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Towards A Literary Criticism: Lowry, Durrell, Dolores, And The Alchemical Balance Between Critical And Creative Writing, Mark Burlingame

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

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 Under the Volcano and the Alexandria Quartet 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 …