UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) The elegant velvet glove: A textual and visual reading of the gothicised female form in Lawrence Durrell’s 'The Alexandria quartet' Kreuiter, A.D. Publication date 2014 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Kreuiter, A. D. (2014). The elegant velvet glove: A textual and visual reading of the gothicised female form in Lawrence Durrell’s 'The Alexandria quartet'. [Thesis, externally prepared, Universiteit van Amsterdam]. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). 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UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:06 Mar 2023 Allison Kreuiter T h e E l e g a n t V e l v e t G l o v e A The l l E i s o legant n K V r e elvet Glove u i t e r A Textual and Visual reading of the Gothicised Female Form in Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet The Elegant Velvet Glove The Alexandria Quartet A Textual and Visual reading of the Gothicised Female Form in Lawrence Durrell’s ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT Ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op woensdag 23 april 2014, te 12.00 uur door Allison Dorothy Kreuiter Geboren te Johannesburg, Zuid Afrika. Promotiecommissie Promotor: Prof. dr. M.G. Bal Overige leden: dr. M. Aydemir dr. E. Peeren prof. dr. T.L. Vaessens prof. dr. I.M. van der Poel prof. dr. E. Rutten Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen Cover Image: Peter Liversidge, Triumph, After Max Klinger, 2013. Two-colour screenprint onto 410gsm Somerset paper and hand-carved Carrara Marble, with Peter Coates. 88.8 x 166.1 cm (print size) 103.4 x 180.7 cm (framed size) 5.5 x 11 x 33 cm (marble glove) © Liversidge and Coates Image credit: courtesy the artist and Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh. Photograph: © John McKenzie Design: Thea Bester-Swanepoel. Acknowledgements I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Mieke Bal for agreeing to be my supervisor. Her insightful and exacting critical commentary were both supportive and inspiring. She would accept nothing less than a thorough and cogent analysis, which ensured that I have become a far better scholar than I believed possible. Mieke was also unsparingly generous with her time, no matter how busy she might have been. Her brilliance as a scholar has made the two and a half years spent on this study eminently worthwhile and uplifting. As an externally funded PhD student, whose first visit to Amsterdam was for my defence ceremony, my thanks goes to ASCA for the support and assistance provided to me concerning practical and administrative matters. In this regard, I would like to thank Eloe Kingma. My particular thanks to Hotze Mulder who kindly and tolerantly answered all my many questions and to Margreet Vermeulen for her constant efficiency and helpfulness. To my colleague Jessica Murray whose support throughout the process of writing this work has been inestimable I am indebted to Peter Liversidge for giving me permission to use the picture of his amazingly beautiful glove on my cover. This glove is one in a cycle that pays homage to the artist Max Klinger’s series of 10 etchings Paraphrases about the Finding of a Glove (1881). As the glove has strong symbolic value within Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, this cover image acts to highlight my concerns within this thesis. Thea Bester-Swanepoel my thanks for designing the cover. Finally, to Oliver for enduring this for a second time, my gratitude. i CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... i List of Images .................................................................................................................. iv Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: City, Landscape, Memory ............................................................................... 15 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 15 The Cartographic Feminisation of Alexandria ................................................................................. 21 The Magnetic Visual Panorama ....................................................................................................... 29 Heterotopic Illusion ......................................................................................................................... 42 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 63 Chapter 2: Narrators, Focalisors and Focalisation ............................................................ 65 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 65 Justine .............................................................................................................................................. 68 Balthazar .......................................................................................................................................... 71 Mountolive ....................................................................................................................................... 77 Clea .................................................................................................................................................. 82 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 86 Chapter 3: The Colonising Gaze ....................................................................................... 88 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 88 Usurping the Gaze - Justine ............................................................................................................. 93 Fragile Object - Melissa .................................................................................................................. 105 Golden Perfection - Clea ................................................................................................................ 119 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 124 Chapter 4: The Fetish .................................................................................................... 127 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 127 Masquerade and Spectacle - Justine ............................................................................................. 131 Voice and Veil - Leila ...................................................................................................................... 144 Blind Medusa - Liza Pursewarden .................................................................................................. 154 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 166 Chapter 5: Gothic Fantasy of the Femme Fatale - Justine ............................................... 168 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 168 ii Dangerous Temptress .................................................................................................................... 171 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 198 Chapter 6: Kisses, Gloves and the Gothic Heroine - Clea ................................................ 200 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 200 Cornflowers and Sapphires ............................................................................................................ 203 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 239 Afterword .................................................................................................................... 242 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 248 Samenvatting ............................................................................................................... 252 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 258 iii List of Images Figure 1 Francisco Goya: Saturn devouring his Son ......................................................................... 27 Figure 2 Giorgio de Chirico: The Enigma of the Hour ...................................................................... 39 Figure 3 Giacomo Balla: Street Lamp ............................................................................................... 52 Figure 4 Henri Jacques Edouard Evenepoel: Orange Market in Bildah ........................................... 59 Figure 5 Fayum Mummy Portrait ................................................................................................... 100 Figure 6 Anonymous: Le Miroir de la Vie et de la Mort ................................................................. 107 Figure 7 Edvard Munch: The Scream of Nature ............................................................................. 111 Figure 8 Albrecht Dürer: The Four Avenging Angels of the Euphrates from the Apocalypse ....... 115 Figure 9 Sandro Botticelli: Primavera - Face of Flora ..................................................................... 119 Figure 10 Sandro Botticelli: The Primavera ................................................................................... 120 Figure 11 Meret Oppenheim: Object (Breakfast in Fur) ................................................................ 132 Figure 12 Michelangelo de Merisi da Caravaggio: Judith Beheading Holofernes ......................... 134 Figure 13 Germaine Krull: Nude Woman Wearing Gloves ............................................................ 137 Figure 14 Germaine Krull: Aktmappe ............................................................................................ 140 Figure 15 Rene Magritte: Discovery (la Découverte) ..................................................................... 148 Figure 16 Antonio Corradini: Veiled Lady (Purity) ......................................................................... 152 Figure 17 George de la Tour: Magdalen with the smoking Flame ................................................. 155 Figure 18 Auguste Rodin: The Tempest ......................................................................................... 160 Figure 19 Romaine Brooks: Le Trajet ............................................................................................. 179 Figure 20 Hans Holbein: The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb .............................................. 180 Figure 21 Edouard Manet: Olympia ............................................................................................... 183 Figure 22 William Blake: Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave .................................................. 189 Figure 23 Man Ray: Portmanteau .................................................................................................. 191 Figure 24 Jacques Andre-Boiffard: Untitled ................................................................................... 193 Figure 25 Titian: The Venus of Urbino ........................................................................................... 205 iv Figure 26 Fernand Khnopff: Study of Women ............................................................................... 210 Figure 27 Michelangelo de Merisi de Caravaggio: The Incredulity of Thomas .............................. 232 Figure 28 British Science Museum: Prosthetic Hand ..................................................................... 235 Figure 29 Peter Liversidge: Glove .................................................................................................. 239 v