A Peculiar Perspective on Nature and Love

The poetry of D. H. Lawrence seems most commonly to have one (or both) of two themes: nature and love. The vast majority of his subject matter pertains to nature or flowers or animals in one way or another, and quite often depicts sex or love among these creatures. It seems that he finds the true poetry of nature to be in the gritty, close-up parts and acts of nature: a kind of intimacy that can't hide the dirt beneath the fingernails.

Besides the au naturel love-making, Lawrence also relates different parts of nature in ways that you wouldn't necessarily expect. For instance, contrast the butterfly eating dirt in "Butterfly" with the snake drinking at the water trough in "The Snake." The butterfly, often a symbol of nature's glory and beauty, is brought low, resting on someone's shoe and even "sip[ping] the dirt" from it, while the snake, who crawls through the dirt, is revered: "Someone was before me at my water-trough, / And I, like a second comer, waiting."

Lawrence seems to bring nature a fullness with these glimpses, rounding out his readers' possibly narrow perspective of it.

Another example is Lawrence's descriptions of nature in "Southern Night." The speaker sees the moon, which apparently is red on this particular night, and calls it "thou red thing," "this red anathema," and "the red Macula." Typically one thinks of the moon to "set the mood" when it comes to love on a romantic night; it is also recognized as a symbol of renewal, even of guidance. However, much like in Picasso's Guernica, this particular light in the night is only an illuminator of horror. The speaker laments his memories, likening them to mosquitoes biting.

Memories, northern memories,
Bitter-stinging white world that bore us
Subsiding into this night.

The moon here guides the speaker not into enlightenment, but defilement: "Maculate / The red Macula."

The Ship of Death

Out of all of Lawrence's poems we had to read so far I find this one probably the most interesting one, and it's not necessarily because of some kind of profound philosophical message it invokes. Rather it's the symbolism with which Lawrence manages to describe the whole process of dying, death, and resurrection. The message isn't subtle at all as one becomes aware straight from the start that it's about dying (a breath of fresh air considering we had to deconstruct and dissect Eliot's writing for more than a week); but the analogy Lawrence gives of the lost ship is very instrumental.

The "ship of death," the way I read it, is--ironically-- a metaphor for life. Over and over the author affirms that it is heading towards "oblivion" (death) and even condemns suicide between lines 20-29 by contrasting "self-murder" or "break of exit" with the "journey(life) one must take into the oblivion. He also keeps stressing that we are falling into darkness and that we are decaying as the ship keeps moving on. The injunction that "we cannot steer" (line 63) the ship implies the inevitability of death.

The part where a resurrection is hinted at (and again, this is my reading) is when one emerges from the darkness he is "lovely" which stands in contrast to the decaying body that was heading towards its doom.

So although the process is pretty straight forward and obvious, it does spice it up when symbolism is added to the text.

Lawrence

I think that the biggest thing I appreciated this past week was not having to read hundreds of footnotes! Though I started to enjoy Eliot over the past week, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief over Lawrence’s simplicity.

One of my favorite Lawrence poems was, “The Enkindled Spring.” I’m not sure I totally understood what Lawrence was trying to say, but I loved the way he juxtaposed a lush green forest with fire imagery. Though the two images are completely opposite of one another, it works. “This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green” (327, 1). The spring, like a bonfire, suddenly bursts up out of nowhere, giving us vivid and beautiful colors.

I also really loved “Snake.” It was so simple and easy to understand, but gave me some beautiful images. “Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, Silently” (333, 12-13). The idea that the individual in the poem was torn between his wanting to “be a man” and his complete awe over the snake’s beauty was an interesting concept.

Though Lawrence does focus on nature and animals in a similar to many Romantic writers, for me, he was a lot different. Generally speaking, I don’t enjoy “nature writing.” Descriptions of trees, bird, etc. tend to bore me unless there is something kind of different about them. I had to read Thoreau over the summer and I still don’t think I’ve recovered. J Lawrence always adds a little something different to his descriptions, something that makes them unusual (i.e. firely trees, fornicating turtles, etc.) and I think that is why I like him.

Butterfly ( D.H. Lawrence)

Seeing as we are in the month of October I thought it would be interesting to touch on this issue in the poem. October represents a transition period between the summer and winter. It ushers in winter, and in the poem we get a sense of inevitability with respect to it. A recurring theme is the wind blowing "sea-ward"; a wind that apparently no matter what the butterfly does forces it to merge with the wind and succumb to its pressure. Although "it is warm" in the garden, Lawrence keeps reminding the reader that the wind persists. In other words, no matter how much we desire to freeze time, it moves on irrespective of our wishes.

In this respect I see the butterfly as a metaphor of summer. He is vibrant, white and big. If winter is usually associated with death, a butterfly flying freely from flower to flower is the exact opposite. As the butterfly dissolves in the distance, so does summer.

It is a realistic depiction of time. Although we often try to avoid its passing, every attempt at trying to do so remains futile. The wind is too strong for a weak butterfly to try and fly against the current.

D.H. Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence has been considered to be a "prophet of humanity" much like Walt Whitman. Our book explains that Lawrence believed Whitman was too indiscriminate. However, one could argue the two are very similar despite what Lawrence believed. For instance, Lawrence conformed to Whitman's free long line and bardic voice.

Lawrence's works are spontaneous overall; not only within each poem, but with regards to all of them as a whole. He attempts to cover multiple subject areas which provides evidence about how his imagination takes him off on tangents. Though a bit different, Whitman's poetry could be noted to be more of poetic visions as opposed to poetic imagination.

I, for one, believe that D.H. Lawrence took a lot from Walt Whitman. Lawrence's style of writing can be highly attributed to Whitman, yet he practically refused to see it. It is important to notice the similarities instead of shrugging them off. Whitman came way before Lawrence. So maybe D.H. was trying to envolve into an original and in the process he could've simply tweaked Walt's ideas to serve them as his own?

More Eliot: Journey of the Magi

During Eliot's later poetry his style changes. This can be seen in "Journey of the Magi" and "Little Gidding".

"Journey of the Magi"

The poem is based on the biblical story of the wise men who followed a star to worship Jesus at his birth. Eliot describes their journey not their arrival. The poem is written as if it is a reflection; he is retelling the story to others. He shows the harshness of the journey not the glory or celebratory moment. I believe Eliot uses this as a way to capture his dealing with converting to Christianity; conversion was difficult for him which lead to alienation/lack of support. Eliot's theme of death and rebirth comes back in this poem. In this instance, death and rebirth relates to another religion: the birth of a new religion to him and the death of his old ways/religion. "Journey of the Magi" shows the suffering and pain that plays a large role in Christianity.

More Eliot

The past weeks classes, along with the ones preceded them, really helped me when it came to T.S. Eliot. I know that you aren’t always supposed to pull a deeper meaning out of poetry, but our discussions helped me make some sense, and draw some information out of T.S. Eliot’s poetry. The videos were also a nice insight into his life. It is obvious that his life seeped deeply into his text, even if he did not believe such things should occur.

Most great writers have some form of tragedy in their lives, and the relationship he had with his wife could definitely be that inspirational tragedy. His life seemed to be a constant struggle - which makes me think is one of the reasons why we as readers struggled so much with his writings ourselves - he couldn’t write everything clearly because how else would we share in his struggle if nothing is difficult for us?

Overall, I think I’ve grown to like not on T.S. Eliot’s poetry, but T.S. Eliot himself.