D. H. Lawrence: Language and Being

Explores Lawrence's struggle in his novels to express his sophisticated understanding of the nature of being through the intransigent medium of language.

Michael Bell (Author)

9780521392006, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 January 1992

260 pages
23.7 x 15.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.526 kg

D. H. Lawrence once wrote that 'we have no language for the feelings'. The remark testifies to the struggle in his novels to express his sophisticated understanding of the nature of being through the intransigent medium of language. Michael Bell argues that Lawrence's unfashionable status stems from a failure to perceive within his informal expression the nature and complexity of his ontological vision. He traces the evolution of the struggle for its articulation through the novels, and looks at the way in which Lawrence himself made it a conscious theme in his writing. Embracing in this argument Lawrence's failures as a writer, his rhetorical stridency and also his primitivist extremism, Michael Bell creates a powerful and fresh sense of his true importance as a novelist.

1. Introduction
2. Competing voices in the early novels
3. The 'metaphysic' of The Rainbow
4. The 'worlds' of Women in Love
5. The personal, the political and the 'Primitive': Aaron's Rod and Kangaroo
6. Sentimental primitivism in The Plumed Serpent 7. 'Love' and 'Chatter' in Lady Chatterley's Lover
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]