“Like dancers to a music they deserve”: Setting to Music Lawrence Durrell’s Poetic Nostalgia for Greece

Abstract

This article aims to examine several musical transmediations of Lawrence Durrell’s poems. Given the evocative imagery and musicality of Durrell’s own poetry, it is no wonder that his works have attracted musical renditions, ranging from jazz to art songs. Durrell’s friend Wallace Southam set to music different poems by Durrell, namely “Nemea,” “In Arcadia,” “Lesbos” and “Nothing is lost, sweet self” (based on the poem “Echo”). Thus far, Southam’s musical transmediations have mainly remained overlooked. Nevertheless, they offer us with interesting new perspectives on the transmediation of contemporary poetry. As a musician, Southam transmediates the poet’s musicality in his verses and plays with the rhythm, providing listeners with sometimes more melancholic renditions that convey hopelessness, and more tense musical rhythms, where the singing voice strengthens the anxiety of the poems. Interestingly, the poems chosen by Southam have a strong Greek flavour and show how Durrell captures the spirit of the places described. The obscure symbolism of Durrell’s verses translates, hence, into a music full of pathos. The analysis will focus on how the composer strives to transmediate Durrell’s words in musical terms, by transferring the haunting atmosphere and poignant emotions of the poet’s words.