Pansies: Poems by D. H. Lawrence

by D.H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence's best known collection of poems. The title does not refer to flowers, but is derived from the French pensees, meaning thoughts -thoughts which, according to Lawrence in his introduction, come "as much from the heart and the genitals as from the head."

In the foreword D. H. Lawrence writes: "I wish these 'Pansies' to be taken as thoughts rather than anything else; casual thoughts that are true while they are true and irrelevant when the mood and circumstance changes. I should like them to be as fleeting as pansies, which wilt so soon, and are so fascinating with their varied faces, while they last."

Genres: Poetry, Classics

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

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

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Men and women should learn tenderness to each other
and to leave one another alone.
Lawrence famously situated this project in a vein similar to Pascal's Pensées, Pansies is almost a notebook, a transcript from the analyst's couch where DHL opines when he isn't ranting about technology, avarice and human sexuality. Lawrence is similar to cummings here: being playful while stalking a concealed truth. Lawrence appear to recoil from being a character in Huxley's Point Counter Point which perhaps brought unfortunate aspects to the surface. I do fear that aspects of this were lost because of a degree of unfamiliarity. Except for Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence I don't know much about Lawrence.

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like this as much as I thought I would.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection, particularly the poem "I Am in a Novel," which Lawrence wrote in response to his friend Aldous Huxley writing him as a character (Mark Rampion) in Point/Counter Point. Lawrence's feelings about money, property, sexuality, and gender are fully on display, and you can really tell how low he was when writing this collection. A necessary read for any self-respecting Lawrence fan.

[Chanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lawrence is always thought provoking. Always. Even when I don't like him. This read more as the ramblings of a communist manifesto than poetry. Some pieces stood out, however, and I can't wait to pull them out for my students.