D H Lawrence: The Thinker as Poet

249 Pages·1997·11.92 MB·English

by  Fiona Becket

D. H. Lawrence
The Thinker as Poet
Fiona Becket
D. H. LAWRENCE: THE THINKER AS POET
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D. H. Lawrence
The Thinker as Poet
Fiona Becket
Lecturer in Literature, Staffordshire University
fA
M First published in Great Britain 1997 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-333-65027-1
First published in the United States of America 1997 by
& ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 0-312-17503-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Becket, Fiona, 1962-
D. H. Lawrence : the thinker as poet / Fiona Becket.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-312-17503-5
1. Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert), 1885-1930—Knowledge-
-Psychology. 2. Psychoanalysis and literature—England-
-History—20th century. 3. Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert),
1885-1930—Aesthetics. 4. Subconsciousness in literature. 5. Body,
Human, in literature. 6. Metaphor. I. Title.
PR6023.A93Z5665 1997
823'.912—dc21 97-5826
CIP
©Fiona Becket 1997
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
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with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97
Printed in Great Britain by
The Ipswich Book Company Ltd
Ipswich, Suffolk
For Deirdre Becket and Jon Salway
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction: Thinking Metaphorically 1
2 Thinking Poetically in the Early Discursive Writing:
The Birth of the Self 10
3 The Sensual Body in Lawrence's Early Discursive
Writing 28
The charm of a new phrase' 30
In the forests of the night 36
'The flesh conscious and unconscious' 40
4 Language and the Unconscious: The Radical
Metaphoricity of Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious
and Fantasia of the Unconscious I 46
Figuring Freud 48
Anti-Oedipal 63
Metaphor and 'metaphysic' in Lawrence's books
on the unconscious 67
5 Language and the Unconscious: The Radical
Metaphoricity of Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious
and Fantasia of the Unconscious II 87
Dismantling the body/psyche model 87
Dream 96
Concluding remarks: language and the unconscious 114
6 Undulating Styles: The Rainbow 117
Language as metaphor 127
Language and the individual 140
vii
Vlll Contents
7 The Tension of Opposites': The Oxymoronic Mode of
Women in Love 145
The simultaneity of styles in Women in Love 148
'Love' 158
Oxymoron: 'the tension of opposites' 173
Conclusion 185
8 'Forbidden Metaphors': Lawrence and Language 190
Notes 204
Bibliography 218
Index 233
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges Laurence PoUinger Ltd and
the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli for permission to quote
from the Penguin editions of Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious
and Fantasia of the Unconscious, and the Cambridge University
Press editions of The Rainbow and Women in Love, as well as the
poem, The Rainbow', from D.H. Lawrence: The Complete Poems
(Penguin). I am also grateful to Ginette Katz-Roy for permission
to draw on material first published in my '"Star-equilibrium"
and the Language of Love in Women in Love', in Etudes
Lawrenciennes, no. 11 (1995).
Many people were involved in the debates that have led to
this book. In particular I would like to thank Michael Bell, whose
suggestions helped the study to take shape in its earliest stages,
and Michael Black, who very generously read drafts of the book,
and whose comments were invaluable. My thanks must also extend
to Howard Booth, Gerry Carlin, Athena Economides, Graham
Rees and Frank Wilson for their help in many different ways,
and to Charmian Hearne at Macmillan for her support of this
project, and for seeing it through to book form. Special thanks
are overdue to Deirdre Becket, as they are to Jon Salway for his
time and much else.
IX