Takeo Iida
Kurume University, Japan
D. H. Lawrence and Mary Webb: Intuitive Writers
In the past Lawrence scholarship, English nature mystic writer Richard Jefferies was sometimes referred to in establishing closeness between Lawrence and the 19th century author of The Story of my Heart. However, another English nature mystic writer Mary Webb (1881-1927), Lawrence's contemporary novelist, has hardly been mentioned in relation with his works. Comparing the two novelists' works, it will be found that there is a strong affinity between them as contemporaries. Three common features will be indicated between them: firstly they are both essentially intuitive writers; they deeply intuit vital life of nature. Secondly they struggled against the Victorian moral tendency to suppress sexuality. For them sexuality is not what should be hidden but what should be admitted as part of humanity. Thirdly they were trying to overcome a class barrier by marriage of two characters who represent the working class and the middle class respectively. These three features will be examined in this paper. In the discussion Lawrence's essay Fantasia of the Unconscious, some poems, novels (Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley's Lover) and Webb's novel, Gone to Earth will be taken up.