From the Elephant's Back

Collected Essays & Travel Writings

Lawrence Durrell (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

440 Seiten

2015
University of Alberta Press (Verlag)
978-1-77212-051-6 (ISBN)

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Thirty-eight rare, out-of-print or previously unpublished essays and letters by Lawrence Durrell with scholarly introduction.

“…the proverb says that whoever sees the world from the back of an elephant learns the secrets of the jungle and becomes a seer. I had to be content to become a poet.”
—Lawrence Durrell

Best known for his novels and travel writing, Lawrence Durrell defied easy classification within twentieth-century Modernism. His anti-authoritarian tendencies put him at odds with many contemporaries—aesthetically and politically. However, thanks to a compelling recontextualization by editor James Gifford, these thirty-eight previously unpublished and out-of-print essays and letters reveal that Durrell’s maturation as an artist was rich, complex, and subtle. Durrell fans will treasure this selection of rare nonfiction, while scholars of Durrell, Modernist literature, anti-authoritarian artists, and the Personalist movement will also appreciate Gifford’s fine editorial work. Foreword by Peter Baldwin.

“Gifford’s scholarly command of the archives shows—especially his working intimacy with the unpublished archived words of Durrell’s editors, publishers, and collaborators. I have no doubt that this collection will serve as a starting point for any number of new critical ventures into the life and writing of Lawrence Durrell.”
—Charles Sligh, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Born in Jalandhar, British India, Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) was a critically hailed novelist, poet, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet novels, which were ranked by the Modern Library as among the greatest works of English literature in the twentieth century. James Gifford is Professor of English and the director of the university core at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Vancouver.

Contents
VII Foreword
PETER BALDWIN

XI Acknowledgements

XIII Introduction
JAMES GIFFORD

1 From the Elephant’s Back

PERSONAL POSIT IONS
27 A Letter from the Land of the Gods
29 Airgraph on Refugee Poets in Africa
37 No Clue to Living
47 This Magnetic, Bedevilled Island That Tugs at My Heart
53 Lamas in a French Forest

IDEAS ABOUT LITERATURE
63 The Prince and Hamlet
A Diagnosis
73 Hamlet, Prince of China
83 Prospero’s Isle
To Caliban
99 Ideas About Poems
101 Ideas About Poems II
103 The Heraldic Universe
107 Hellene and Philhellene
123 A Cavafy Find
129 A Real Heart Transplant into English
135 Introduction to Wordsworth
149 L’amour, Clef du Mystère?

ETERNAL CONTEMPORARIES
183 Theatre
Sense and Sensibility
187 The Happy Rock
199 Studies in Genius VI
Groddeck
225 Constant Zarian
Triple Exile
235 Enigma Variations
239 The Shades of Dylan Thomas
247 Bernard Spencer
257 The Other Eliot
271 Richard Aldington
277 On George Seferis
281 Poets Under the Bed

SPIRIT OF PLACE : TRAVEL WRITING
287 Corfu
Isle of Legend
297 The Island of the Rose
311 Can Dreams Live on When Dreamers Die?
317 Family Portrait
325 Letter in the Sofa
331 The Moonlight of Your Smile
337 The Poetic Obsession of Dublin
347 Borromean Isles
353 Alexandria Revisited
359 With Durrell in Egypt
379 Works Cited
391 Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	6.3.2015
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	650 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
	Reisen ► Reiseberichte ► Europa
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
ISBN-10	1-77212-051-0 / 1772120510
ISBN-13	978-1-77212-051-6 / 9781772120516
Zustand	Neuware