Towards a <i>Literary Criticism</i>: Lowry, Durrell, Dolores, and the alchemical balance between critical and creative writing

<p>I begin this study with the formalistic essays of Michael Oakeshott and Susan Sontag, observing the precarious position of aesthetics in contemporary literary discourse. Rather than fit the novels <em>Under the Volcano</em> and the <em>Alexandria Quartet</em> into normative Kantian or New Critical frameworks, I follow the course of alchemical allusions in Lowry’s novel and relate them to the troubled theme of modern love in Durrell’s, writing in an experiential, plot-driven manner towards a narrative describing the effects of these texts upon my fiction. After I discuss the traces of Sade in Durrell, the metafictional novelette “Dolor” concludes the project, betraying numerous critical themes: the decentered subject, anxieties of authorship, and writing the body as text. My aim is to suggest that if literature is not beholden to logical truth, criticism might follow a more literary course by exposing itself to the elements of fiction—whose assimilative revenge upon theory seems long overdue.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English Language and Literature

Year dc:date.available

2010

Author dc:creator

• Burlingame, Mark

Contributors dc:contributor

• Paul Bruss, PhD, Chair
• Charles Cunningham, PhD
• Christine Neufeld, PhD

• aesthetics
• Lawrence Durrell
• Malcolm Lowry
• creative writing

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.emich.edu/theses/295

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-1294