration, Correspondence & Exchange ? Archives & Archaeology The ILDS welcomes proposals for papers treating the role of Indebtedness & Influence in the works and lives of any twentieth- or twenty-first century author of interest. Proposals exploring the significance of Indebtedness & Influence within Lawrence Durrell?s published works are especially encouraged. Deadline for submission of proposal is 2 September 2016. Please submit proposal by email to charles.sligh at virginia.edu . Include two attachments in pdf, rtf or doc format. ? The first attachment should consist of a 300-word abstract (double-spaced and titled), omitting all references to the submitter. ? The second attachment should contain a cover page that includes the following information: o Name (as it will appear in the program) o Address (preferably home address) o E-mail address (necessary to confirm your acceptance) o Academic affiliation (if applicable) o Title of paper/work (as it will appear in the program) o National origin/genre of work(s) discussed (please be specific) o Personal biographical note (100-150 words) The 45th annual Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture since 1900 will be held at the University of Louisville, 23-25 February, 2017. Please see the conference's official website for additional information. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zahlan at earthlink.net Sat Aug 6 08:01:32 2016 From: zahlan at earthlink.net (Anne Zahlan) Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2016 11:01:32 -0400 Subject: [ilds] Durrell in Kentucky In-Reply-To: <86CD9645-AE3B-4EAE-9FA3-280D9E93CFD8@gmail.com> References: <86CD9645-AE3B-4EAE-9FA3-280D9E93CFD8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <000b01d1eff3$6b4e73d0$41eb5b70$@earthlink.net> Oh, so sorry, Jimmy. For some reason I wrongly attributed the cover letter to Jamie instead of you. Mea culpa and good job!! Anne From: ILDS [mailto:ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca] On Behalf Of James Clawson Sent: Friday, August 5, 2016 5:19 PM To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Subject: [ilds] Durrell in Kentucky Dear Durrellians, Please consider joining us and presenting in Louisville this February at the annual conference on Literature and Culture since 1900. The conference is friendly and well organized, the food in Louisville is great, and (perhaps best of all) you?re guaranteed to have an audience knowledgeable of and interested in Durrell?s writing. Participants in the past have been students, faculty members at all stages, retirees, and independent scholars. Charles Sligh has put together an exciting topic for the society?s sponsored panel (see below), and he?s soliciting proposals by early September. I always look forward to Louisville as a chance to discover new perspectives on Durrell?s and other literature, as an opportunity to meet new people, and as an occasion for enjoying the company of old friends. I hope to see some of you there! Best wishes, James Clawson President, International Lawrence Durrell Society === CFP: Indebtedness & Influence 45th Annual Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900 Louisville, Kentucky 23?25 February 2017 One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. ? T. S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood (1920) Poetry, science of intimacies, In you his early roots drove through The barbarian compost of our English To sound new veins and marbled all his verses Through and through like old black ledgers, Hedging in pain by form, and giving Quotations from the daily treaty poets make With men, possessions or a private demon. ? Lawrence Durrell, ?Anniversary (For T. S. Eliot)? (1948) The International Lawrence Durrell Society invites proposals for papers exploring the broad theme of ?Indebtedness & Influence? in literature and culture since 1900. Possible starting points for this topic include: ? Literary Borrowing (Explicit, Illicit, Covert, or Otherwise) ? Attribution & Allusion ? Parody & Pastiche ? Imitation, Forgery, Historicism, & Homage ? Tradition & the Individual Talent ? Influence & Anxiety ? Quotation, Epigraphs & Intertextuality ? Collaboration, Correspondence & Exchange ? Archives & Archaeology The ILDS welcomes proposals for papers treating the role of Indebtedness & Influence in the works and lives of any twentieth- or twenty-first century author of interest. Proposals exploring the significance of Indebtedness & Influence within Lawrence Durrell?s published works are especially encouraged. Deadline for submission of proposal is 2 September 2016. Please submit proposal by email to charles.sligh at virginia.edu . Include two attachments in pdf, rtf or doc format. ? The first attachment should consist of a 300-word abstract (double-spaced and titled), omitting all references to the submitter. ? The second attachment should contain a cover page that includes the following information: o Name (as it will appear in the program) o Address (preferably home address) o E-mail address (necessary to confirm your acceptance) o Academic affiliation (if applicable) o Title of paper/work (as it will appear in the program) o National origin/genre of work(s) discussed (please be specific) o Personal biographical note (100-150 words) The 45th annual Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture since 1900 will be held at the University of Louisville, 23-25 February, 2017. Please see the conference's official website for additional information. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sun Aug 7 10:22:54 2016 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:22:54 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Gnosticism Message-ID: In Mindscape (2005), Richard Pine notes that ?gnosticism ? fuels Durrell?s writings from its earliest stages? (p. 24). (Pine?s use of lower case g suggests a history of ?secret knowledge? other than what is regarded as an early Christian movement of the second or third century CE, identified with an upper case G.) But how familiar was Durrell with Gnostic literature, as primarily seen in the Nag Hammadi corpus (discovered in Upper Egypt around the end of 1945)? Gnosticism first appears in the Quartet, but Durrell?s knowledge of that came via Forster?s Alexandria. So his knowledge was based on secondary literature, not the primary sources as they began appearing in print after or near the completion of the Quartet in 1960. The Gospel of Thomas was first published in English translation in 1959. James Robinson?s authoritative The Nag Hammadi Library in English came out in 1977 (later revised in 1988). Gnosticism has a big role in the Quintet. Did Durrell study the primary texts? Any evidence of that? Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From james.d.gifford at gmail.com Sun Aug 7 11:55:02 2016 From: james.d.gifford at gmail.com (James Gifford) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:55:02 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Gnosticism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Bruce, Beatrice Skordili has, in my opinion, done the best reading of gnosticism in the Quartet based on what Durrell had available and gestures to in the books: Skordili, Beatrice. "The Author and the Demiurge: Gnostic Dualism in The Alexandria Quartet." /Agora/ 3.1 (2004): 1?21. Web. http://www.academia.edu/633349/The_Author_and_the_Demiurge_Gnostic_Dualism_in_The_Alexandria_Quartet Robinson's edition cites Durrell's /Monsieur/, but that's of course after Durrell had written it. I'd have to check, but I think it's in the 1988 edition, which is what's on my shelf (the 1990 printing), so Durrell's impact is known in the Nag Hammadi translations more than what influenced him. I've already made my own views plain on the listserv. The mss. for /Monsieur/ show Durrell doing a "mashup" of Serge Hutin and news clippings of Slovenian suicides to form the plot -- it was never a genuine "gnostic suicide cult" nor meant to be. He didn't say terribly kind things about LaCarriere's book (in letters not the Foreword to the translation). For that reason, I see gnosticism as a toolkit of themes more than as a sincere worldview in Durrell's later works, just like he picked up psychoanalytic case studies as fodder for plots (Semira's nose, for instance), though psychoanalysis itself seems more sincerely considered. I don't regard gnosticism in the Quartet and Quintet as necessarily a unified concept either; it may mean or gesture to different things despite being the same word. Too much was changing across the times he wrote them, so it's not like, say, how he depicts urban life in conflict with the individual or the city as a corporeal body or a willful entity. Below is a list of articles tagged with "gnositicism" from the bibliography (not exhaustive). All best, James ----------- Arthos, John. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Gnosticism.? The Personalist 43, no. 3 (1962): 360?73. Begnal, Michael H. ?The Mystery of the Templars in The Avignon Quintet.? In On Miracle Ground: Essays on the Fiction of Lawrence Durrell, edited by Michael H. Begnal, 155?65. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1990. Brigham, James. ?An Intruder From The East.? In Lawrence Durrell: Actes Du Colloque Pour L?inauguration de La Biblioth?que Durrell, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner, 91?99. Nanterre, France: Universit? Paris-X, 1998. Carley, James P. ?An Interview With Lawrence Durrell on the Background to Monsieur and Its Sequels.? The Malahat Review 51 (1979): 42?46. ???. ?Lawrence Durrell and the Gnostics.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Newsletter 2, no. 1 (1978): 3?10. ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx and Gnostic Heresy.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Quarterly 5, no. SI 1 (1981): 284?304. ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx and Gnostic Heresy.? Malahat Review 61 (1982): 156?67. Durrell, Lawrence. ?Foreword.? In The Gnostics, edited by Jacques LaCarriere, 7?8. London: Peter Owen Ltd., 1977. Fertile, Candace. ?The Role of the Writer in Lawrence Durrell?s Fiction.? In On Miracle Ground: Essays on the Fiction of Lawrence Durrell, edited by Michael H. Begnal, 63?76. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1990. Gamache, Lawrence B. ?Lawrence Durrell and Gnosticism.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal, NS, 10 (2007 2006): 156?66. Gifford, James, and Stephen Osadetz. ?Gnosticism in Lawrence Durrell?s Monsieur: New Textual Evidence for Source Materials.? Agora: An Online Graduate Journal 3, no. 1 (2004): 1?8. ???. ?Le Gnosticisme dans Monsieur de Lawrence Durrell: Nouvelles Preuves.? In Hommage ? Jacques Lacarri?re: Durrell et Lacarri?re rencontre au bord du Styx, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner and Christiane S?ris, 117?28. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris X, 2008. Hall, Tessa Frances. ?Lawrence Durrell?s The Alexandria Quartet: Conflicting Metaphysics and the Escape from Alexandria.? Diss., University of Oxford, 1988. ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s the Alexandria Quartet: Conflicting Metaphysics and the Escape from Alexandria.? Dphil, Oxford, 1988. Hood, Richard. ?Hermetica, Relativity, and Place in The Alexandria Quartet.? In Lawrence Durrell: Actes Du Colloque Pour L?inauguration de La Biblioth?que Durrell, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner, 73?89. Nanterre, France: Universit? Paris-X, 1998. Kay, Helen Mary. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quintet: A Book of Miracles.? Phd, Michigan State University, 1987. Lorenz, Paul H. ??O World of Little Mirrors in the Light?: Al Khemia in The Avignon Quintet.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal NS 6 (1998): 104?17. ???. ?The Gnostic Connection to the Templar Treasure in Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx.? S B Academic Review: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Research 5, no. 1 (1996): 11?17. Morrison, James Raymond. ?Memory and Light in Lawrence Durrell?s The Revolt of Aphrodite.? Labrys 5 (1979): 141?53. North, Harry. ?Lawrence Durrell and the Prince of Darkness.? In-between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism 11, no. 2 (2002): 163?69. Robinson, Jeremy. Love, Culture & Poetry: A Study of Lawrence Durrell. Kidderminster, Worcester, England: Crescent Moon, 1990. Skordili, Beatrice. ?The Author and the Demiurge: Gnostic Dualism in The Alexandria Quartet.? Agora: An Online Graduate Journal 3, no. 1 (2004): 1?21. Smith, Richard. ?Afterword: The Relevance of Gnosticism.? In The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M. Robinson, 532?49. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Veldeman, Marie-Christine. ?A Reading of Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quintet.? S B Academic Review: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Research 5, no. 1 (1996): 19?26. From Ric.Wilson at msn.com Sun Aug 7 16:04:31 2016 From: Ric.Wilson at msn.com (Ric Wilson) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:04:31 +0000 Subject: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 112, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hey Bruce--Thank you for stoking the pipe! James' thoughtful 22+ resources humbled me (again, a good thing). But I can shout out for his blue hyperlink. I was there, man. That's just spot on. I'll address you here in the name of, let's just say, numerical sequence. I'm not aware of any evidence to support LD's mastery over primary texts in his "corpus". Only recently did I pass through Bowen's Many Histories Deep like some old white guy--impaled at the sting of his first gallstone. His text was knotted with sources which, btw, he most diplomatically clarified (see Notes) in his trajectory toward establishing a context for LD as subdomain of writer, personal landscape poet-family. LD stood out in Philoctetes-fashion, I mean the stuff of legends. LD's imaginative reconstruction of landscape, that is, actively rising above the tumult of his times and addressing a universal problem that is writing. There must be a causal relationship between LD's British status on earth and his work's timelessness (so far anyway)? There existed 3 others in his analysis, but his knowledge that endures was placing each writer's contributions within a Corpus -- others' personal histories, drives, connection to place, social constructs etc., corroborated his "argument." (a "quarrel" was admitted in his Notes but the stately manner of presentation maintained, impeccable) In numerical Order, LD was placed by no surprize at the end as if an evolutionary offshoot--a kind of unexpected perfect storm if you will--that readers must observe to get how this strain haves under test of time. My reading, friends, was irrevocably twisted--seeing a way to diagnose my fascination for & escape from LD's tentacle--was motive, not "sleeping with his thoughts," which happened along the way. (There's a story behind my signed copy , btw.) At endgame, a junkie in some rehab center being spoon fed came to mind. Finally, the curtains containing AQ were reconstructed to my relief. I even suspected hearing Carol Peirce's voice "I don't know," this too will pass, it was as mind riveting as the fall of Babel. In Meaning and Being in Myth , Bruce's present inquiry came to mind. I share an interest in making those connections Bruce sensed at work in LD. Authenticity for how those primary sources impacted LD's trajectory in the larger picture can be the proverbial straw--snake that spooked the horse. Hear Sam Harris from my media-complex broadcasting "truth" from Youtube. It reminds one, anachronistically, of LD's reconstructing an empire passing in Bitter Lemons. (Except LD was in the middle of things, agent-extraordinaire, not podcasting from an insular digitized studio where a tattooed DJ-interviewer lauds him as "super smart wizard."[dide]) I liked Noam better. In Austin's text, "Consciousness wills its own freedom, only to find itself in the snare of the unconscious." So we might say a us nemesis was literal incarnation of a particular presidential candidate (listen for "weird paradox"). So where LD referenced "primary sources" with respect for Norman's Numinous Ground, I'm struggling there right now. Norman wrote, "Much of modern psychological theory, with its talk of object relations, and its fascinations with mirrors that reflect more or less spurious images, suggests, by implication at least, that our alienation is inexorable." (24) (hear "both a narcissist and a psychopath...") So I'm selling burden to respondents of ilds who'll carry my wish for connections to primary sources and where it led, if possible, so can connect. Austin connected st chapter with a universal referent: "In responding to his mother's smile, the baby discovers himself as the signifier, both sign and sign-maker, for his mother. I am amused to discover that I am the smile on the face of that other person. The exchange of smiles between mother and child may, in time, be veiled with every kind of ambivalence, but the baby's first smile is as yet uncontaminated by the difference between subject and object, or between subject and signifier. This first mirroring of smiles is pure play, the gift mother and child give to each other, as one subject recognizing another. With his smile the baby makes his first discovery of himself as the creator, the I AM [ Coleridge cited earlier ] at the center of the world. The baby's smile,signifier mimicking signifier, is the first sign of awakening self-consciousness. " (28) Ric Wilson ________________________________ From: ILDS on behalf of ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca Sent: Sunday, August 7, 2016 12:01:14 PM To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 112, Issue 2 Send ILDS mailing list submissions to ilds at lists.uvic.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca You can reach the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Gnosticism (Bruce Redwine) 2. Re: Gnosticism (James Gifford) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:22:54 -0700 From: Bruce Redwine To: Sumantra Nag Cc: Richard Pine , Bruce Redwine Subject: [ilds] Gnosticism Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" In Mindscape (2005), Richard Pine notes that ?gnosticism ? fuels Durrell?s writings from its earliest stages? (p. 24). (Pine?s use of lower case g suggests a history of ?secret knowledge? other than what is regarded as an early Christian movement of the second or third century CE, identified with an upper case G.) But how familiar was Durrell with Gnostic literature, as primarily seen in the Nag Hammadi corpus (discovered in Upper Egypt around the end of 1945)? Gnosticism first appears in the Quartet, but Durrell?s knowledge of that came via Forster?s Alexandria. So his knowledge was based on secondary literature, not the primary sources as they began appearing in print after or near the completion of the Quartet in 1960. The Gospel of Thomas was first published in English translation in 1959. James Robinson?s authoritative The Nag Hammadi Library in English came out in 1977 (later revised in 1988). Gnosticism has a big role in the Quintet. Did Durrell study the prim! ary texts? Any evidence of that? Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:55:02 -0700 From: James Gifford To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Subject: Re: [ilds] Gnosticism Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Hi Bruce, Beatrice Skordili has, in my opinion, done the best reading of gnosticism in the Quartet based on what Durrell had available and gestures to in the books: Skordili, Beatrice. "The Author and the Demiurge: Gnostic Dualism in The Alexandria Quartet." /Agora/ 3.1 (2004): 1?21. Web. http://www.academia.edu/633349/The_Author_and_the_Demiurge_Gnostic_Dualism_in_The_Alexandria_Quartet Robinson's edition cites Durrell's /Monsieur/, but that's of course after Durrell had written it. I'd have to check, but I think it's in the 1988 edition, which is what's on my shelf (the 1990 printing), so Durrell's impact is known in the Nag Hammadi translations more than what influenced him. I've already made my own views plain on the listserv. The mss. for /Monsieur/ show Durrell doing a "mashup" of Serge Hutin and news clippings of Slovenian suicides to form the plot -- it was never a genuine "gnostic suicide cult" nor meant to be. He didn't say terribly kind things about LaCarriere's book (in letters not the Foreword to the translation). For that reason, I see gnosticism as a toolkit of themes more than as a sincere worldview in Durrell's later works, just like he picked up psychoanalytic case studies as fodder for plots (Semira's nose, for instance), though psychoanalysis itself seems more sincerely considered. I don't regard gnosticism in the Quartet and Quintet as necessarily a unified concept either; it may mean or gesture to different things despite being the same word. Too much was changing across the times he wrote them, so it's not like, say, how he depicts urban life in conflict with the individual or the city as a corporeal body or a willful entity. Below is a list of articles tagged with "gnositicism" from the bibliography (not exhaustive). All best, James ----------- Arthos, John. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Gnosticism.? The Personalist 43, no. 3 (1962): 360?73. Begnal, Michael H. ?The Mystery of the Templars in The Avignon Quintet.? In On Miracle Ground: Essays on the Fiction of Lawrence Durrell, edited by Michael H. Begnal, 155?65. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1990. Brigham, James. ?An Intruder From The East.? In Lawrence Durrell: Actes Du Colloque Pour L?inauguration de La Biblioth?que Durrell, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner, 91?99. Nanterre, France: Universit? Paris-X, 1998. Carley, James P. ?An Interview With Lawrence Durrell on the Background to Monsieur and Its Sequels.? The Malahat Review 51 (1979): 42?46. ???. ?Lawrence Durrell and the Gnostics.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Newsletter 2, no. 1 (1978): 3?10. ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx and Gnostic Heresy.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Quarterly 5, no. SI 1 (1981): 284?304. ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx and Gnostic Heresy.? Malahat Review 61 (1982): 156?67. Durrell, Lawrence. ?Foreword.? In The Gnostics, edited by Jacques LaCarriere, 7?8. London: Peter Owen Ltd., 1977. Fertile, Candace. ?The Role of the Writer in Lawrence Durrell?s Fiction.? In On Miracle Ground: Essays on the Fiction of Lawrence Durrell, edited by Michael H. Begnal, 63?76. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1990. Gamache, Lawrence B. ?Lawrence Durrell and Gnosticism.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal, NS, 10 (2007 2006): 156?66. Gifford, James, and Stephen Osadetz. ?Gnosticism in Lawrence Durrell?s Monsieur: New Textual Evidence for Source Materials.? Agora: An Online Graduate Journal 3, no. 1 (2004): 1?8. ???. ?Le Gnosticisme dans Monsieur de Lawrence Durrell: Nouvelles Preuves.? In Hommage ? Jacques Lacarri?re: Durrell et Lacarri?re rencontre au bord du Styx, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner and Christiane S?ris, 117?28. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris X, 2008. Hall, Tessa Frances. ?Lawrence Durrell?s The Alexandria Quartet: Conflicting Metaphysics and the Escape from Alexandria.? Diss., University of Oxford, 1988. ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s the Alexandria Quartet: Conflicting Metaphysics and the Escape from Alexandria.? Dphil, Oxford, 1988. Hood, Richard. ?Hermetica, Relativity, and Place in The Alexandria Quartet.? In Lawrence Durrell: Actes Du Colloque Pour L?inauguration de La Biblioth?que Durrell, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner, 73?89. Nanterre, France: Universit? Paris-X, 1998. Kay, Helen Mary. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quintet: A Book of Miracles.? Phd, Michigan State University, 1987. Lorenz, Paul H. ??O World of Little Mirrors in the Light?: Al Khemia in The Avignon Quintet.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal NS 6 (1998): 104?17. ???. ?The Gnostic Connection to the Templar Treasure in Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx.? S B Academic Review: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Research 5, no. 1 (1996): 11?17. Morrison, James Raymond. ?Memory and Light in Lawrence Durrell?s The Revolt of Aphrodite.? Labrys 5 (1979): 141?53. North, Harry. ?Lawrence Durrell and the Prince of Darkness.? In-between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism 11, no. 2 (2002): 163?69. Robinson, Jeremy. Love, Culture & Poetry: A Study of Lawrence Durrell. Kidderminster, Worcester, England: Crescent Moon, 1990. Skordili, Beatrice. ?The Author and the Demiurge: Gnostic Dualism in The Alexandria Quartet.? Agora: An Online Graduate Journal 3, no. 1 (2004): 1?21. Smith, Richard. ?Afterword: The Relevance of Gnosticism.? In The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M. Robinson, 532?49. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Veldeman, Marie-Christine. ?A Reading of Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quintet.? S B Academic Review: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Research 5, no. 1 (1996): 19?26. ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ ILDS mailing list ILDS at lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds ------------------------------ End of ILDS Digest, Vol 112, Issue 2 ************************************ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sun Aug 7 19:48:05 2016 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 19:48:05 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Gnosticism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5761E570-52BD-4DE8-A999-856264D54A54@earthlink.net> James, thanks for the bibliography of articles on Durrell and Gnosticism. That helps a lot. I have James Robinson?s Nag Hammadi Library (1988) but could not find a reference to Durrell. Maybe you?re thinking of Harold Bloom?s epigraph taken from Monsieur. I agree that Gnosticism was part of Durrell?s ?toolkit,? however rudimentary. Ian MacNiven refers to Durrell?s ?fictional hopper,? and by that he means notes and tidbits collected here and there, whatever happened to interest him. One other thing. Recent scholarship has questioned the ?story? of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices. Some call it an ?orientalist fantasy? (enter Edward W. Said): lost treasure found in a hunt for fertilizer, a jar with a jinn, a blood feud, a murder, and cannibalism. Sounds like the basic ingredients for a story by L. Durrell, no? Dunno when Robinson?s account of Nag Hammadi became popularized (1950s? 1960s?). It the sort of thing that Durrell could have picked up in a newspaper and noted in his ?fictional hopper.? Bruce > On Aug 7, 2016, at 11:55 AM, James Gifford wrote: > > Hi Bruce, > > Beatrice Skordili has, in my opinion, done the best reading of gnosticism in the Quartet based on what Durrell had available and gestures to in the books: > > Skordili, Beatrice. "The Author and the Demiurge: Gnostic Dualism in The Alexandria Quartet." /Agora/ 3.1 (2004): 1?21. Web. > .? > http://www.academia.edu/633349/The_Author_and_the_Demiurge_Gnostic_Dualism_in_The_Alexandria_Quartet > > Robinson's edition cites Durrell's /Monsieur/, but that's of course after Durrell had written it. I'd have to check, but I think it's in the 1988 edition, which is what's on my shelf (the 1990 printing), so Durrell's impact is known in the Nag Hammadi translations more than what influenced him. > > I've already made my own views plain on the listserv. The mss. for /Monsieur/ show Durrell doing a "mashup" of Serge Hutin and news clippings of Slovenian suicides to form the plot -- it was never a genuine "gnostic suicide cult" nor meant to be. He didn't say terribly kind things about LaCarriere's book (in letters not the Foreword to the translation). For that reason, I see gnosticism as a toolkit of themes more than as a sincere worldview in Durrell's later works, just like he picked up psychoanalytic case studies as fodder for plots (Semira's nose, for instance), though psychoanalysis itself seems more sincerely considered. I don't regard gnosticism in the Quartet and Quintet as necessarily a unified concept either; it may mean or gesture to different things despite being the same word. Too much was changing across the times he wrote them, so it's not like, say, how he depicts urban life in conflict with the individual or the city as a corporeal body or a willful entity. > > Below is a list of articles tagged with "gnositicism" from the bibliography (not exhaustive). > > All best, > James > > ----------- > Arthos, John. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Gnosticism.? The Personalist 43, no. 3 (1962): 360?73. > > Begnal, Michael H. ?The Mystery of the Templars in The Avignon Quintet.? In On Miracle Ground: Essays on the Fiction of Lawrence Durrell, edited by Michael H. Begnal, 155?65. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1990. > > Brigham, James. ?An Intruder From The East.? In Lawrence Durrell: Actes Du Colloque Pour L?inauguration de La Biblioth?que Durrell, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner, 91?99. Nanterre, France: Universit? Paris-X, 1998. > > Carley, James P. ?An Interview With Lawrence Durrell on the Background to Monsieur and Its Sequels.? The Malahat Review 51 (1979): 42?46. > > ???. ?Lawrence Durrell and the Gnostics.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Newsletter 2, no. 1 (1978): 3?10. > > ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx and Gnostic Heresy.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Quarterly 5, no. SI 1 (1981): 284?304. > > ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx and Gnostic Heresy.? Malahat Review 61 (1982): 156?67. > > Durrell, Lawrence. ?Foreword.? In The Gnostics, edited by Jacques LaCarriere, 7?8. London: Peter Owen Ltd., 1977. > > Fertile, Candace. ?The Role of the Writer in Lawrence Durrell?s Fiction.? In On Miracle Ground: Essays on the Fiction of Lawrence Durrell, edited by Michael H. Begnal, 63?76. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1990. > > Gamache, Lawrence B. ?Lawrence Durrell and Gnosticism.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal, NS, 10 (2007 2006): 156?66. > > Gifford, James, and Stephen Osadetz. ?Gnosticism in Lawrence Durrell?s Monsieur: New Textual Evidence for Source Materials.? Agora: An Online Graduate Journal 3, no. 1 (2004): 1?8. > > ???. ?Le Gnosticisme dans Monsieur de Lawrence Durrell: Nouvelles Preuves.? In Hommage ? Jacques Lacarri?re: Durrell et Lacarri?re rencontre au bord du Styx, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner and Christiane S?ris, 117?28. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris X, 2008. > > Hall, Tessa Frances. ?Lawrence Durrell?s The Alexandria Quartet: Conflicting Metaphysics and the Escape from Alexandria.? Diss., University of Oxford, 1988. > > ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s the Alexandria Quartet: Conflicting Metaphysics and the Escape from Alexandria.? Dphil, Oxford, 1988. > Hood, Richard. ?Hermetica, Relativity, and Place in The Alexandria Quartet.? In Lawrence Durrell: Actes Du Colloque Pour L?inauguration de La Biblioth?que Durrell, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner, 73?89. Nanterre, France: Universit? Paris-X, 1998. > > Kay, Helen Mary. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quintet: A Book of Miracles.? Phd, Michigan State University, 1987. > > Lorenz, Paul H. ??O World of Little Mirrors in the Light?: Al Khemia in The Avignon Quintet.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal NS 6 (1998): 104?17. > > ???. ?The Gnostic Connection to the Templar Treasure in Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx.? S B Academic Review: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Research 5, no. 1 (1996): 11?17. > > Morrison, James Raymond. ?Memory and Light in Lawrence Durrell?s The Revolt of Aphrodite.? Labrys 5 (1979): 141?53. > > North, Harry. ?Lawrence Durrell and the Prince of Darkness.? In-between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism 11, no. 2 (2002): 163?69. > > Robinson, Jeremy. Love, Culture & Poetry: A Study of Lawrence Durrell. Kidderminster, Worcester, England: Crescent Moon, 1990. > > Skordili, Beatrice. ?The Author and the Demiurge: Gnostic Dualism in The Alexandria Quartet.? Agora: An Online Graduate Journal 3, no. 1 (2004): 1?21. > > Smith, Richard. ?Afterword: The Relevance of Gnosticism.? In The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M. Robinson, 532?49. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. > > Veldeman, Marie-Christine. ?A Reading of Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quintet.? S B Academic Review: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Research 5, no. 1 (1996): 19?26. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cnncravi at gmail.com Sun Aug 7 20:36:42 2016 From: cnncravi at gmail.com (Ravi Nambiar) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 09:06:42 +0530 Subject: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 112, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear friends, I would like to draw your kind attention to page numbers 126-7 in my book, *Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell's Novels *(paperback). I quoted there Dr. Radhakrishnan, the great Indian philosopher: "Gnosticism was a deliberate attempt to fuse Greek (Platonic) and Hindu elements. It is a name for the whole system of syncretic religious thought ... Many of the chief features of Gnosticism are those common to the Upanishads and the mystic traditions of Greece". I hope we agree that the theme in* Sebastian* is death and the acceptance of death. I have shown in my book how Durrell (Affad), in this novel, contrasts Gnostic approach to death to that of the Indian approach and in order to support this, I quoted what Durrell told James P. Carley: "I think if one examines in detail Hindu philosophy and Chinese philosophy, for example, one can see how the refusal can be operated without actually taking it so far as to die. It is a good deal saner way of dealing with this problem of dissent than the Gnostic way which is extreme." I have always held that Durrell employs the literary device of contrast in his novels to enable the readers to choose what is *saner* and also to reject what is absurd. I don't think he imposes any particular idea on the readers, though he is emphatic that the East is saner. Regards Ravi Nambiar On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:31 AM, wrote: > Send ILDS mailing list submissions to > ilds at lists.uvic.ca > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca > > You can reach the person managing the list at > ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Gnosticism (Bruce Redwine) > 2. Re: Gnosticism (James Gifford) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:22:54 -0700 > From: Bruce Redwine > To: Sumantra Nag > Cc: Richard Pine , Bruce Redwine > > Subject: [ilds] Gnosticism > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > In Mindscape (2005), Richard Pine notes that ?gnosticism ? fuels Durrell?s > writings from its earliest stages? (p. 24). (Pine?s use of lower case g > suggests a history of ?secret knowledge? other than what is regarded as an > early Christian movement of the second or third century CE, identified with > an upper case G.) But how familiar was Durrell with Gnostic literature, as > primarily seen in the Nag Hammadi corpus (discovered in Upper Egypt around > the end of 1945)? Gnosticism first appears in the Quartet, but Durrell?s > knowledge of that came via Forster?s Alexandria. So his knowledge was > based on secondary literature, not the primary sources as they began > appearing in print after or near the completion of the Quartet in 1960. > The Gospel of Thomas was first published in English translation in 1959. > James Robinson?s authoritative The Nag Hammadi Library in English came out > in 1977 (later revised in 1988). Gnosticism has a big role in the > Quintet. Did Durrell study the prim! > ary texts? Any evidence of that? > > Bruce > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: 20160807/e20e9248/attachment-0001.html> > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:55:02 -0700 > From: James Gifford > To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Subject: Re: [ilds] Gnosticism > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed > > Hi Bruce, > > Beatrice Skordili has, in my opinion, done the best reading of > gnosticism in the Quartet based on what Durrell had available and > gestures to in the books: > > Skordili, Beatrice. "The Author and the Demiurge: Gnostic Dualism in The > Alexandria Quartet." /Agora/ 3.1 (2004): 1?21. Web. > > http://www.academia.edu/633349/The_Author_and_the_ > Demiurge_Gnostic_Dualism_in_The_Alexandria_Quartet > > Robinson's edition cites Durrell's /Monsieur/, but that's of course > after Durrell had written it. I'd have to check, but I think it's in > the 1988 edition, which is what's on my shelf (the 1990 printing), so > Durrell's impact is known in the Nag Hammadi translations more than what > influenced him. > > I've already made my own views plain on the listserv. The mss. for > /Monsieur/ show Durrell doing a "mashup" of Serge Hutin and news > clippings of Slovenian suicides to form the plot -- it was never a > genuine "gnostic suicide cult" nor meant to be. He didn't say terribly > kind things about LaCarriere's book (in letters not the Foreword to the > translation). For that reason, I see gnosticism as a toolkit of themes > more than as a sincere worldview in Durrell's later works, just like he > picked up psychoanalytic case studies as fodder for plots (Semira's > nose, for instance), though psychoanalysis itself seems more sincerely > considered. I don't regard gnosticism in the Quartet and Quintet as > necessarily a unified concept either; it may mean or gesture to > different things despite being the same word. Too much was changing > across the times he wrote them, so it's not like, say, how he depicts > urban life in conflict with the individual or the city as a corporeal > body or a willful entity. > > Below is a list of articles tagged with "gnositicism" from the > bibliography (not exhaustive). > > All best, > James > > ----------- > Arthos, John. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Gnosticism.? The Personalist 43, no. 3 > (1962): 360?73. > > Begnal, Michael H. ?The Mystery of the Templars in The Avignon Quintet.? > In On Miracle Ground: Essays on the Fiction of Lawrence Durrell, edited > by Michael H. Begnal, 155?65. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1990. > > Brigham, James. ?An Intruder From The East.? In Lawrence Durrell: Actes > Du Colloque Pour L?inauguration de La Biblioth?que Durrell, edited by > Corinne Alexandre-Garner, 91?99. Nanterre, France: Universit? Paris-X, > 1998. > > Carley, James P. ?An Interview With Lawrence Durrell on the Background > to Monsieur and Its Sequels.? The Malahat Review 51 (1979): 42?46. > > ???. ?Lawrence Durrell and the Gnostics.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence > Durrell Newsletter 2, no. 1 (1978): 3?10. > > ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx and Gnostic Heresy.? Deus > Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Quarterly 5, no. SI 1 (1981): 284?304. > > ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx and Gnostic Heresy.? Malahat > Review 61 (1982): 156?67. > > Durrell, Lawrence. ?Foreword.? In The Gnostics, edited by Jacques > LaCarriere, 7?8. London: Peter Owen Ltd., 1977. > > Fertile, Candace. ?The Role of the Writer in Lawrence Durrell?s > Fiction.? In On Miracle Ground: Essays on the Fiction of Lawrence > Durrell, edited by Michael H. Begnal, 63?76. Lewisburg: Bucknell > University Press, 1990. > > Gamache, Lawrence B. ?Lawrence Durrell and Gnosticism.? Deus Loci: The > Lawrence Durrell Journal, NS, 10 (2007 2006): 156?66. > > Gifford, James, and Stephen Osadetz. ?Gnosticism in Lawrence Durrell?s > Monsieur: New Textual Evidence for Source Materials.? Agora: An Online > Graduate Journal 3, no. 1 (2004): 1?8. > > ???. ?Le Gnosticisme dans Monsieur de Lawrence Durrell: Nouvelles > Preuves.? In Hommage ? Jacques Lacarri?re: Durrell et Lacarri?re > rencontre au bord du Styx, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner and > Christiane S?ris, 117?28. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris X, 2008. > > Hall, Tessa Frances. ?Lawrence Durrell?s The Alexandria Quartet: > Conflicting Metaphysics and the Escape from Alexandria.? Diss., > University of Oxford, 1988. > > ???. ?Lawrence Durrell?s the Alexandria Quartet: Conflicting Metaphysics > and the Escape from Alexandria.? Dphil, Oxford, 1988. > Hood, Richard. ?Hermetica, Relativity, and Place in The Alexandria > Quartet.? In Lawrence Durrell: Actes Du Colloque Pour L?inauguration de > La Biblioth?que Durrell, edited by Corinne Alexandre-Garner, 73?89. > Nanterre, France: Universit? Paris-X, 1998. > > Kay, Helen Mary. ?Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon Quintet: A Book of > Miracles.? Phd, Michigan State University, 1987. > > Lorenz, Paul H. ??O World of Little Mirrors in the Light?: Al Khemia in > The Avignon Quintet.? Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal NS 6 > (1998): 104?17. > > ???. ?The Gnostic Connection to the Templar Treasure in Lawrence > Durrell?s Avignon Quincunx.? S B Academic Review: A Journal of > Interdisciplinary Studies and Research 5, no. 1 (1996): 11?17. > > Morrison, James Raymond. ?Memory and Light in Lawrence Durrell?s The > Revolt of Aphrodite.? Labrys 5 (1979): 141?53. > > North, Harry. ?Lawrence Durrell and the Prince of Darkness.? In-between: > Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism 11, no. 2 (2002): 163?69. > > Robinson, Jeremy. Love, Culture & Poetry: A Study of Lawrence Durrell. > Kidderminster, Worcester, England: Crescent Moon, 1990. > > Skordili, Beatrice. ?The Author and the Demiurge: Gnostic Dualism in The > Alexandria Quartet.? Agora: An Online Graduate Journal 3, no. 1 (2004): > 1?21. > > Smith, Richard. ?Afterword: The Relevance of Gnosticism.? In The Nag > Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M. Robinson, 532?49. New > York: HarperCollins, 1990. > > Veldeman, Marie-Christine. ?A Reading of Lawrence Durrell?s Avignon > Quintet.? S B Academic Review: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies > and Research 5, no. 1 (1996): 19?26. > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > > > ------------------------------ > > End of ILDS Digest, Vol 112, Issue 2 > ************************************ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: