Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence
This thesis is a cultural materialist exploration of the trans-generic work of D. H. Lawrence. Combining formalist analyses with this historical approach, I provide perspectives on Lawrence which attend to the particularity of his texts' form while revealing their constitution as historical and...
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| Format: | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| Language: | English |
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2004
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14448/ |
| _version_ | 1848791963080327168 |
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| author | Simmonds, Roger |
| author_facet | Simmonds, Roger |
| author_sort | Simmonds, Roger |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This thesis is a cultural materialist exploration of the trans-generic work of D. H. Lawrence. Combining formalist analyses with this historical approach, I provide perspectives on Lawrence which attend to the particularity of his texts' form while revealing their constitution as historical and material products. The consequence is neither a "radicalized" Lawrence nor a right-wing caricature of him, but a politically hybrid Lawrence whose texts are sites of struggle with the socio-historical contradictions of modernity. In chapter 1, I show how Lawrence can critique bourgeois culture and its material foundations more profoundly than has been assumed. Pansies, whose dialogical poetics undermines conventional literary genres and assaults a bourgeois "literature" which suppresses its materiality, is read as a critique of its own conditions of production. In chapter 2, I illustrate how Lawrence's post-war work is more embattled than• is usually realised, in its intense exploration of the contradictions of liberal capitalism; the notion of Lawrence's post-war texts as largely monologic and reactionary is radically undermined. In chapter 3, I argue that Lawrence's life as an exile does not signify, as it is normally understood to, a sustained hostility to England and nation-ness. Rather, Lawrence's articles on Englishness offer an abstract, bourgeois myth of England which occludes the conflicts of class and gender. Finally, in chapter 4, I illuminate the darker cultural roots of Lawrence's unconscious, which is commonly perceived as a liberatory force, opposing hegemonic cultural ideologies. While Lawrence critiques the hypocrisy and repression of modern democratic idealism, his positing of an extra-cultural unconscious is haunted by an intensified version of the very cultural repression he assaults. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:36:51Z |
| format | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| id | nottingham-14448 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:36:51Z |
| publishDate | 2004 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-144482025-02-28T11:30:53Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14448/ Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence Simmonds, Roger This thesis is a cultural materialist exploration of the trans-generic work of D. H. Lawrence. Combining formalist analyses with this historical approach, I provide perspectives on Lawrence which attend to the particularity of his texts' form while revealing their constitution as historical and material products. The consequence is neither a "radicalized" Lawrence nor a right-wing caricature of him, but a politically hybrid Lawrence whose texts are sites of struggle with the socio-historical contradictions of modernity. In chapter 1, I show how Lawrence can critique bourgeois culture and its material foundations more profoundly than has been assumed. Pansies, whose dialogical poetics undermines conventional literary genres and assaults a bourgeois "literature" which suppresses its materiality, is read as a critique of its own conditions of production. In chapter 2, I illustrate how Lawrence's post-war work is more embattled than• is usually realised, in its intense exploration of the contradictions of liberal capitalism; the notion of Lawrence's post-war texts as largely monologic and reactionary is radically undermined. In chapter 3, I argue that Lawrence's life as an exile does not signify, as it is normally understood to, a sustained hostility to England and nation-ness. Rather, Lawrence's articles on Englishness offer an abstract, bourgeois myth of England which occludes the conflicts of class and gender. Finally, in chapter 4, I illuminate the darker cultural roots of Lawrence's unconscious, which is commonly perceived as a liberatory force, opposing hegemonic cultural ideologies. While Lawrence critiques the hypocrisy and repression of modern democratic idealism, his positing of an extra-cultural unconscious is haunted by an intensified version of the very cultural repression he assaults. 2004-07-08 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14448/1/403916.pdf Simmonds, Roger (2004) Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. D.H. Lawrence criticism |
| spellingShingle | D.H. Lawrence criticism Simmonds, Roger Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence |
| title | Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence |
| title_full | Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence |
| title_fullStr | Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence |
| title_full_unstemmed | Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence |
| title_short | Writing society: politics and history in the work of D.H. Lawrence |
| title_sort | writing society: politics and history in the work of d.h. lawrence |
| topic | D.H. Lawrence criticism |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14448/ |