D. H. Lawrence Other Paperbacks in the Griffin Authors Series GEOFFREY CHAUCER Edwin]. Howard ANDRE GIDE Thomas Cordle THOMAS HARDY Richard Carpenter HAROLD PINTER Amold P. Hinchliffe PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Donald H. Reiman D. H. Lawrence By RONALD P. DRAPER University of Aberdeen M © Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1964 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1976 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in New York Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 19650 3 ISBN 978-0-333-19650-2 ISBN 978-1-349-02949-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02949-5 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement. The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise cir­ culated without the publisher's prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. To MY WIFE Preface Since the publication in America of The Achievement of D. H. Lawrence (edited by Frederick J. Hoffman and Harry T. Moore, 1953) and in England of F. R. Leavis' D. H. Lawrence, Novelist (1955), criticism of Lawrence has swung away from the personal involvement that vitiated so much earlier commentary to con­ centrate instead on the actual work that he wrote. One recent book (by Eliseo Vivas) speci6cally tries to discriminate between •the failure and the triumph'" of Lawrence's "art." '.J;his is a wholly admirable and sane redressing of the balance. Lawrence is now an accepted major writer-with W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot, I should say, he is one of the three most important writers in Eng­ lish in the twentieth century-and it is fitting that his work shoufd be accorded the same critica~ treatment that is given to other major writers. Moreover, Lawrence's own famous dictum-"Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it."-should also be applied to his own work. Lawrence is read, and will continue to be, for his novels, tales, and poems; and these must be preserved, not only from injudicious admirers and detractors, but, where necessary, from the misrepresentations that derive from Law­ rence's own didactic rather than artistic self. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that Lawrence's work can be dissociated from his life. He is a very different writer from, say, Chaucer, or the Renaissance "maker" such as Spenser. Donne, or Milton, or Wordsworth-writers whose life and work "interinani­ mate'" one another-provide better parallels, though the connec­ tion is even more intimate with Lawrence. What he says of his rooms can, with some qualification, be said of all his writings: • • • they make up a biography of an emotional and inner life." And each one "needs the penumbra of its own time and place and circumstances to make it full and whole," for Lawrence's D. H. LAWRENCE method of listening honestly and attentively to the voice that speaks within him at the moment precludes the kind of art that is the extracted essence of the whole of the artist's experience. This point should not, however, be pushed too far. Of The Rain­ bow and Women in Love it can be said that Lawrence is attempt­ ing a fully integrated interpretation of his experience which exists quite apart from the particular person, time, and place which generated it-though, even so, the value of knowing something about Lawrence's personal history is obvious. But, in general, it is true that the life and the work must be read together, and partly as commentaries on one another. The aim of the present study is to try to meet both these re­ quirements in the reading of Lawrence-the consideration of his work as self-substantial art, and the recognition of its "relativity." The first chapter deals with the influence of his home and Not­ tinghamshire environment and with the "search for a lost Atlantis" which underlies his nomadic wanderings over Europe, Australia, and America. The remaining chapters analyze his novels, tales, and poems, primarily as works of art, but bearing in mind, as a kind of intermittent running commentary, the relationship which they have to his life and to the rest of his work. I have frequently quoted from Lawrence's own comments in his letters and elsewhere, believing that an author should be allowed to speak for himself as much as possible. I have also taken the liberty of contradicting him where my own critical judgment has impelled me to do so. I profoundly admire and respect Lawrence, but I cannot always agree with him; and, where this is the case, I have tried to say so plainly and, I hope, without arrogating to myself a superior wisdom. R. P. DRAPER University of Leicester, England April,l964 Acknowledgments I wish to extend my grateful acknowledgments to The Viking Press, Inc., New York and to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York for permission to quote from the works of D. H. Lawrence. The Viking Press publishes the following works: Aaron's Rod; Amores; Apocalypse; The Boy in the Bush; The Captain's Doll; Collected Poems; Collected Letters; England, My England; Etruscan Places; Fantasia of the Unconscious; Kangaroo; Last Poems; The Letters of D. H. Lawrence; Look! We Have Come Through!; The Lost Girl; Love Among the Haystacks; The Lovely Lady; A Modern Lover; New Poems; Phoenix; The Prussian Officer; Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious; The Rainbow; Sea and Sardinia; Sons and Lovers; Studies in Classic American Literature; Touch and Go; Twilight in Italy; The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd; Women in Love. Alfred A. Knopf publishes: Assorted Articles; David; The Man Who Died; Mornings in Mexico; The Plumed Serpent; Por­ nography and Obscenity; St. Mawr; The Woman Who Rode Away; The Virgin and the Gipsy. Acknowledgments are also due to the Estate of the late Mrs. Frieda Lawrence and Laurence Pollinger Limited for permission to quote from The White Pea­ cock and The Trespasser and to the Estate of the late Mrs. Frieda Lawrence, Laurence Pollinger Limited, and also Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for permission to quote from Lady Chatterley's Lover. In addition, I should like to thank Mr. Stephen Spender for permis­ sion to quote from World Within World; Professor Richard Hag­ gart and the editors of The Critical Quarterly for permission to quote from "A Question of Tone" (C. Q., Spring, 1963); and the editors of The Critical Quarterly for permitting me to make use of my article on "Authority and the Individual: A Study of D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo" (C. Q., Autumn, 1959). I should also like to take this opportunity to express my ad­ miration for, and sense of indebtedness to, the Lawrence scholar- D. H. LAWRENCE ship of Harry T. Moore and Edward Nehls; and I hope the many oth.er authors of books wholly or partially about Lawrence on whose work I have drawn will accept this general acknowledg· ment of my gratitude and debt to them. To Sylvia Bowman, the editor of this series, I am indebted for much patient correction of my original manuscript, and to my wife I am grateful for sym­ pathy, advice, and continual assistance. Contents Preface Acknowledgments Chronology 1. Introduction 17 2. The Early Novels: The White Peacock, The Trespasser, and Sons and Lovers 30 3. The Rainbow 54 4. Women in Love 76 5. The Pseudo-Novels: The Lost Girl, Aaron's Rod, and Kangaroo 88 6. The Late Novels: The Plumed Serpent and Lady Chat- terley's Lover 102 7. The Tales 119 8. The Poems 149 9. Reputation and Influence 161 Notes and References 178 Selected Bibliography 183 Index 190 Chronology 1885 September 11-David Herbert Richards Lawrence born at Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, fourth child of Arthur Law­ rence, a miner, and Lydia Lawrence (nee Beardsall), for­ merly a schoolteacher. 1898 Won a scholarship to the Nottingham Boys' High School. 1901 Lawrence's brother, William Ernest Lawrence (the "Wil­ liam" of Sons and Lovers) died. Lawrence met Jessie Chambers (the "Miriam" of Sons and Lovers) at the Haggs. In the summer, he obtained a job with a Notting­ ham manuacturer of surgical appliances. Left when he suffered first serious attack of pneumonia. 1902- Uncertified teacher, first at Eastwood, then at Ilkeston. 1906 1906 Began two-year teacher-training course at University Col­ lege, Nottingham. 1907 Some time during this year he began The White Peacock. 1908 October 12, took post as schoolmaster at Davidson Road Boys' School, Croydon, South London. 1909 Through Jessie Chambers, had first poems accepted and published (November) in the English Review. Met its editor, Ford Madox Ford. August, holiday on the Isle of Wight (remembered in The Trespasser). 1910 The White Peacock accepted by Heinemann (published in January, 1911). Working on The Trespassers and early form of Sons and Lovers. Mother died of cancer, Decem­ ber 9. 1911 ill in November, gave up teaching. 1912 The Trespasser published. April, met Frieda Weekley, wife of Professor of French at University College, Nottingham (Frieda second daughter of Baron Friedrich von Richt­ hofen-born August 11, 1879-married Ernest Weekley, Chronology 1899--tbree children). Eloped with Frieda in May. Walked over Tyrolese Alps. Spent winter at Gargnano, Lago di Garda (scene of much of Twilight in Italy).