Lawrence and Comedy

by Edited by Paul Eggert , John Worthen

• ISBN13: 9780521562751
• ISBN10: 0521562759
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-07-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Lawrence's genius is unquestioned, but he is seldom considered a writer interested in comedy. This collection of essays by distinguished scholars explores the range, scope and sheer verve of Lawrence's comic writing. Comedy for Lawrence was not, as his contemporary Freud insisted, a mere defence mechanism. The comic mode enabled him to function parodically to undermine radically those forms of authority from which he always felt estranged. Lawrence's critique of the modern failure of the mystic impulse is present in all the comic moments in his writing where it is used to create an alternative cultural and social space. Lawrence used humour to distance himself from the dominant orthodoxy surrounding him, from the material of his fiction, from his readers, and, finally, from his own often intensely serious preoccupations. This book revises the popular image of Lawrence as a humourless writer and reveals his strategic use of a genuine comic talent.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction Paul Eggert

1. Drama and mimicry in Lawrence John Worthen

2. Mischief or merriment, amazement and amusement - and malice: Women in Love Howard Mills

3. Comedy and hysteria in Aaron's Rod John Turner

4. D. H. Lawrence and his 'gentle reader': the furious comedy of Mr. Noon Lydia Blanchard

5. 'Homunculus stirs': masculinity and the mock-heroic in Birds, Beasts and Flowers Holly Laird

6. Comedy and provisionality: Lawrence's address to his audience and material in his Australian novels Paul Eggert

7. Lawrence's satiric style: language and voice in St. Mawr Paul Poplawski

8. Humour in the letters of D. H. Lawrence Mark Kinkead-Weekes

9. Lawrence to Larkin: a changed perspective John Bayley

Notes on contributors

Index.