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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE

Lawrence acquired his reputation partly for being of working-class origin. In his novels he described the reality of English provincial family life and introduced elements of psychoanalysis in his novels. He is also regarded as a pioneer of sexual liberation in literature. From the very beginning he attracted readers with a sensitive brightness and his inclination to describe subjective emotional states. His best novels remain difficult chiefly because he was trying to express in words what was usually subconscious and thus wordless and open to the darker gods of nature, feeling, and instinct.

David Herbert Lawrence (Sept. 11, 1885, Eastwood, Nottinghamshire — March 2, 1930, Vence, France) was born into a mining family. His educated mother struggled all her married life to raise her children out of the working class. This social inequality between his parents made him side with his mother's gracefulness. He readily responded to her affection, and, especially after the death of an elder brother, he was the centre of her emotions.

Thanks to his mother, Lawrence went to Nottingham High School on a scholarship, worked as a clerk and elementary school teacher, and studied at Nottingham University College. In 1908, Lawrence started teaching in a London suburb, and some of his poems were sent by his early love Jessie to the influential English Review. His native Eastwood setting, the dissimilarity between mining town and countryside, the work and leisure of the miners, conflicts between his parents, his tormented relationship with his early love Jessie, all turned into themes of Lawrence's early short stories and novels, such as The White Peacock (1910). His next novel, The Trespasser (1912), interested the influential editor Edward Garnet, who later published Sons and Lovers (1913).

In 1911, Lawrence suffered a violent attack of pneumonia and decided to resign teaching and keep on writing. At that time he fell in love with Frieda von Richthofen, the German wife of a professor at Nottingham. They went to Germany together and married in 1914, after Frieda got a divorce. The war forced them back to England, and his outspoken protest against the war and Frieda's German origins got them into trouble with the authorities. More often, especially after the ban on his next novel, The Rainbow (1915), Lawrence felt the forces of modern civilization stood in the way against him.

Lawrence's poetry, at first unsure and conventional, underwent an amazing development and advanced to a highly spontaneous free verse, full of observation and symbolism. His most original poetic contribution is his collection Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923), excellent nature poetry, based on his stays in the Mediterranean and in America. His Last Poems (1932) are highly contemplative. Lawrence's letters, rich in tone, vivacity and splendour, disclose his restless nature and wandering life.

After the First World War, Lawrence and his wife went to Italy, never to come to England again. He soon began a series of novels consisting of The Lost Girl (1920), Aaron's Rod (1922), and the unfinished Mr. Noon (1984). In 1921, the Lawrences decided to go to the United States, via Sri Lanka and Australia. Since 1917 Lawrence had been working on Studies in Classic American Literature (1923), nourished by his sense that the American West was a yet unspoilt natural environment.



While in Australia in 1922, Lawrence wrote the novel Kangaroo, a summary of his lifetime. After six weeks the Lawrences left for America. They visited Mexico in 1923, and Lawrence started the ambitious novel The Plumed Serpent (1926), where he envisioned the reconstruction of European post-war society from a religious perspective.

The Lawrences went back to Italy in 1925, and next year he set out on the first drafts of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). However, Lawrence, diagnosed with tuberculosis, was gradually dying, and they decided to move to the south of France, where in 1929 he wrote Apocalypse (1931), a commentary on the biblical Book of Revelation, which is his final religious statement. Shortly before his death he had written: Already the dark and endless ocean of the end is washing in through the breaches of our wounds, already the flood is upon us.

In this symbolic evocation to the biblical past Lawrence stands next to Blake, in that they both created their unique worlds always at odds with the mechanical and artificial. His best writing displays his exploration into the realm of man's individuality, often in association with others.

The Horse Dealer's Daughter

Lawrence's short story The Horse Dealer's Daughter is, in a way, a research into a troubled mind resulting from unfulfilled desires.

This story traces the decline of a family from masters to servants. Although tragedy has been avoided, the story does not end affirmatively. It might be a love story, but totally deprived of all romantic expectations. The author examines the psychological workings of the central characters, Mabel Pervin and Jack Fergusson, and their strangely born love. Their thoughts and feelings are closely knit into their environment.


Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1106


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