The Visionary D. H. Lawrence: Beyond Philosophy and Art

D. H. Lawrence is often seen either as an artist whose novels are spoiled by the intrusion of ideas or as a philosopher whose ideas happen to be expressed in fiction; neither of these perspectives does justice to the unity and complexity of Lawrence’s vision. In The Visionary D. H. Lawrence Robert E. Montgomery places Lawrence in the tradition both of great Romantic poet-philosophers, including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Carlyle, and Emerson, and of visionary thinkers Nietzsche, Heraclitus, and Jacob Boehme. Dr Montgomery reveals a context which illuminates Lawrence’s fiction and non-fiction, discusses his work in depth, and shows how his place in the prophetic-poetic tradition differs from that of his contemporaries Eliot and Yeats. The result is an exploration of the vision that informs and unifies Lawrence’s work.

• The first full-length exploration of Lawrence’s work in the context of philosophical tradition • A notable contribution to Lawrence studies, and to the study of philosophical traditions in general • Major addition to Cambridge University Press\'s strong Lawrence list

1. Introduction; 2. Flesh, Word, and Holy Ghost: Lawrence and Schopenhauer; 3. The passionate struggle into conscious being: Lawrence and Nietzsche; 4. ‘A dry soul is best’: Lawrence and Heraclitus; 5. The science of the soul: Lawrence and Boehme; 6. Conclusion: Romanticism and Christianity.