Murry Or Leavis Criticism of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love Has, On
CHAPTER 1 THE MEDIATOR TRANSCENDED: THE STRUCTURE OF DESIRE IN WOMEN IN LOVE Murry or Leavis Criticism of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love has, on the whole, developed around the Murry’s and Leavis’ interpretations. J.M. Murry scathingly criticized the novel for defects of characterization and for the self-deception of Rupert Birkin, the Lawrence-figure, adding that the couple of Birkin and Ursula Brangwen cannot be differentiated from the Gerald and Gudrun pair.1 However, F.R. Leavis, in D.H. Lawrence: Novelist, attempted to retrieve the status of Lawrence as a great artist through his own detailed analysis of the dramatically organized form and the objective representation of characters.2 In spite of the great influence of Leavis, his criticism did not manage to entirely invalidate the standpoint of Murry. Some critics follow Murry’s argument further and daringly accentuate the repressed homosexuality in Birkin, which, they think, underlies the complicated relationships among the main characters.3 This viewpoint, it must be said, does seem persuasive, compared with the reading of Mark Spilka, which, laying strong emphasis on the ideal union or “star-equilibrium” between Birkin and Ursula, tends to overlook the unsatisfactoriness of their married relations.4 1 J.M. Murry, “J.M. Murry in Nation and Athenaeum: 13 August 1921, xxix, 713-14”, reprinted in D.H. Lawrence: The Critical Heritage, ed. Ronald P. Draper, London: RKP, 1970, 168-72; Son of Woman: The Story of D.H. Lawrence, London: Jonathan Cape, 1931, 106-22. 2 Leavis, D.H. Lawrence: Novelist, 174-236.
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