70). This clearly demonstrates not only what Richardson has been saying about
consciousness being present or reflected in ancient artefacts but particularly, in this
instance, of place enchanting a mythopoeic writer, as we have seen is the case from
the research questionnaires.
I ndeed, Mary Renault’s personal notes reveal some autonomous process at
work, something beyond her control, similar to the case of John Fowles and The
French Lieutenant’s Woman, of having “... a new lead into truth”, for she writes:
Somehow, I couldn’t tell how or why, I found the story resisting
me. Something was dragging, something stuck ... two discrepant
images had thus been wrestling in my subconscious imagination
(Sweetman, 1994:178).
6.7 Mythopoeic Perception
A reading of the biographical data of the mythopoeic writers (and readers)
cited in this thesis reveals that they sometimes experience an altered state of
consciousness in which material usually not perceptible in normal waking
consciousness becomes available to them; it could appropriately be termed
‘mythopoeic perception’. For example, in 1967 Mary Renault suffered a minor
pedestrian accident which resulted, later at the hospital, in her feeling curiously
detached, telling the young radiographer precisely what treatment she should be
given (Sweetman, 1994:255). This traumatic event precipitated the writing of The
Nature of Alexander and although she had long been obsessed with the young king,
when she later saw a photograph of the Acropolis Head of Alexander it made her
feel “ ... an almost physical sense of the presence of Alexander” (Sweetman,
1994:256). She would mention to Julie, her partner, almost reverentially, that she
felt she had become one with Alexander, so totally was she absorbed into his world
(Sweetman, 1994:264).
Renault’s letters to a friend at this time make frequent references to their old
teacher J.R.R.Tolkien, from which it is clear that Mary empathized with the hermetic
universe he had created, suggesting that his books seemed to transcend fiction by
becoming the historical record of a perfect alternative reality (Sweetman,
1994:264). I n researching and imaginatively following Alexander and Bagoas on
their journey across Asia, Mary, too, had slipped into a parallel world. She was, in
effect, living in another country, an elsewhere-place. Even her rare references to