THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL Diego Delgado Duatis

302 Pages·2016·13.66 MB·English

THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL

Diego Delgado Duatis

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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

Diego Delgado Duatis

THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER
AND LAWRENCE DURRELL

DOCTORAL THESIS

Supervised by
Dr Dolors Collellmir Morales and Dr Jordi Lamarca Margalef

Tarragona
2015
UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

DEPARTAMENT D’ESTUDIS ANGLESOS I ALEMANYS
Avinguda Catalunya 35
43002 Tarragona, Spain
Tel. [phone]

Dr Jordi Lamarca Margalef
Department of English and German Studies
Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL.

We hereby certify that the present study “The Hellenic World of Henry Miller and Lawrence
Durrell”, presented by Diego Delgado Duatis for the award of the degree of Doctor, has been
carried out under our supervision at the Department of English and German Studies, Rovira i
Virgili University, Tarragona, and that it fulfils all the requirements for the award of Doctor.

Dr Jordi Lamarca Margalef Dr Dolors Collellmir Morales
Doctoral Thesis Co-Director Doctoral Thesis Co-Director

Tarragona, 30th November 2015.

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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the literary productions of two interconnected writers,
Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell, while paying special attention to their works on the
Greek world, and the influence that the Hellenic culture had on both authors through some
modern Greek writers. This thesis demonstrates that Miller’s and Durrell’s contact with the
Hellenic World and with certain Greek writers of the first half of the twentieth century
strongly influenced them and permeated many of their works. Here, the term ‘Hellenic’ is
employed as used by Cavafy, meaning the Greek culture as a continuum. That is to say, the
cultural heritage of the Greek people as a group sharing the Greek language and a common
set of values.
This connection is found in three main areas of confluence among Durrell and Miller
and the Greek authors that are here studied: the formers’ assimilation of the latter’s
productions, the close intellectual and aesthetic affinities among all of them, and the decisive
influence of the country that brought them together.
Miller and Durrell played indeed an important role in spreading the knowledge of
some modern Greek writers at an international level which still had not been sufficiently
studied. Their personal and literary relationships with some of the members of the Greek
“Generation of the 30s” pervaded their productions and philosophical discourses.
Consequently, this dissertation also examines Durrell’s and Miller’s long mutual
correspondence and their exchange of letters with some of these Greek intellectuals. This last
aspect has involved working in several archives with collections related to Durrell, Miller,
Seferis, and Sikelianos, which has resulted in the study of an extensive compilation of
unpublished documents.

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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

Acknowledgements

I feel that my first debt of gratitude is owed to the codirectors of my doctoral
dissertation, Dr Dolors Collellmir Morales (Universitat Rovira i Virgili), for her help and
trust from the very beginning, and Dr Jordi Lamarca Margalef (Universitat Rovira i Virgili),
for his guidance in the last part of this undertaking.
My thanks to the scholars working at the Department of English and German Studies
(Universitat Rovira i Virgili) for trusting in my research project.
I must also thank especially another professor, Dr M. Àngels Caamaño (Universitat
Rovira i Virgili), who taught me to sail the seas of the imaginaire.
I am also grateful to the following people: James Gifford (Fairleigh Dickinson
University, Canada), Corinne Alexandre-Garner (Bibliothèque Lawrence Durrell, Université
Paris Ouest Nanterre, France), Penelope Durrell Hope (sorely missed), Karen Birch, Panos
Karagiorgos (Ionian University, Greece), Nikos Petrochilos (Ephorate of Antiquities of
Phokis, Greece), Ilias Bitsanis, Theodoros Chiotis (Cavafy Archive, Greece), Andriani (for
helping in my translation of Sikelianos’ “Pericles Yannopoulos”), Maria Voltera (Archives
of the National Bank of Greece, formerly Gennadius Library Archives, Greece), and Maria
Dimitriadou (Benaki Museum Historical Archives, Greece).
And last but not least, this research paper would not have been possible without the
endless encouragement and inestimable support of my fellow traveller in life, Martina, and
the patience of our little daughters Dàcil and Dèlia.
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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

Table of Contents

Abstract .....................................................................................................................4
Acknowledgements...................................................................................................5
Table of Contents......................................................................................................6
List of Illustrations....................................................................................................8
Introduction...............................................................................................................9

Chapter 1: Durrell’s and Miller’s Introduction to Greece.
Kostis Palamas: An Intellectual Reference..........................................16

1.1. Lawrence Durrell’s Arrival in Greece...........................................16
1.2. Durrell’s First Contact with Modern Greek Literature..................22
1.3. Kostis Palamas and His Image of the City....................................24
1.4. Henry Miller, Kostis Palamas, and the Hour of Man....................31

Chapter 2: Constantine P. Cavafy: Durrell’s ‘Poet of the City’..............................35

2.1. Cavafy’s City and Durrell’s ‘Spirit of Place’................................35
2.2. Death, Rebirth and Memory..........................................................61
2.3. Cavafy’s Hellenism and the Barbarians........................................86
2.4. The Archetypal Journey.................................................................91
2.5. The Image of the Eye in Cavafy and Durrell.................................96
2.6. The Notion of Relativity in Cavafy and in Durrell’s Quartet......103
2.7. Cavafy and the Alexandrian Characters in Durrell.....................106

Chapter 3: Angelos Sikelianos and Henry Miller: The Poet as a Visionary.........114

3.1. The Cycle of Renewal in Sikelianos and Miller..........................114
3.2. The Prophetic Element in Sikelianos’ and Miller’s Works.........130
3.3. Eva Sikelianos and the Delphic Idea...........................................142
3.4. The Influence of the Pre-Socratics..............................................158
3.5. ‘God in Man’ in Sikelianos and Miller........................................172

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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

Chapter 4: Unrenowned Influences: Yannopoulos, Kakantzakis, Prevelakis, Gatsos
and Elytis..........................................................................................182

4.1. A Quest for the Deep Essence of the Land and Its People..........182

Chapter 5: George Seferis: The Carrier of the Flame of Prometheus...............199

5.1. The Halcyon Days of Prewar Greece..........................................199
5.2. Durrell’s Pioneering English Translations of Seferis..................213
5.3. From the Myth of Orestes to the poem “The Cistern”................225
5.4. The Archetypal Journey...............................................................231
5.5. Miller in the Work of Seferis: Angels and Miracles...................240
5.6. Reading Landscape......................................................................246
5.7. Seferis’ Translations of Durrell...................................................249
5.8. The Places of the Past..................................................................255
5.9. Light in Seferis and Miller..........................................................266

Chapter 6: Conclusions ....................................................................................276

Appendix: Angelos Sikelianos, “Pericles Yannopoulos”.................................286
Bibliography.....................................................................................................289
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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

List of Illustrations

Image 1. Theodore Stephanides visiting Villa Ambron..........................................17
Image 2. Katsimbalis with Durrell in Athens..........................................................23
Image 3. Kostis Palamas .........................................................................................25
Image 4. Palamas’ funeral. Sikelianos....................................................................33
Image 5. Constantine Cavafy..................................................................................36
Image 6. Alexander with a horned diadem..............................................................54
Image 7. Dimitris I. Antoniou.................................................................................95
Image 8. Angelos Sikelianos.................................................................................114
Image 9. Henry Miller’s tree chart........................................................................128
Image 10. Eva Sikelianos......................................................................................142
Image 11. Prometheus Bound. Delphic Festival, 1930.........................................152
Image 12. Oceanids, Prometheus Bound. Delphic Festival..................................153
Image 13. Pericles Yannopoulos...........................................................................182
Image 14. Nikos Kazantzakis................................................................................188
Image 15. Pandelis Prevelakis...............................................................................191
Image 16. Inscribed copy of Crète infortunée.......................................................192
Image 17. Nikos Gatsos.........................................................................................195
Image 18. Odysseas Elytis.....................................................................................196
Image 19. George Seferis......................................................................................199
Image 20. Miller with Katsimbalis. Hydra, 1939. Photo. by Seferis....................205
Image 21. Miller, Ghika and Durrell. Paris, 1967.................................................206
Image 22. Stavros Tsousis.....................................................................................208
Image 23. Lefteris Alexiou....................................................................................208
Image 24. Miller on Hydra, 1939..........................................................................242
Image 25. Seferis with Durrell in Cyprus, 1953....................................................250

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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI
THE HELLENIC WORLD OF HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
Diego Delgado Duatis

Introduction

Ancient Greece has undoubtedly been considered as the cradle of our civilization and
the fact that Greek classical works, especially in the fields of philosophy and arts, constitute
the roots of this civilization has also been generally recognized. However, around these
cultural bases there are still a number of aspects that require a more profound analysis and
there are also questions that can still be posed. Two of these questions are related to the
circumstances of that moment and to our present attitude towards them: The first one is:
What was the cause of such a vast amount of ideas and works of art? And the second one is:
Are we still able to connect with and understand our own cultural roots?
Lawrence Durrell, in his personal guide to the Greek islands, while mentioning the
thousands of tourists that every year visit the cradle of Western world, argues: ‘[...] they
march off round Delos, like a human sacrifice to a culture which has ceased to identify with
its own roots’.1 Durrell’s ironical remark is very appropriate. In the same work, while
discoursing upon ancient Greeks, he adds: ‘The question is not so much 'What did they have
that we haven’t got?', it is rather 'What did they start that we have still been unable to
finish?'’2
Both comments show Durrell’s interest in understanding the contribution of the
Hellenic world from a contemporary perspective, and at the same time, his attempt to trace
those concepts and views from the ancient world that might have been lost in the course of
Western history. Paradoxically, it would be mainly contemporary Greece, the country and its
people, and some of the greatest modern voices of Greek literature which would give Durrell
an insight into that culture.
The Ionian island of Corfu would be the door to Greece for Durrell. In Blue Thirst,
when dealing with the island, Durrell admits the importance of this place in his life and
work: ‘You have two birth-places. You have the place where you were really born and then
you have a place of predilection where you really wake up to reality.’3
After an invitation from Durrell, another writer would travel to Corfu and similarly
find his own way into the country, his friend Henry Miller. In The Colossus of Maroussi,
Miller confesses that his choosing of Greece as a destination proved being relevant for his
own inner life: ‘The decision to take a vacation for one year, to abstain from writing during

1 Lawrence Durrell, The Greek Islands (London: Faber, 1978) 228.
2 Ibid., 273.
3 Lawrence Durrell, Blue Thirst (Santa Barbara, California: Capra Press, 1975) 22.
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