Although D. H. Lawrence’s later novels have been the subject of much discussion by critics, few scholars have recognized or dealt with his sense of craft. By examining Lawrence’s careful and finely orchestrated strategies with language, especially metaphor, Humma argues that a number of the longer works—from Aaron’s Rod on and including the posthumously published The Virgin and the Gipsy—are small masterpieces.
Different in kind from Women in Love or The Rainbow, these fictions are very important in their own way. Humma maintains that the early and middle novels work largely through powerful symbols. Those of the last decade, though, develop through an intricate interlacing of metaphor and symbolic detail.
Humma devotes a chapter to each to Aaron’s Rod, The Ladybird, Kangaroo, St.Mawr, The Plumed Serpent, The Virgin and the Gipsy, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and The Escaped Cock. Aaron’s Rod, as a transitional work, reveals much about Lawrence’s narrative method and its dependence upon combinations of images. The Plumed Serpent, Humma suggests, is Lawrence’s most ambitious failure. Other critics have faulted plot, character, and meaning, but Humma sees incoherent metaphors as the basis for those other problems.
Because Lawrence’s metaphors shape myths essential to central actions and meanings, the reader cannot fully appreciate the strategic function of metaphor in them. When Lawrence’s method is successful, as it is in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, for example, figures of speech overlap each other, crossing boundaries in a web of “interpenetrating metaphors” that provide both structural integrity and thematic resonance.
Paying close attention to the texts, Metaphor and Meaning in D. H. Lawrence’s Later Novels shows that Lawrence was far from the indifferent craftsman in his later fiction that he has frequently been considered. In fact, Lawrence was acutely aware that language and meaning are inseparable, that technique, as Mark Schorer said, is discovery. John Humma’s fresh perspective upon the art and meaning of Lawrence’s later work provides a major revaluation of this last phase in the writer’s career.
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John B. Humma is Professor of English at Georgia Southern University and has published extensively on Lawrence's work. He received Georgia Southern University's Excellence in Research Award for 1988.
By examining D. H. Lawrence's careful and finely orchestrated strategies with language, especially metaphor, John Humma provides a major revaluation of the last phase in this writer's career. Paying close attention to the texts--with a chapter each on Aaron's Rod, The Ladybird, Kangaroo, St. Mawr, The Plumed Serpent, The Virgin and the Gypsy, Lady Chatterley's Lover, and The Escaped Cock--Metaphor and Meaning in D. H. Lawrence's Later Novels shows that Lawrence was far from the indifferent craftsman in his later fiction that he has frequently been considered. In fact, Lawrence was acutely aware that language and meaning are inseparable.
"This is an interesting and insightful book that every serious reader of Lawrence's work will want to read."--Choice
"His study provides an important reevaluation of Lawrence as a careful craftsman."-- Modern Fiction Studies
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Book Description HRD. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # CA-9780826207425
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Book Description HRD. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # CA-9780826207425