Abstract:
Lawrence Durrell’s Postmodern Epic
by
Theodore Steinberg

It might be helpful too begin this essay by explaining what I will notbe saying in the following pages.  I will not be saying that one day in the late fifties, Lawrence Durrell decided to write an epic novel in four volumes, so he looked up "epic" in a glossary of literary terms, found the traditional characteristics of epic, and included all, or even most of them, in The Alexandria Quartet. Furthermore, I will not be claiming that those epic characteristics have been there all along for everyone to see but that, in the last forty or so years, only I have noticed them.  And I will certainly not conclude the paper by listing those characteristics and describing how Durrell employed them.
    What I will say is, I hope, more complex and more interesting.  I will argue that almost every age and almost evey culture creates its own kind of epic aand that The Alexandria Quartet is one among several works that comprise an important form of twentieth-century epic that can be found in the literatures of many countries but that is especially prominent in English and American literatures.  Finally, I will argue that this kind of generic criticism matters, that it makes a difference in how we approach the works under consideration.

Deus Loci 7 (1999-2000): 58-69.

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