The perverse art of D.H. Lawrence

Abstract

Since this is a critical study of D. H. Lawrence, it is perhaps only fair to allow Lawrence, himself a literary critic, the first principle of criticism: "Literary criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticising." So Lawrence disarmingly introduced one of his own critical studies, and he went on to explain that "criticism can never be a science" because it is concerned with "emotion" and "values" outside the realm of science. With this principle, and with Lawrence against the "pseudo-scientific" manner of analyzing literature, this study is in sympathy, though it does not avoid all the "critical twiddle-twaddle about style and form," and probably not all the "impertinence" and "dull jargon" of critical writing, that Lawrence berates. The almost inevitable danger of a "reasoned account" is a questionable systematization of terms and ideas which may obscure the values and emotions which are the real concern.