Específicos:

Above all, it has helped determine his wide intellectual development, extending beyond Great Britain, and, through its Mediterranean landscape, has given him a poetic intuition of history and mythology.

Secondly, the reading and the translation of Italian novels and tales, and the contemplation of artistic and natural beauties, have enriched his poetic language with new images and symbols.

More than that, Italy, with its civilization, traditions and way of thinking, which are so different from those of English society, significantly contributes to worsening his crisis, typical of the modern man who aims at giving a sense of unity to the irreconcilable plurality of the universe. He gets fully involved in a clear contradiction residing in the troubled search for “unity in duality”,i already manifest in Twilight in Italy and, later, in his poetic vision of Etruscan civilization. It is also the contradiction of the intellectual who seeks refuge in the

1 See, in this respect, “The Crown”, in Reflections, in particular the section “The Flux of Corruption”: « It [the flux] is only the perfect meeting, the perfect utter interpenetration into oneness, the kiss, the blow, the two-in-one,..», p. 272; "The Reality of Peace", ibid., pp. 38-9.

“spirit”, although he finds the roots of life in “matter”, or the individual who wants to achieve liberty of being and express his ego openly, despite his feeling dominated by instincts and atavistic laws that he cannot escape.

Italy, therefore, has not only enriched Lawrence's quest, but has also contributed to revealing the deep anguish rooted in his human and highly tragic search.

Lawrence’s message is unchangeable, essentially based on a basic conflict between nature—instinct and primitivism—and society— reason and modernity.

The way that the author considers the best to communicate his own thought, centred on the deep relationships existing between man and the primitive vital flux and which are denied by history, is myth. According to him, Italy represents the first step towards a mythical rebirth which will involve wider implications leading him to explore further lands. An alternative way of life is easily discernible in Italy, then among the Red Indians of America, and finally in the archaic

world of the Mediterranean, a conception of the present and history which is essentially mo d e r n is t.^

Man’s return to a primitive state means to Lawrence to deny radically not only the present, but also history and, consequently, to establish a dimension where the individual, freed from external restraints, can regain a universal mythical mankind. Nature is alive; Lawrence feels that it belongs to him, although it is folded in mystery, and exteriorizes such feelings through the wonderful natural descriptions he makes. Nature, therefore, constitutes the trait-d'union among all Laurentian works just as dualism embodies his vision of the world and life.

In effect, it is the idea of polarity which enables Lawrence to grasp the relation between soul and body as a unity.

In the ancient world, the two halves of man’s psyche, the upper or “intellectual” mind and the lower or “passional” mind, were in harmony. They subsequently split up and Lawrence’s goal was to reunite them. The Symbolic Meaning expresses one of the most important statements about his own purposes as an artist-philosopher:

2 For a theoretical and historical analysis of the Modernist world, see M. Bradbury and J. McFarlane,

The progression of man’s conscious understanding is dual. The primary or sensual mind begins with the huge, profound, passional generalities of myth... Parallel to this, the reasoning mind starts from the great cosmic theories of the ancient world, and proceeds... The progress is a progression towards harmony between the two halves of the psyche. The approach is towards a pure unison between religion and science... But the progress of religion is to remove all that is repugnant to reason, and the progress of science is towards a reconciliation with the personal, passional soul. The last steps remain to be taken , and then man can really begin to be free, really to live his whole self, his whole life, in fulness.3

The reconciliation of opposites occurs in “pure art, where the sensual mind is harmonious with the ideal mind” .4 Art only can restore the harmony “between the two halves of psyche”:

In the highest art, the primary mind expresses itself direct, in direct dynamic pulsating communication. But this expression is harmonious with the outer or cerebral consciousness.^

Italian civilization plays a basic role within this dualistic context. According to Lawrence, Italy embodies an ambivalent and opposite meaning: on the one hand, he is convinced that it has enriched his life; on the other hand, he is aware that it is time it was put aside.

Italy has given me back I know not what of myself, but a very, very great deal. She has found for me so much that was lost: like a restored Osiris... Apart from the great discovery backwards, which one must take before one can be whole at all, there is a move forwards.6

5 Armin Arnold, The Symbolic Meaning (London: Centaur Press, 1962), pp. 137-8. 4 Ibid., p. 136.

5 Ibid.

6 D.H. Lawrence, "To Nuoro", SeaandSardinia, p. 123.

1

However, the choice of Italy as a promising alternative way of life keeps unchanged in him, although his spirit is constantly opposed by the idea that each single thing belonging to nature is dual.

Not only does Italy, with its characteristic folklore, wonderful art and varied landscape, represent a fundamental guiding line to the development of Lawrence's thought and literary productions. It also signifies an existence suffused with a vital and authentic religiosity, and a way of participating actively in a cosmic life, a way of achieving fulfilment and self-knowledge.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY P rim ary Sources

I list only those works used in the dissertation. Throughout, I have used either Cambridge or Heinemann editions of my main texts, except for Twilight in Italy, Sea and Sardinia and Etruscan Places where I have used the Penguin one-volume edition, D.H. Lawrence and Italy.

Aaron's Rod. Ed. Mara Kalnins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation. Ed. Mara Kalnins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

The Complete Poems of D.H. Lawrence. Ed. Vivian de Sola Pinto and Warren Roberts. 2 vols. London: Heinemann, 1964.

The Complete Short Stories. 3 vols. London: Heinemann, 1955.

D.H. Lawrence and Italy: Twilight in Italy, Sea and Sardinia and Etruscan Places. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985. Fantasia of the Unconscious. London: Martin Seeker, 1930.

The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, i. Ed. James T. Boulton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.