D.H. Lawrence: The Utopian Vision

211 Pages·2006·10.011 MB·English

by  Eugene Goodheart

D.H. LAWRENCE

D.H. LAWRENCE
THE UTOPIAN VISION
EUGENE GOODHEART
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR
13 Routledge
Taylor & Francis Croup
LONDON AND NEW YORK
Acknowledgements are made to The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Phoenix, The
Rainbow, Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious by D. H. Lawrence, Viking
Press, Messrs. William Heinemann, Ltd., Laurence Pollinger, Ltd., and the
estate of the late Mrs. Frieda Lawrence, and to Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria
Rilke, W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
Originally published in 1963 by the University of Chicago Press
Published 2006 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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New material this edition copyright © 2006 by Taylor & Francis.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2005043680
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goodheart, Eugene.
[Utopian vision of D.H. Lawrence]
D.H. Lawrence: the Utopian vision / Eugene Goodheart.
p. cm.
Originally published: The Utopian vision of D.H. Lawrence. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1963. With a new introd. by the author.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4128-0500-7 (acid-free paper)
1. Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert), 1885-1930—Political and social views.
2. Utopias in literature. I. Title.
PR6023.A93Z6297 2005
823'.912—dc22 2005043680
ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-0500-1 (pbk)
To My Mother and Father
and Pat

Contents
Introduction to the Transaction Edition ix
Introduction \
1 The Tablet-breaker 4
2 Art and Prophecy: The Mythical Dimension 38
3 The Eternity of the Phenomenon 63
4 The Greater Life of the Body 87
5 The Reciprocity of Poiver 126
6 A Representative Destiny 160
Bibliography 17 5
Index 184

In troduction to th e
Transaction Edition
D. H. Lawrence: The Utopian Vision was one of a number of
books published in the early sixties in partial reaction to F.
R. Leavis's championing of Lawrence as the exemplary writer
of the modem period. The majority of books expressed ad-
miration for Lawrence, but not necessarily on Leavis's
idolatrous terms. I am sure that Leavisites, if they still exist,
would resent the attribution of idolatry to Leavis, for whom
criticism as an ideal was an exercise in moral, aesthetic, and
intellectual rigor. In responding to Lawrence, Leavis was
given to an extravagance of admiration that compromised
his criticism. Leavis's Lawrence is not only a great novelist,
he is also the peerless embodiment of the imagination of
moral vitality. I hesitate between speaking of a reaction to
and a reaction against, because despite his excesses most
critics of Lawrence are indebted to Leavis for having se-
cured Lawrence's reputation as a modern master against his
denigrators.
My own differences with Leavis mainly concern: (1) an
understanding of the context or tradition in which best to
appreciate Lawrence's achievement and (2) the moral or ethi-
cal character of his work. Leavis placed Lawrence in an ex-
clusively English context (Austen, George Eliot, and Conrad
are among his forbears) in what Leavis called "the great tra-
ix