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Ih rence took perhaps excessive pride, rather as if he believed himself called eventually to sit at the right hard of Oliver Cromwell. ... Lawrence as a child - and, never forget, a very intelligent and oversensitive child - surrendered to this powerful, raucous religious emotionalism» However much he may have rebelled against it intellectually as. a youth and man, the influence never wholly left him. 11 (PGB21) So here lies Lawrence's puritanical background: his mother who became his protector was an "ingrained puritan’1 of the old tradition, to use Lawrence's own words., In Sons and Lovers he states; "She (Mrs. Morel) was a puritan, like her father, highminded, and really stern. 11 (SAL 18) Certainly he inherited some puritanic factors from his mother; the preaching and protesting side of his nature, the neurotic nonconformist Protestantism, and self-righteousness which influenced his life and his works. - His early readings were often chosen from among "prophetic” authors like Carlyle, Whitman, Spencer, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Blake, and Buskin* According to B. Aldington "you might add that both (Buskin and Lawrence) were fanatics about sexj Buskin for purity through abstinence, Lawrence for purity through what he called 'fulfilment1«”(PGB k2) Each in his own way tried to "purify” sex. Shepherd says that "theoretically unshockable, Lawrence in practice had, one might almost say, a puritanical streak.”(SPS38) And Aldington points to a primary contradiction in Lawrence's puritanism, which will figure large in the general argument of this work; "He achieved a most strange mixture of his mother's backstreet Victorian morality and intellectualized emancipation. 1 The sexual habits and behaviour of everyone else were wrong,
15 and lie alone right. Having run away with a married woman he gravely dogmatized on the irrevocable sanctity of marriage. l,(PGB 309) This is not difficult to understand if we remember Lawrence's contradictory nature, his double measures and double rhythms. But, indeed, there is a puritanical streak" not only in his early period as we can see in The White Peacock and Sons and Lovers, but in the late period of Lady Chatterley's Lover and his last critical essays, Pornography and Obscenity and A Prosos of Lady Chatterley's Lover. In her personal record, Jessie Chambers tells us about an interesting event which happened when Lawrence was 21. Lawrence heard of the deflowering of a girl by one of his friends; the scene shocked him and made him display his puritanic feelings: "As soon as we were alone he asied me if I had heard about his friend...,- He was very distressed. His mother had , said how terrible might be the consequences of only five minutes' self-forgetfulness. - Then he startled me by bursting out vehemently: . 'Thank God ... I've been saved from that ... so far. 1 He seemed relieved after he had told me about it.,f(ETJ 125) Because of the old puritanic tradition of the Victorian age, virginity was considered a positive force which must be preserved even in men. How long did Lawrence remain virgin? One cannot draw a]ine precisely. Nevertheless^ drawing conclusions from what the critics, biographers, and Jessie Chambers (his first girl-friend) say, I should calculate that Lawrence remained virgin till the age of 22. To be more specific, I cannot find evidence that he had sexual intercourse before that age. And although even H.T«Moore does not make it very clear, he implies
Page 1 and 2: Mo ï»e THESIS D. H0 IAWBENGE: SEX
Page 3 and 4: Esta Tese foi julgada adequada para
Page 5 and 6: TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations Mbs
Page 7 and 8: vil PGB - Portrait of a Genius« Bu
Page 9 and 10: R E S U M O D« H. Lawrence fez do
Page 11 and 12: Chapter I INTRODUCTION A, A, Victor
Page 13 and 14: 3 misunderstood sexual theme, is go
Page 15 and 16: 5 identical reasoning: nThere can s
Page 17 and 18: 7 attitudes. In this respect, it is
Page 19 and 20: 9 rence ’s works in his book The
Page 21 and 22: Chapter II PURITANISM DEFINED Histo
Page 23: 33 The actual meaning we find in di
Page 27 and 28: 17 presents the Freudian imbroglio
Page 29 and 30: 19 it is perhaps worth noticing tha
Page 31 and 32: 21 but in many other parts of the b
Page 33 and 34: or inhibited action we are tempted
Page 35 and 36: 25 And about Cyril (himself) he sai
Page 37 and 38: 27 The tall meadow-sweet was in bud
Page 39 and 40: 29 genitals. Certainly Lawrence's p
Page 41 and 42: 31 Of course, one can imagine how i
Page 43 and 44: 33 'Good Lord, Emily! But he is dea
Page 45 and 46: 35 cock just quoted in the two prev
Page 47 and 48: 37 frustrated: Mr, and Mrs. Beardsa
Page 49 and 50: 39 So far, Lawrence’s early views
Page 51 and 52: hi rainbow arch; it is the “toget
Page 53 and 54: ^3 Lawrence said in his defence: "T
Page 55 and 56: ubbing passage of The White Peacock
Page 57 and 58: eautiful."(TRB 238) Why afraid? Bec
Page 59 and 60: Chapter V LAURENCE AND PORNOGRAPHY
Page 61 and 62: 51 sions then is Freud’s theory o
Page 63 and 64: 53 male, in a negative or sundering
Page 65 and 66: 55 he directly faced the censors an
Page 67 and 68: 57 "the whole question of pornograp
Page 69 and 70: 59 Girordias, (11) famous editor an
Page 71 and 72: 61 secret".; Neither can be of any
Page 73 and 74: 63 by January 1928 and is now widel
Page 75 and 76:
65 So the general subject matter of
Page 77 and 78:
67 The real theme, which recurs in
Page 79 and 80:
69 built of rusticated sandstone an
Page 81 and 82:
71 who want to dominate them, Mello
Page 83 and 84:
73 question Lawrence puts to himsel
Page 85 and 86:
75 the mechanical images are deflec
Page 87 and 88:
77 lies, navels, and breasts* (It h
Page 89 and 90:
79 Maybe they are the truth some cr
Page 91 and 92:
81 heave her loins, and throw the m
Page 93 and 94:
83 ’'darkness” is present in M
Page 95 and 96:
85 11ty shook her to her foundation
Page 97 and 98:
87 some kind of ’'arrest'** In al
Page 99 and 100:
Chapter ¥11 CONCLUSIONS Host of th
Page 101 and 102:
91 in a passionate love affair and
Page 103 and 104:
93 distinguished from normal conduc
Page 105 and 106:
95 presentative of most people's ex
Page 107 and 108:
97 easy to say* I think that he has
Page 109 and 110:
APPENDIX NOTES 1 Title of the work
Page 111 and 112:
BIBLIOGRAPHY •* Aldington^ Richar
Page 113 and 114:
103 Lawrence, D«E., (cont.) -"SunJ
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