Sex, Literature and Censorship

by D.H. Lawrence

ESSAYS INCLUDING LAWRENCE'S OWN DEFENSE OF LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER; PLUS THE FULL TEXT OF JUDGE F.V. BRYAN'S HISTORIC DECISION DECLARING THE BOOK OBSCENE

122 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

David 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...

Reviews

[Mary Thelma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawrence ensaya el sexo como motivo literario. Yo lo utilicé como referencia para distinguir la pornografía del erotismo, porque hace la aclaración textual de que la primera insulta insulta el sexo y el espíritu humano.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely point of view on love, romance and sex.

[Hadley · Rating 4 out of 5]

D.H. Lawrence had some wild opinions, but fuck if it isn't fun to read him rambling. And every once in a while, he gets it right.

[Keleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Sex goes through the rhythm of the year, in man and woman, ceaselessly changing: the rhythm of the sun in his relation to the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox! This is what is the matter with us. We are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars, and love is a grinning mockery, because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the tree of Life, and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table."

-- From "Apropos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'"

Absolutely brilliant, profound, true true true. And playful too!

[Rupert Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lawrence presents here in this work his famous phrase regarding what "is Obscenity anyhow", the only concurrent defense of personal taste there is. I love Lawrence in one sense that he manages to draw out conclusions and then wander off to another subject before returning back to the main point, but perhaps that actually should be the way.

I got a lot out of Lawrence's views on pornography and censorship, literature and sex, and from Lawrence's point of view he pushes the Walt Whitman styled philosophy of good hearty nutritious sex instead of cerebral experiences, but it is all part of the same equation is it not?

Yes, like Shaw, Lawrence is a bit nutty in his own way, but we can't forget his efforts as they paved the way for many of our more lucid grasps on rationalising sexuality.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I may not agree with everything he says here, I do champion Lawrence's refusal to be silenced by, as he put it, "censor morons." I love his writing and feel all authors who have been writing for about the past 50 years owe a debt to Lawrence's courage as a writer. This collection features several of his non-fiction essays about sexuality, censorship, gender, and class.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank essays about love & sex. Of course he also rambles on against censorship. I think that Lawrence goes on a bit longer than he should, w/ his arguments weakening as he proceeds. Still, these are worthy subjects, worthily tackled.

[Poupeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though i don't agree with all Lawrence's ideas (especially about religion, marriage, and masturbation), this collection of articles includes many thoughtful and challenging ideas about the theme of sex in literature and its censorship, not just in literature but in society.