Lawrence's Emotion

In the textbook’s intro to D.H. Lawrence, he is quoted as saying, “Poetry now a days seems to be a sort of plaster-cast craze, scraps sweetly molded in easy Plaster of Paris sentiment. Nobody chips verses earnestly out of the living rock of his own feeling” (321). Critical of more intellectual poets such as Yeats and Eliot, Lawrence sees their work as cheapened by their lack of true emotion. Clearly, Lawrence prefers to write from his own experiences and make emotion one of the driving forces of his poetry. This is especially evident in his poem “The Bride,” where the emotion of the speaker is evident throughout the poem.

The emotion is evident through his imagery, which includes descriptions of the woman’s “uncanny cold” hair, and her “still, winsome sleep.” Additionally, the speaker’s perception of her as her as one who “looks like a young girl,” even though in reality she is very old, demonstrates the speaker’s affection for her. The expression “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” applies in this speaker’s perception; the woman is certainly no longer in her prime, but his affection for her allows him to see “a young maiden […] smooth and fair.”

Yet, for as effective as Lawrence’s imagery is at portraying emotion, I must admit that my biographical knowledge of him makes some of this emotion difficult to accept/comprehend. It is difficult for me that this poem, which beautifully displays the speaker’s emotion at losing someone who presumably was a lover, is written in honor of his mother. If I didn’t know about Lawrence’s relationship with his mother I would probably assume the speaker was supposed to be an older man speaking for his dead wife, but it makes the poem harder to accept when I realize that the speaker is Lawrence bemoaning his mother’s death.

So, Lawrence certainly accomplishes his goal of infusing his poetry with emotion. It is hard to miss the feeling present in “The Bride”; yet, biographical information makes Lawrence’s emotions somewhat harder for readers to swallow. I don’t imagine that many people experience incestuous feelings; therefore, some of Lawrence’s emotions are difficult to comprehend and empathize with. The emotion is certainly there, but at times it’s just a little too much.