Andrew Harrison
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
The White Peacock and Lawrence's "entrance into the jungle of literature"
Lawrence's transformation from teacher to professional writer between 1909 and 1912 was facilitated by the support of his friends and the strong advocacy of Ford Madox Hueffer, Edward Garnett, and various influential figures associated with Hueffer's journal, the English Review. Yet, his "entrance into the jungle of literature" (i. 222) also entailed a persistent struggle on Lawrence's part to transform the nineteenth-century literary tradition he inherited; to tone down his own tendency towards melodrama and sentimentalism; and to understand and target his writings towards the expectations of the advanced London literary set. This paper will consider the compositional history of The White Peacock as it reveals Lawrence's formation as a professional writer; it will provide a reading of the novel which stresses its author's concerted attempt to lay claim to a specific literary culture and identity.