T H E S I S

ABSTRACT
D. E, Lawrence's central theme in most of his works is sex.
From his first novel, The White Peacockf to the last, Ladv Chatterley's
LoverT which "became a "scandal 1 in English Literature,
Lawrence created a new doctrine of sex, advocating the supremacy
of the body's life over the mind, actually based on the assertion
that complete fulfilment in sexual relations is the key to solve
the problems of human relationships* Paradoxically though, the
man who became a "priest" of sex had a puritanical background,
was educated by a puritan mother, and grew up at the end of the
Victorian age, an epoch marked by strong moral restrictions. But
the early Lawrence, the puritan of The White Peacock, who favoured
a euphemistic style became, in his last period, (the "realistic"
period of Lady Chatterley's Lover)f an anti-puritan. His very
insistence on the subject of sex and on the necessity for purifying.
the sexual acts leads me to the conclusion that he was not
only an anti-puritanical puritan, but also that he, in his own
termss was a case of "sex in the head*1.