A Segment of Durrell’s Quartet
- A Segment of Durrell’s Quartet
Associate Professor of German, University of Manitoba; author of The Irish Writers (1958) and the forthcoming Figures behind T. S. Eliot
notes
1. Gerald Sykes, “One Vote for the Sun,” in The World of Lawrence Durrell, ed. Harry T. Moore (Carbondale, 1962), 152. Though I argue this point with Mr. Sykes, I admire his work in furthering the reception of Durrell.
2. The Tree of ldleness was published in 1955 (London). The Melissa poem is a “A Bowl of Roses.” And compare “A Portrait of Theodora.”
3. Justine (London, 1957), 27.
4. See the unsigned “Profile” in the Observer (London), February 28, 1960, and Harry T. Moore in his introduction to The World of Lawrence Durrell, xi.
5. Mountolive (London, 1958), 119–22.
6. Balthazar (London, 1958), 61–2.
7. Durrell does not use the word “cresset” in the Nebi Daniel paragraph, but he brings it into play later in the Quartet. And one result is, that a reader who has enjoyed the Quartet will afterwards enjoy the Elizabethans a little better. When, for example, Glendower said the audience of Shakespeare’s day responded with a visual image, not available to most of us in these later times until Durrell renewed it. Again and again Durrell revives or enlarges the language (Eliot has called this the poet’s function).
at my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets
Key to Modern Poetry (London, 1952), 190.
See Gerald Durrell, My Family and other Animals (London, 1959), 16.
