D. H. LAWRENCE AND AMERICA.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20920, 29 July 1933, Page 13

D. H. LAWRENCE AND AMERICA.

♦—• - Studies in Classic American Literature. By D. 11. Lawrence. New Adclplii Library: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. and Martin Seeker Ltd. l/l> pp. (o'6 net.)

D. H. Lawrence died embittered and frustrated. He did not hate man's world for itself but for the destruction that it wrought upon man. Every instinct, he thought, was beaten down by the intellect and the one partial exception was the instinct of sex. which, being moribund but not dead, offered man some hope if it could be given free and sincere expression. Consciously from his experience but more importantly from his writings there gradually emerged his philosophy, that the intellect was wrong and the heart right. This philosophy, which required the development of the inner self, like the Eastern gospels of self-contemplation and meditation,, found slight acceptance in the active, systematic Western world. The intellect, not the heart, is continuously exercised by Western civilisation. Lawrence's insistence upon proclaiming his passionate opinions in all he wrote robbed him of the allegiance of those who admired his art but disliked seeing his powers of expression made subordinate to what lie conceived to be his message. Lack of response maddened him, and in contempt and despair he flung ordure in the face of the world which, he believed, was not merely unresponsive but hostile. His genius was that he never wrote (in prose at least) without having something considerable to say ; ideas formed faster than he could represent them. This book, "Studies in Classic American Literature,'' now reprinted in an j excellent cheap edition, is an | instance. Out of its pages, exclam- j atory, disorderly, perplexing, and j exaggerated, there slowly appears : an intelligible and profound view i of the American soul. The following quotations will illustrate his view : But some Europeans recoiled from ; the last final phase. They'would not enter the cul-dc-sac of post-Rcnais- : sance, "Liberal" Europe. They came ' to America. America starts old, wrinkled and writhing in an old skin and there is j a gradual sloughing of the old skin, towards a new youth. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. Pie compares America to the crew of the Pequod : A maniac captain of the soul (Woodrow Wilson) and three eminently practical mates. America ! ; Then such a crew. Renegades, cast- ; awavs, cannibals; Ishmaels, Quakers. , Democracy in America is just the , tool with which the old master of Europe, the European spirit, is undermined. Europe destroyed . . . America 1 will begin. Many will scoff at Lawrence and ; few will believe him, but »in his j passion, in his probings, in his | elaborate interpretations, in his i conviction he forces his readers to i think. To the writers whom he ' chooses to examine is attributed a*j deep and often unintentional allegorical purpose. From their works Lawrence tears the American soul and finds that it is as he expected to find it. It is an ugly soul. Except in Dana and Melville, in whom Lawrence sees, with qualifications, what most people have seen, the victims of his analysis are black where for years they have appeared white. An enlightening instance is "Ligeia," which Lawrence : considers to be Poe's most charac- | teristic story: "He [Poe] was an j adventurer into vaults and cellars and horrible underground passages of the human soul." In "Ligeia" is seen the disintegrative force of knowledge. The thesis is that, willingly or not, the American soul controls American writers and makes them destroy. Franklin preaches the destruction of the Indians; Cooper describes the destruction of human relations; Poe, the destruction of the soul, and Hawthorne, the destruction of purity. Lawrence's interpretation of "The Scarlet Letter" is revolting; but though his allegory is startling it is not quite impossible. To Lawrence Dimmesdale and Hester created the sin that destroyed purity. The essays on Hawthorne and Fenimore Cooper were difficult for Lawrence and are difficult for the reader; but their skill and sincerity prevent one from flinging the book down. Even in "Two Years before the Mast" the theme is the disintegrative force of the sea, fraying and de-humanising the souls of those whom it subjects, not its majesty or beauty, Lawrence's easiest task was with "the greatest book of the sea ever written, 'Moby Dick.'" He says: "It moves awe in the soul." His satire plays most freely about de Crevecour and Benjamin Franklin. "Poor Richard" is too easy a victim and Franklin, inventing the American god to be the servant of the man who wants to produce, left many chinks in his armour through which Lawrence could jab at chastity and industry and cleanliness. Much of what he says is so frenzied and incoherent, as to verge upon nonsense. Of such is the essay on Whitman. It can be | gathered that Lawrence had little j fault to find with Whitman, led | "by Love and Merging to the edgo I of Death," where, purified, he | rejoiced in the "exultant message j of souls in the Open Road." ; At times his style is positively [ fearsome and there is at least one. | jar on every page; but after reading these essays no one will refrain j from turning back to "Omoo" or ■ "The Fall of the House of Usher" or "The Scarlet Letter." The idea;" i of this book make one shudder at : the involuntary duplicity <:t j American writers or at the writer 1 ;; j furious misconceptions. Though its | violence is distressing, it is a book j that exhorts thought and feeling. |