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Selected Essays
A Selection of Essays by H.D. Lawrence.
- GenresNonfictionEssays
351 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published January 1, 1972
10 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
D.H. Lawrence
2,084 books4,201 followersDavid Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.
Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Law...
Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Law...
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 11, 2019
Lawrence is best on things and places - flowers, porcupines, landscapes. My favourite essay is ‘Nottingham and the Mining Country’ (about his boyhood). Unusually calm and largely free of Lawrence’s compulsive urge to theorise, it portrays a mining town truthfully but beautifully. The description of the miners and their love of flowers and gardens reminded me of the Dads I knew in 80s Rugeley.
Flowers bring out the best of Lawrence’s gift, as per this excerpt from Twilight in Italy:
‘I gathered instead the primroses, that smelled of earth and of the weather. There were no snowdrops. I had found the day before a bank of crocuses, pale, fragile, lilac-coloured flowers with dark veins, pricking up keenly like myriad little lilac-coloured flames among the grass, under the olive trees. And I wanted very much to find the snowdrops hanging in the gloom. But there were not any.’
You want to push this section in front of Thoreau, saying, ‘Beat that.’
Flowers bring out the best of Lawrence’s gift, as per this excerpt from Twilight in Italy:
‘I gathered instead the primroses, that smelled of earth and of the weather. There were no snowdrops. I had found the day before a bank of crocuses, pale, fragile, lilac-coloured flowers with dark veins, pricking up keenly like myriad little lilac-coloured flames among the grass, under the olive trees. And I wanted very much to find the snowdrops hanging in the gloom. But there were not any.’
You want to push this section in front of Thoreau, saying, ‘Beat that.’
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July 10, 2019I’m a Lawrence latecomer - when I studied at university, my interests principally lay elsewhere. From afar, I only associated his name with the Chatterley Ban, dimly acknowledging the ripples of its cultural effect. Several years later, when I tried to open Women in Love I gave up after three pages - too much crochet and loins - 'Jane Austen on crack,’ as a friend amusingly put it. Last year I tried with renewed zeal, and this time, perhaps because my mood was curiously receptive to its flaws as well as its attributes, at last found my way in.
Lawrence's critical work is punchy, and it has the benefit of being grounded in argument as opposed to the destabilising possibilities of fiction. Lawrence is an arresting critic, direct in his expression and particular in his preoccupations. If his prose has at its worse moments a tendency to purplish exuberance, this is not at the fore of his non-fiction pieces; for the most part his sentences are snappy, and Blakean with their startling juxtapositions. Whether he is writing about Whitman or hedgehogs, mining or his unanswered mail, he writes as if not only his life but the life of all humanity depends on it. For some this tone of strenuous earnestness is tiresome, but given its rarity in the history of English letters, there is much to be said in its defence.
Lawrence's critical work is punchy, and it has the benefit of being grounded in argument as opposed to the destabilising possibilities of fiction. Lawrence is an arresting critic, direct in his expression and particular in his preoccupations. If his prose has at its worse moments a tendency to purplish exuberance, this is not at the fore of his non-fiction pieces; for the most part his sentences are snappy, and Blakean with their startling juxtapositions. Whether he is writing about Whitman or hedgehogs, mining or his unanswered mail, he writes as if not only his life but the life of all humanity depends on it. For some this tone of strenuous earnestness is tiresome, but given its rarity in the history of English letters, there is much to be said in its defence.
February 4, 2025
A man who loves to monologue and explore every tangent possible! Would give anything to sit in a pub and have a pint with him.
I will think of his 'Flowery Tuscany' essay forever
Edit 04/02: went to Austria and obsessed over the icons and crosses and Christ's dotted throughout the forests and mountains (thanks Dave)
I will think of his 'Flowery Tuscany' essay forever
Edit 04/02: went to Austria and obsessed over the icons and crosses and Christ's dotted throughout the forests and mountains (thanks Dave)
May 1, 2025
D. H. Lawrence — a mind as authentic as flesh, where thought runs like blood and tears — tears through categorisation. Is he a racist? A sexist? A pornographer, perhaps? But these are conclusions of the head. Lawrence believes in the agency of the blood: “The blood also thinks inside a man, darkly and ponderously. It thinks in desires and revulsions, and it makes strange conclusions. The conclusions of my head and my spirit is that it would be perfect, this world of man, if man all loved one another. The conclusion of my blood says, nonsense, and finds the stunt a bit disgusting.”
It was perhaps the revulsions of the blood that laced the pages of Lawrence’s pen — and maybe that wasn’t too subtle for the readers of his time. Most of his novels were banned. They did not conform to the conclusions of the head. He writes: “The worst of a book is the way it shuts up between covers. When man had to write on rocks and obelisks, it was rather difficult to lie. The daylight was too strong. But soon he took his venture into caves and secret holes and temples where he could create his own environment and tell lies to himself. And a book is an underground hole with two lids to it, a perfect place to tell lies in.”
To sum up his work — and this book — in Lawrence’s own words: “Logic is far too coarse to make the subtle distinction life demands.”
It was perhaps the revulsions of the blood that laced the pages of Lawrence’s pen — and maybe that wasn’t too subtle for the readers of his time. Most of his novels were banned. They did not conform to the conclusions of the head. He writes: “The worst of a book is the way it shuts up between covers. When man had to write on rocks and obelisks, it was rather difficult to lie. The daylight was too strong. But soon he took his venture into caves and secret holes and temples where he could create his own environment and tell lies to himself. And a book is an underground hole with two lids to it, a perfect place to tell lies in.”
To sum up his work — and this book — in Lawrence’s own words: “Logic is far too coarse to make the subtle distinction life demands.”
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April 10, 20252P
June 1, 2011
315 pages of small text comprising 34 separate articles.
A disjointed collection of thoughts. The writing isn't bad at all but more often than not the subject matter is as dull as dishwater. This was an effort to complete.
A disjointed collection of thoughts. The writing isn't bad at all but more often than not the subject matter is as dull as dishwater. This was an effort to complete.
August 7, 2008
Great collection of Lawrence's thinking with many themes from his books. I recommend this for those who don't care for reading fiction and prefer the essay format.
September 6, 2017
May be I am not a Lawrence kind of person :/
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews