D. H. Lawrence, Ship of Death

[JBI]

With the somewhat success of The Man With the Blue Guitar thread, I thought it may be a good idea to start a thread on this great poem by D. H. Lawrence, The Ship of Death - available here: http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/D.H._Lawrence/15630



I

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.


................................

V

Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.

And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.

Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
already our souls are oozing through the exit
of the cruel bruise.

Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
Already the flood is upon us.

Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.



Any takers - what do you make of it? Seems a strange sort of poem to me, loaded with a dark sort of irony - I'll post more on it later with some other observations if other people feel like responding.

[Paulclem]

This poem reminds me of the image of John Donne in the shroud that he had done shortly before his death.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.harpers.org/media/image/blogs/misc/donne-shroud2.bmp&imgrefurl=http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000970&usg=__0ZIt5eEOEW5rNbZjYjMIDhn441U=&h=661&w=500&sz=969&hl=en&start=24&tbnid=c7wNprMJ7koiWM:&tbnh=138&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djohn%2Bdonne%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26 hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18


There is a brave attempt to give the reader hope in both Lawrence and Donne. I've always like Bavarian Gentians as well. One of Lawrences redeeming qualities is his willingness to face life and death.

[Virgil]

Oh cool. I think I've read this, but I can't remember it. I'll read it over the weekend.

[JBI]

Well, I guess this thread is killed now, since it is moved to an invisible corner of the forum.

[Paulclem]

Why was it moved?

I agree its a strange poem - to say that Leavis called him the Priest of Love, there is a lack of God or anyone in this poem. It's oddly solitary, despite all the biblical imagery. It seems to have a secular kind of resurrection within it, though it nods to mythology and the bible.

And where is the love he's been banging on about all his years. Perhaps thats the scary thing he's considering - the loneliness of death.

[Virgil]

Why was it moved?

I agree its a strange poem - to say that Leavis called him the Priest of Love, there is a lack of God or anyone in this poem. It's oddly solitary, despite all the biblical imagery. It seems to have a secular kind of resurrection within it, though it nods to mythology and the bible.

And where is the love he's been banging on about all his years. Perhaps thats the scary thing he's considering - the loneliness of death.

Leavis doesn't always get Lawrence correct. He was one of the first to bring Lawrence to the forefront, but a lot of criticism on Lawrence in the 1950', while a boost to his reputation, didn't get it completely right. It took the give and take of critics to settle into a better understanding of Lawrence.

I wonder why this was moved? But we'll keep it alive.

[jinjang]

First time I read it, it gave me an odd pang with the word "oblivion" repeated.
Second time, it rang me a sense of renewal in oneself, shedding old "fallen or bruised self." Loneliness is not bad if one transcends its negativity and takes it in detachment and peace. I felt indeed a kind of 'resurrection' after reading it.

[Logos]

Yes it was moved, with a 4 day re-direct from General Literature :)

Please see:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45800

--

[Paulclem]

JBI suggests there is a dark irony in the poem. t is crtainly ironic that a writerso obsessd with relationships should finally eschew them for this solitary voyage. There no sense of anyne at the other end either- just peace. I wonder if he finally thought that others were a kind of hell. Certainly he moved around to escape the taint of the establishment.

It is also a curious image of resurrection too. A polished shell. What ae your thoughts on that?

[Paulclem]

Pardon my sausage finger netbook typos.

[JBI]

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.


That to me seems a tad ironic - have you built your ship of death, you will need it - as if in death you will need such a ship, to get past anything into the abyss. Anyone think the apples though are a reference to Frost's After Apple Picking, or is that just too big a stretch?

In that sense perhaps, if we call that an allusion, which could bring interesting things, though I am not sure if I can justify that (Frost wrote his poem in 1914, available here: http://www.online-literature.com/frost/741/).

The apples falling though, the poem, though talking about death though, I would argue, talks more about life - have you built the ship of death, to me means something like have you picked the apples, or have you lived your life - the suicide comparison in the earlier part seems to suggest such a reference:

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

The ship, ironically, seems to dominate as a romantic image, but the irony falls on the state of the poet himself, I would argue, dying before his time in a sort of unfulfillment - I am told that his letters from this period betray a sort of pessimistic view on his life as sort of wasted, and on the futility of literature as a means to existence.

But I think the question though, is what is really the point of the ship in this scheme - if the boat is sailing to oblivion, wouldn't said daggers and whatnot make just as quiet an ending - what is this piece to be found in the fullfilment of the journey? The poem to me suggests something completely different than, for instance this bit from Roethke:



Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)

From I Knew a Woman by Theodore Roethke.

Is Lawrence though, perhaps suggesting that he did not have time to build this ship, or to set things in order - is he suggesting that there is no peace for him on this voyage, and that it isn't a peaceful decent, but rather a violent, premature one, but even so, what is the significance of that, how is that any less "quietus" - hmm.

[Janine]

I have read this poem many times and I love it. I think he wrote it very late and in the time his own death was quite evident to all. I will comment later on. I don't have the time now, but DHL is my favorite author; so no doubt, I will find something to say about it. I will look up the time slot and the influences and what exactly was going on in DHL's life during this period.

Now that I read it again, and plan to read the full version online tonight; I see I could interpret this in two ways. One is the burning down/rebirth - Phoenix idea, that dominated Lawrence's work; the other is his own actual physical mortality/immortality/death. I will go into details later on, when I get back home and have more time to respond.

[Dark Muse]

Well the words Ship and Death have caught my interest. I will take a look at this poem as soon as I am able to do so.

[jinjang]

And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.

It does not seem to me that the death here is our physical death but rather our mind death, a transition to a different world because you become a new person. A long and painful struggle to shed a rotten old self to become a fresh new self. I remember seeing fallen apples in autumn, they are mostly rotten.


Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
Already the flood is upon us.

Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.

I am reading a few lines at at time and I may not see a whole picture yet.
Noah's Ark is brought back to represent a sort of cleansing in small scale because it applies to an individual not a human race. One can shed and forget his or her rotten thoughts and habits, one may redeem himself with innocence and in oblivion.


The ship, ironically, seems to dominate as a romantic image, but the irony falls on the state of the poet himself, I would argue, dying before his time in a sort of unfulfillment - I am told that his letters from this period betray a sort of pessimistic view on his life as sort of wasted, and on the futility of literature as a means to existence.

It makes sense with the quote you put up, but I did not sense pessimism. Maybe he is considering fatalism.


With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Is it part of the poem? I can't get to the link somehow. I could interpret this part as to say that he does not want to fight what is inevitable and because it is not quietus.

Never mind my network was slow and let me read the complete poem first.

[jinjang]

I have to take back a lot of what I said. I read the whole poem and now I have a totally different interpretation. I withdraw from here and I apologize.

I went to a library. The complete collection of his poems has two other versions of the poem in appendix, one of which is shorter.

The shorter version has repetitions of "build your ship (Noah's Ark in my opinion), nothing matters, to prepare your longest journey to oblivion (heaven and complete peace), instead of not quietus (not death but hell) where you will wail in agony." What is in the quote is my impression from the shorter version.

I think I prefer my first and second impressions, instead of the last one.

[JBI]

Welcome back JingJang - I hope that won't detract you from joining in - you are quite the insightful poster.

[Dark Muse]

What is not to love about this poem? It is right up my alley. Absolutely gorgeous! This might be my favorite thing Lawrence rote EVER! Including novels and short stories. It is so laden with such deep rich imagery, and I think that it also draws from myth a great deal as well in so much of the symbolism which is alluded to within this poem.

First of all on reading this the first and most prominent thing which had come into my mind was the Vikings, throughout the poem I think Norse Lore was strongly drawn upon. The metaphor of the "ship of death" was something that the Vikings literally did. Upon the death of a Viking, an actual ship was constructed in which the corpse of the dead was placed and then sent out to sea and the ships would be lain with relics of the material living world in the same way in which the poem speaks of placing food, wine, and clothing upon the ship of death.

The mention of ash within poem and alluding to fumes, also suggests the old Viking tradition.


And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.


And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.

Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn
the cruel dawn of coming back to life
out of oblivion

Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy gray
of a flood-dawn

For the Viking ships of the dead would be used as funeral pyres and once set adrift they would be then set afire.

There was also the mention of violence, suggestion of battle, weaponry.


And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
ever a quietus make?

[JBI]

That's actually an angle I had never considered - thank you for that, it kind of makes sense, and seems justifiable by the text.

In that sense then, the building of the ship could be on par with gaining the reputation and respect that would warrant a ship to be sent off for you on death - the quick not "quietus" was then, could suggest a lack of fulfillment and achievement in life - a rotting of the apples before they can be picked, and a sort of uselessness, without the descent into Valhalla into the halls of the heroes - certainly the pessimistic outlook of Lawrence on his last days could support such an argument.


A very interesting observation!

[Dark Muse]

Glad I was able to offer something insightful on this dicussion, my personal love for mythology generally casues me to hone into those sorts of details and suggestions before anything else.

[stlukesguild]

I'll need to pull out my volume of Lawrence's poetry and try to join in tomorrow...too tired for any deep thinking tonight.

[JBI]

Also, what do you guys make of the Hamlet reference - in the Quietus, to Hamlet:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin .

Are we to take this as somewhat of an answer to it, or a building upon it - I know Lawrence, for instance, hated the Prince, but the reference isn't dismissible - The Prince too is brought to a premature death, but the point of the poem is that he is fulfilled in the end, by defeating Claudius, and restoring order to Denmark. The bare Bobkin quietus though implies a sort of old age, and a readiness to slowly pass peacefully away - there is no peace in this poem though, there is no preparation, one feels that the poem is constantly remarking on the lack of time to "make quietus", and the failure to build the ship, to go peacefully, as nothing is set into order, and there is no time to "build a ship".

[JBI]

I'll need to pull out my volume of Lawrence's poetry and try to join in tomorrow...too tired for any deep thinking tonight.

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1251.html#129

This is a good edition - they've got much of the major Lawrence poems on this site too, if you cannot find your text.

[Dark Muse]

This poem could also be seen in some ways as akin to Tennyson's Ulysses, as they both play upon similar themes, in relating to death as being like preparing for a voyage at sea to some distant and far away place for which there could be no return.

And upon looking at it through the idea of lack of fulfillment and achievement, as JBI mentioned above, Ulysses plays with these ideas as well, in which he is now lamenting as an older man his more docile youth, and seeks to once more taste adventure and go out upon the last great voyage of his life, to try and regain something of his lost youth and former greatness.

And in The Ship of Death, Lawrence mentions this idea of being born anew


And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.

And laments the ebbing strength of the body and the weakening of the soul


Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leaves us,
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.

which can also be seen in Tennyson's Ulysses in his desire to go out one last

[Dark Muse]

Also, what do you guys make of the Hamlet reference - in the Quietus, to Hamlet:

I am not that familiar with Hamlet, as I haven't read that one yet, so I am not adequate to comment upon that.

[stlukesguild]

This is a good edition - they've got much of the major Lawrence poems on this site too, if you cannot find your text.

Shelved chronologically and by language. The only books I have a problem finding are the ones piled up in teetering stacks on the floor until I get around to re-shelving them.:lol:

[stlukesguild]

First of all on reading this the first and most prominent thing which had come into my mind was the Vikings, throughout the poem I think Norse Lore was strongly drawn upon. The metaphor of the "ship of death" was something that the Vikings literally did. Upon the death of a Viking, an actual ship was constructed in which the corpse of the dead was placed and then sent out to sea and the ships would be lain with relics of the material living world in the same way in which the poem speaks of placing food, wine, and clothing upon the ship of death.

The mention of ash within poem and alluding to fumes, also suggests the old Viking tradition.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?

Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy gray
of a flood-dawn

For the Viking ships of the dead would be used as funeral pyres and once set adrift they would be then set afire.

Yes... the Viking burial is an image that this poem immediately brought to my mind as well. I also wonder whether the choice of the term "rose" and "pink" in describing the light/dawn at the poem's ending do not reinforce the seafaring imagery of the Vikings with an allusion to Homer and especially the Odyssey where we repeatedly confront the image of "rose-fingered dawn"?

[stlukesguild]

The allusion to Hamlet (the Dane) certainly further strengthens the connection to the Vikings. Beyond that, Hamlet, in his famous soliloquy ponders death... suicide... as a means to finally achieve peace... an end (quietus). He finally comes to the question as to whether death really shall bring peace/quietus:

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...

Lawrence seems to suggest a like trepidation... a like uncertainty as to whether death is truly a "quietus"... an end:

And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
ever a quietus make?


O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!

How can we this, our own quietus, make?

I am especially struck by the conflicting or perhaps ambiguous... uncertain terms used to describe this end:

...the dark and endless ocean of the end...


...the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
She is gone! gone! and yet
somewhere she is there.
Nowhere!


It is the end, it is oblivion.

And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness

[stlukesguild]

The Tennyson/Ulysses link is especially intriguing. Certainly Lawrence does suggest a similar frustration... disgust with his deteriorating/dying body.

[Dark Muse]

Yes, there does seem to be some conflicting or ambgious ideas about death or "the end" within this poem, as Lawrecne brings back the idea of oblivion more than once, yet at the same time he also refers to death as being born anew, which contradicts the idea of it being a complete oblibvion.

The journey is portrayed to sound as a sort of neverending one, while the details remain unknown as to just what awaits, if it is just an endless driifting down the sea.

[jinjang]

I modified my last post by adding a few more lines:

I went to a library. The complete collection of his poems has two other versions of the poem in appendix, one of which is shorter.

The shorter version has repetitions of "build your ship (Noah's Ark in my opinion), nothing matters, to prepare your longest journey to oblivion (heaven and complete peace), instead of not quietus (not death but hell) where you will wail in agony." What is in the quote is my impression from the shorter version.

I think I prefer my first and second impressions, instead of the last one.

[Paulclem]

I like the Norse connectin too and then the link with Hamlet. Lawence populates the ship in an oddly familiar and domestic way with his lttle dishes. Is this a clinging, or longing for the familiar in his inevitable journey?

The other thing is that whatever tradition it reminds you of - biblical - Norse and in my case Egyptian,(though I think the Norse connection is much stronger), there is a distinct lack of God or Gods. Certainly he is alluding in his imagery to mythologial traditions, but where are the underlying population of deities? Does this reflect his uncertainty about the existence of God/s? Without God/s - death become a process - not a resurrection but a rebirth.

[Paulclem]

one feels that the poem is constantly remarking on the lack of time to "make quietus", and the failure to build the ship, to go peacefully, as nothing is set into order, and there is no time to "build a ship".


Yes - his exhortations reminded me of Donne.

The flood also seems apocalyptic too:

...and soon it will rise on the outside world.

Floods appear in two of his works that I can recall - The Virgin and the Gypsy and The Rainbow. Both bring death and cetainly n the Virgin and the Gypsy, transform the lives of those affected. The biblical image of the flood is the world remade, as he seems to be remade like a shell. The shell is something that ws animated by a living ceature that has now been scoured out. Lawrence's worries perhaps?

[Dark Muse]

The other thing is that whatever tradition it reminds you of - biblical - Norse and in my case Egyptian,(though I think the Norse connection is much stronger), there is a distinct lack of God or Gods. Certainly he is alluding in his imagery to mythologial traditions, but where are the underlying population of deities? Does this reflect his uncertainty about the existence of God/s? Without God/s - death become a process - not a resurrection but a rebirth.

Though various different mythologies are alluded to, certainly Biblical with a direct mention of the ark, and talk of flooding, and the Vikings which has been discussed, as well the constant repetition of oblivion makes me think of Greek and the River Lethe, I think that with the idea of building your own ship of death, that God(s) are removed from the equation, I do not think this is meant to be a truly religious or spiritual poem in spite of its subject and allusions, Lawrence did study various cultures and spiritualities and often draws from in his works upon those things, but I think this work is about man taking account of himself, it is about the "self" even in death, rather than looking to some other being or deity. Man is accountable unto himself and accountable for his own soul, so he must construct his own ship of death, and line it those things that matter to him, as it speaks of the domestics which will come with him on this journey of the unknown.

[Paulclem]

Man is accountable unto himself and accountable for his own soul, so he must construct his own ship of death, and line it those things that matter to him, as it speaks of the domestics which will come with him on this journey of the unknown.

Yet he clearly refers to a soul, which implies a deity, and he is remade or resurrected from oblivion. His vagueness about this may imply the peace that passes understanding.

with the richness of the imagery, I would say it is a spiritual poem, but Lawrence was a writer that faced up to his problems with life. I thnk he believed in an ineffable something from this poem, but he was too honest to go with a concpt he had struggled with. Otherwise he would believe in annihilation, which he clearly implies he does not. There is the peace at the end of the poem. It's like a death poem forthe nominal believers in a God idea - leaving the possibilities open, or refusing to label.

[Virgil]

I read this to some detail today and will definitely post my thoughts later tonight. No time right now. But looks like a good discussion. :)

[Janine]

Man is accountable unto himself and accountable for his own soul, so he must construct his own ship of death, and line it those things that matter to him, as it speaks of the domestics which will come with him on this journey of the unknown.

Yet he clearly refers to a soul, which implies a deity, and he is remade or resurrected from oblivion. His vagueness about this may imply the peace that passes understanding.

with the richness of the imagery, I would say it is a spiritual poem, but Lawrence was a writer that faced up to his problems with life. I thnk he believed in an ineffable something from this poem, but he was too honest to go with a concpt he had struggled with. Otherwise he would believe in annihilation, which he clearly implies he does not. There is the peace at the end of the poem. It's like a death poem forthe nominal believers in a God idea - leaving the possibilities open, or refusing to label.

I agree with this, because Lawrence was a highly religious thinking man; don't get me wrong, not in anyway conventionally speaking. He was not an athetist or agnostic; his writings do indicate that he did believe in something beyond this world or the hope of it. If I knew the exact date of this poem, it would be helpful. I just looked it up in his Complete Poems of D.H.Lawrence and it does fall towards the end; therefore, I would assume he was actually nearing his death, in the physical sense, at the time this poem was written. It was definitely much on his mind. The poem that follows in the collection is called Difficult Death. I wasn't able to locate it online; maybe someone else can. It follows this poem and probably sums it up to some degree; perhaps it goes further to answer the question as to how Lawrence was thinking and what he was believing at this time:

I just came across this great article by Joyce Carol Oats. Here is an excerpt on the poem we are currently discussing. It seems to be quite insightful and it states that indeed Lawrence wrote this poem contemplating his own death; it was written just prior to his death. I find the poem exceedingly sad and personal, but not without hope of an after-life, a new birth. Here is the article:


Most of the poems, of course, are just as Lawrence judged them in "Chaos in Poetry": suffused fragments, visions "passing into touch and sound, then again touch and the bursting of a bubble of an image." But the finest poems achieve triumphs of both content and form, and bear comparison with the greatest poems in our language. "The Ship of Death" is a "deepening black darkening" work of art that combines an intense, painful subjectivity and a mastery of objective form, the absolute conclusion of Lawrence's autobiographical work—one has only to imagine the Collected Poems without it to realize how terrible loss this would be. (More so than the loss of 'Under Ben Bulben," perhaps.) Here, at the end of his life, the very consciously dying poet composes a poem to get him through his death, just as, years before, he composed "New Heaven and Earth" in an attempt to express his mystical experience. Like the beautiful "Bavarian Gentians," "The Ship of Death" is a construction by way of the artistic imagination of the attitude one must take toward death—that is, toward dying, the active, existential process of dying. And here Lawrence is equal to the challenge, as he has been equal to the challenge of expressing the mysteries of life throughout his career. "The Ship of Death" is about a symbolic ship, but a small one; the images of death are terrible, final, but they are familiar and small as well:

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.
The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.
And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

The "fallen self" builds its ship, its poem, to take it upon this journey into the unknown, into oblivion; it rejects once again the self-willed act of suicide: "for how could murder, even self-murder/ever a quietus make?" The symbol of the small ship is exactly right, it is exactly true to Lawrence's personality, for it is stocked with small, unpretentious items, a very human, humble vehicle:

Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,
upon the flood's black waste. . . .

(Just as Yeats declares as an accomplished fact his own death, and commands that his tombstone be made not of marble but of limestone quarried nearby.) But Lawrence's death journey ends at dawn, a "cruel dawn," out of which glows a mystical flush of rose, and there is some kind of renewal, "the whole thing starts again" as the frail soul abandons itself utterly to the Infinite: Lawrence's way of affirming again, and at a time in his life when he might be tempted to deny it, the absolute mystery of the Other, which cannot be guessed and cannot be absorbed into the human soul. It is a kind of sensuous stoicism, an intelligent paganism—if the "pagan" were to be joined with the artistic soul in having the consciousness required for the exertion of this will, this building of the individual's way into oblivion.

I know that later in his life he visited the Etruscan tombs, which greatly impressed him, playing into his own belief system. The tomb drawing are explicitly and beautifully described in his book on the subject; you might want to check that book out; it's a great and fascinating read. He saw the experience, not as a mere observer or anthropologist, but in a very spiritual sense. Lawrence was always looking for some form of God, a reinvented god or often his own mention of the Holy Spirit. He was very altering in his views about this from novel to novel. At the time he wrote The Plumed Serpent he shed off the God of the Catholic or Christian church, sending him back to his thrown in heaven, in order to bring back and re-establish the old gods in Mexico; ritual was a huge element in the book. Then later, he looked to the Etruscan's for an answer to religion/belief. Lawrence perhaps accepted some aspects of the Etrucan's who believed a little boat would convey one to the afterlife. His description of the provisions in this poem remind me of two things - one is the little bag filled with basics for survival, that he and his wife carted along on all their adventures/travels and the second is related more clearly to the drawings in the Etruscan tombs. He was highly interested in the fact, that the Etruscan society had vanished and yet their religious ideas were documented so clearly within the tombs. I am not sure I am explaining this correctly; it is best to read the book and see how Lawrence perceived it through his eyes. I am just trying to say he went through many stages of belief in his lifetime, transforming or exploring different possibilites of the here-after each time. He explored the old Gods, the total mystery of a supreme being, the pagan rituals, the Gods of the earth, and perhaps he returned in some form to a more Biblical connection to his God by the end of his life or perhaps it was the Gods of the Etruscan's. If you read his final poems, you can see some of that quality of returning to his early root beliefs and his past. It would take a lifetime to really know exactly what Lawrence's final conclusion on the concept of eternity or God was, by the early end of his life, at the age of only 45. In fact, I just looked it up and Etrucan's Places was published two years after his death.

[Dark Muse]

Yet he clearly refers to a soul, which implies a deity, and he is remade or resurrected from oblivion. His vagueness about this may imply the peace that passes understanding.

I do not think that soul has to equal deity, at least not in the sense of "God" I think the concept of soul can exist without there needing to be an external God, and I think this poem is more reflectively internal.


with the richness of the imagery, I would say it is a spiritual poem, but Lawrence was a writer that faced up to his problems with life. I thnk he believed in an ineffable something from this poem, but he was too honest to go with a concpt he had struggled with. Otherwise he would believe in annihilation, which he clearly implies he does not. There is the peace at the end of the poem. It's like a death poem forthe nominal believers in a God idea - leaving the possibilities open, or refusing to label.

The poem may be spiritual but I am not convinced that God is meant to play a role within the work, as he turned the poem inward, upon man himself, I do not think the figure in this poem is truly seeking a God, even if one might see suggestions of an afterlife in the works. But then while Lawrence was a spiritual person I think the use of the word oblivion here can be seen as similar to annihilation.

As it has been briefly touched upon before this poem does contradict itself in some ways when reflection upon death, and what may await afterwards. For oblivion does not truly suggest an afterlife, and yet the figure in the poem does prepare from some sort of journey, and surrounds himself with material comforts. But I think the poem is questioning, perhaps preparing for all possibilities, be it an afterlife, or just a great nothingness.

Even if the poem is spiritual I do not see God having a role in it.

[Paulclem]

I thought the boat emerging from oblivion was a bit like the creation story with the water separating form the sky. Perhaps a kind of personal creation story.

I am not convinced that God is meant to play a role within the work

The God/ Gods etc just seem so absent from the poem when it is richly endowed with such imagery associatd with deities.

There is perhaps the desire to retain control through the death proces. I agree with JBI's idea that he hadn't completed his own ship- he is unprepard for death but seems to be struggling with letting go. He is trying to be in control - building the boat, furnishing it with domestic items, and then guiding it. At some point there is the acknowledgement of a relinquishing of control, but he can't seem to exhort a God/s which is what a conventional believer would do. He can't give up the possibility of hope though - the vague peace at the end.

Great tension, and it seems to relate to a very real experience of approaching death for someone who confronted life in writing.

[Virgil]

I have to take back a lot of what I said. I read the whole poem and now I have a totally different interpretation. I withdraw from here and I apologize.

I went to a library. The complete collection of his poems has two other versions of the poem in appendix, one of which is shorter.

The shorter version has repetitions of "build your ship (Noah's Ark in my opinion), nothing matters, to prepare your longest journey to oblivion (heaven and complete peace), instead of not quietus (not death but hell) where you will wail in agony." What is in the quote is my impression from the shorter version.

I think I prefer my first and second impressions, instead of the last one.

Let me join the conversation by stating what I know about the various versions. First this is part of Lawrence's last batch of work before he died, and for those that don't know he had tuberculosis and he knew he didn't have much longer to live. Lawrence died in early February of 1930 and this was probably written within his last year. Many of those poems of the last year are on the subject of death, and in particular his death. His obssesion with death probably goes back a year or so before that, say 1927/8 where while living in Italy was fascinated with the recently discovered tombs of the Etruscans, and which he wrote a number of essays. Lawrence had been obssessed with primitive cultures at least going back to his novel Women In Love, written during WWI, but published after.

There are three established versions of "The Ship of Death," and the complete poems (I assume this is where you looked Jin) has all three. But the version that we are looking at is the version that was included in Last Poems, published posthuously in 1932. I think it was the correct one to select. It is certainly more polished than the others, and this version is the only one that separates sections into numbered stanzas.

Of the other two version, like Jin says, one is much shorter and the other much longer. On my initial read, the shorter version seems like a germ for the poem and and the longer version seems like a free wielding exercise to expand.

Many of the late poems are in two drafts, a MS "A" and MS "B" version. According to the editor of Late Poems, Richard Aldington, Lawrence used MS "B" as an initial draft book, and then re-wrote it in MS "A" as a more final version. This isn't a hundred percent the case, but it appears to be the case for most of the beginning parts of the MMS until the end when Lawrence was just too ill to really be disciplined. In the case of "The Ship of Death," there are actually three versions, and the version we have at hand that was published was a typed stand alone version that must have been a further editing of the MS "A" version. Apparently Lawrence had felt this was a more special poem with greater promise. MS "A" version is the longer version.

Hope that was informative.

[Janine]

Let me join the conversation by stating what I know about the various versions. First this is part of Lawrence's last batch of work before he died, and for those that don't know he had tuberculosis and he knew he didn't have much longer to live. Lawrence died in early February of 1930 and this was probably written within his last year. Many of those poems of the last year are on the subject of death, and in particular his death. His obssesion with death probably goes back a year or so before that, say 1927/8 where while living in Italy was fascinated with the recently discovered tombs of the Etruscans, and which he wrote a number of essays. Lawrence had been obssessed with primitive cultures at least going back to his novel Women In Love, written during WWI, but published after.

There are three established versions of "The Ship of Death," and the complete poems (I assume this is where you looked Jin) has all three. But the version that we are looking at is the version that was included in Last Poems, published posthuously in 1932. I think it was the correct one to select. It is certainly more polished than the others, and this version is the only one that separates sections into numbered stanzas.

Of the other two version, like Jin says, one is much shorter and the other much longer. On my initial read, the shorter version seems like a germ for the poem and and the longer version seems like a free wielding exercise to expand.

Many of the late poems are in two drafts, a MS "A" and MS "B" version. According to the editor of Late Poems, Richard Aldington, Lawrence used MS "B" as an initial draft book, and then re-wrote it in MS "A" as a more final version. This isn't a hundred percent the case, but it appears to be the case for most of the beginning parts of the MMS until the end when Lawrence was just too ill to really be disciplined. In the case of "The Ship of Death," there are actually three versions, and the version we have at hand that was published was a typed stand alone version that must have been a further editing of the MS "A" version. Apparently Lawrence had felt this was a more special poem with greater promise. MS "A" version is the longer version.

Hope that was informative.

Definitely informative, Virgil. Thanks. I have been waiting for you to show up and comment. Did you read the research I dug up; an essay by Joyce Carol Oats, in my last post on this page? I found the entire essay online and copied it to my offline program; I will read the remainder later - looks interesting, insightful and addresses other aspects of L's work. I was glad to find this particular reference to this poem within the articles. I keep stressing that fact, that Lawrence had gone to the Etruscan tombs late in his life and then written his travel book on the same subject, of which he became fascinated. Right, it was published posthumously, as was this poem. That trip with his friend had a definite effect on this poem and it's imagery, such as the little boat supplied with some very basic provisions for the after-life. Also, just the way Lawrence describes those provisions is somewhat funny or curious to me; one could compare this to his account of his packed bag - think he referred to it as his 'kichenette' (will look that up when I find my book; it is mentioned in the very beginning), as he set off with Frieda's on an adventure to the island chronicalized in his novel Sea and Sardinia

[Virgil]

Definitely informative, Virgil. Thanks. I have been waiting for you to show up and comment. Did you read the research I dug up; an essay by Joyce Carol Oats, in my last post on this page? I found the entire essay online and copied it to my offline program; I will read the remainder later - looks interesting, insightful and addresses other aspects of L's work. I was glad to find this particular reference to this poem within the articles. I keep stressing that fact, that Lawrence had gone to the Etruscan tombs late in his life and then written his travel book on the same subject, of which he became fascinated. Right, it was published posthumously, as was this poem. That trip with his friend had a definite effect on this poem and it's imagery, such as the little boat supplied with some very basic provisions for the after-life. Also, just the way Lawrence describes those provisions is somewhat funny or curious to me; one could compare this to his account of his packed bag - think he referred to it as his 'kichenette' (will look that up when I find my book; it is mentioned in the very beginning), as he set off with Frieda's on an adventure to the island chronicalized in his novel Sea and Sardinia

I had not at the time I posted. I had not caught up, but now I have and Oates is right on in her understanding of the poem. I think you explained Lawrence's interest in Etruscan tombs but i don't find this poem incorporates anything Etruscan. As far as I can tell. I'm going to go back and respond to as many as I can.

[Virgil]

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.


That to me seems a tad ironic - have you built your ship of death, you will need it - as if in death you will need such a ship, to get past anything into the abyss. Anyone think the apples though are a reference to Frost's After Apple Picking, or is that just too big a stretch?

Quite possible. My thought was Keat's "To Autumn" where there is an image of ripe apples. I think apples in general are associated with autumn and that associates them with upcoming death. It's hard to say whether Lawrence has either poem in mind or just tapping into a general association.


The ship, ironically, seems to dominate as a romantic image, but the irony falls on the state of the poet himself, I would argue, dying before his time in a sort of unfulfillment - I am told that his letters from this period betray a sort of pessimistic view on his life as sort of wasted, and on the futility of literature as a means to existence.
I think I fleshed out his bio of the time above. Yes, he knew he was dying when he wrote this.


It does not seem to me that the death here is our physical death but rather our mind death, a transition to a different world because you become a new person. A long and painful struggle to shed a rotten old self to become a fresh new self. I remember seeing fallen apples in autumn, they are mostly rotten.

I do think it's a physical death, but other than that I think you nail the central core of the poem. It's a poem of becoming, from a current state (bruised dying life) to a new self, the new state of the after life and the painful struggle to it.

[Virgil]

Also, what do you guys make of the Hamlet reference - in the Quietus, to Hamlet:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin .

Are we to take this as somewhat of an answer to it, or a building upon it - I know Lawrence, for instance, hated the Prince, but the reference isn't dismissible - The Prince too is brought to a premature death, but the point of the poem is that he is fulfilled in the end, by defeating Claudius, and restoring order to Denmark. The bare Bobkin quietus though implies a sort of old age, and a readiness to slowly pass peacefully away - there is no peace in this poem though, there is no preparation, one feels that the poem is constantly remarking on the lack of time to "make quietus", and the failure to build the ship, to go peacefully, as nothing is set into order, and there is no time to "build a ship".

Now that is a very interesting thought. I could not piece in how the bodkin fit. I don't think I've ever seen anywhere Lawrence not liking Hamlet, but you know it fits. Hamlet is the anti-Lawrence. Hamlet is a person obssessed with rational thought and intellectually understanding of the world where Lawrence is the anti-intellectual, the person who trusts his emotions (blood knowledge, as Lawrence calls it versus mental knowledge) and intuitions. Hamlet is mental knowledge personified and cannot trust his intuition. Stanza III rejects Hamletesk intellectualization of taking his own life. Lawrence will trust this ship of death to carry his end, not suicide.

[Virgil]

What is not to love about this poem? It is right up my alley. Absolutely gorgeous! This might be my favorite thing Lawrence rote EVER! Including novels and short stories. It is so laden with such deep rich imagery, and I think that it also draws from myth a great deal as well in so much of the symbolism which is alluded to within this poem.

Glad you liked it. It is a fine poem. :)


First of all on reading this the first and most prominent thing which had come into my mind was the Vikings, throughout the poem I think Norse Lore was strongly drawn upon. The metaphor of the "ship of death" was something that the Vikings literally did. Upon the death of a Viking, an actual ship was constructed in which the corpse of the dead was placed and then sent out to sea and the ships would be lain with relics of the material living world in the same way in which the poem speaks of placing food, wine, and clothing upon the ship of death.

The mention of ash within poem and alluding to fumes, also suggests the old Viking tradition.

I would agree with everyone that said that the ship alludes to the Viking tradition. Vikings did send their dead off in a boat in flames. And Lawrence would have known that and i can swear he used the same allusion elsewhere.

Also do not forget the greek underworld ferrying of the dead, which is also in Dante's Inferno. There is an element of that too.

However, do not negate the use of bliblical imagery. The ark of Noah is also critical here and so is the flood that is alluded. The biblical flood is a wiping out of life for a new man; the family of Noah becomes the new humanity and is granted a new covenant (relationship) with God. While the use of the Viking image of a ship and the Greek ferrying means of writing the poem, I don't think they really amplify the themes. I think the biblical suggestion is more integral with the poem's themes.

[Virgil]

The Tennyson/Ulysses link is especially intriguing. Certainly Lawrence does suggest a similar frustration... disgust with his deteriorating/dying body.

The tennyson poem that echoes the most for me is Tennyson's last poem he wrote before he died:


Crossing The Bar
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

[Janine]

The tennyson poem that echoes the most for me is Tennyson's last poem he wrote before he died:

Virgil, I love that poem. I have read it before. I reminds me also of this poem by Robert Browning:


Prospice by Robert Browning

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form;
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And made me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave.
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain.
Then a light, then thy breat,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

Virgil, I am not sure I agree with you on the idea of a Viking ship. It could be that Lawrence aludes to any type of ship or one of his own making. I think the ship is less specific and more symbolic of Lawrence himself being conveyed by a simplistic little boat. I still hold by the idea of the Etruscan's. I can't find my book, but I distinctly recall Lawrence pointing out the idea of the boats conveying the dead to the after-life. He respected the humbleness of the Etruscans and how they were usually not in the fore of history, such as the Greeks and Roman's were; more the idea of a lost civilization, that Lawrence felt this affinity to. I don't think in the end, he would be thinking of the Vikings, as much as the Etruscan's and their lost civilization. I will try to dig up some more to support this idea.

Virgil, I do find that your contrast of Hamlet and Lawrence is quite an interesting paragraph and thought. I had not thought about it quite that way, but I think you are right-on with the differences.

So, do you think Oats is accurate in the interpretation of the poem? I felt it was quite insightful. I wish to read the rest of the commentaries I found online. Wow, this is a really good discussion. I also need to review all that has been written in this thread so far.

[Virgil]

Virgil, I am not sure I agree with you on the idea of a Viking ship. It could be that Lawrence aludes to any type of ship or one of his own making. I think the ship is less specific and more symbolic of Lawrence himself being conveyed by a simplistic little boat. I still hold by the idea of the Etruscan's. I can't find my book, but I distinctly recall Lawrence pointing out the idea of the boats conveying the dead to the after-life. He respected the humbleness of the Etruscans and how they were usually not in the fore of history, such as the Greeks and Roman's were; more the idea of a lost civilization, that Lawrence felt this affinity to. I don't think in the end, he would be thinking of the Vikings, as much as the Etruscan's and their lost civilization. I will try to dig up some more to support this idea.

Virgil, I do find that your contrast of Hamlet and Lawrence is quite an interesting paragraph and thought. I had not thought about it quite that way, but I think you are right-on with the differences.

So, do you think Oats is accurate in the interpretation of the poem? I felt it was quite insightful. I wish to read the rest of the commentaries I found online. Wow, this is a really good discussion. I also need to review all that has been written in this thread so far.

Janine you jogged my memory. There are ships in Etruscan mythology. Here:

The scenes are a departure from earlier scenes of a happy afterlife, and depict a view of the underworld inhabited by hideous demons. This is one of the few tombs which depict Charon (Etruscan Charun) as the ferryman, in the Greek tradition. However all the demons are typically Etruscan in terms of iconography. In most cases, Charun is seen at the entrance to the underworld, carrying a large mallet. The probable use of this mallet was to open the city gates to Hades. It has been suggested that the gatekeeper at an Etruscan city would have been equipped with a similar mallet to unlock the huge wooden beams that held it secure.
http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tardemons.html

It seems that Etruscan tombs had a lot of imagery on the transition to the next world, and perhaps lawrence is alluding to it. Perhaps you are right. Surf through here: http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tombs.html

Yes i think Oates was correct in her interpretation.

[Janine]

Janine you jogged my memory. There are ships in Etruscan mythology. Here:

http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tardemons.html

It seems that Etruscan tombs had a lot of imagery on the transition to the next world, and perhaps lawrence is alluding to it. Perhaps you are right. Surf through here: http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/tombs.html

Yes i think Oates was correct in her interpretation.

Oh good, I like jogging your memory, Virgil! ..shaking things up a bit.... LOL

Well, this fits perfectly. I know my memory did not fail me. In the book, you take the journey right there with Lawrence and you discover what he sees as he encounters it.

This part is very significant and I think fits the poem:


The Etruscan obsession with elaborate burials leads us to suppose that they may have had an underlying belief, similar to the Egyptians that a part of the soul remained with the body, or at least that the body was important for the afterlife. Having said that, the earliest grave sites were cremations, with the ash being retained either in biconical urns, or urns fashioned to represent huts.

I had been thinking of this idea of the body being reborn; that would fit Lawrence's view of blood and flesh being wholely important, even in the afterlife....interesting...As, we know, Lawrence's body was cremated, and later it was put into the shrine in New Mexico with a phoenix bird (his symbol) above the alter. This idea of the Etruscan's also fits in with Lawrence's idea of ritual.

[Virgil]

I agree Janine.

[Janine]

Cool, Virgil. I should post a photo of Lawrence's shrine. I will also check out the timeline book; it might reveal something about when he was writing this poem; he may have commented himself.

Just found this site called Poets & Writers and an article of some interest about Lawrence's views on the Etruscan's. Here is an excerpt from

Poets & Writers http://www.pw.org/content/door_soul_postcard_tuscia

The Door of the Soul: Postcard From Tuscia
by Linda Lappin



Lawrence's last pilgrimage led him to the Etruscan ruins north of Rome. His idea was to write a travel book about the twelve great cities of Etruscan civilization. (The Etruscans were a sophisticated people who settled in the Italian peninsula between 900 and 800 B.C. and brought with them commerce and industry, greatly influencing the rise of the Roman kingdom.) Lawrence rejected the contemporary, scholarly views of the time: that Etruscans were inferior to the ancient Romans. Lawrence's approach to the Etruscans was highly personal and unscientific, yet his book, Etruscan Places, has shaped modern readers' ideas of this vanished people more than any other text.

Traveling on foot and by mule cart, Lawrence explored Tuscia-a wild, wooded area between Rome and Tuscany, where the center of Etruscan culture was located. He visited the frescoed tombs of Tarquinia and the rougher rock tombs of Cerveteri, as well as the sites of Vulci and Volterra. In the Etruscans, Lawrence found a life-affirming culture which exalted the body and which saw death as a journey towards renewal. The art decorating their tombs, eloquently described in Etruscan Places, bears witness to their faith in an unending joy.

The parts I bolded up I believe fit the ideas in the poem.

[jinjang]

Thank you, Virgil, for the explanation on different versions of the poem. It was indeed informative. I have never seen a draft of a Korean poem and Korean poems are always in its final version. I was rather confused about different versions of a poem.

It was unintentional if I gave an impression of disliking the poem. It is a captivating poem, even though my initial pang of impression (I tend to like poems that bring out strong emotion in me) has subsided. I thank also JBI for posting the poem for discussion.


Anyone think the apples though are a reference to Frost's After Apple Picking, or is that just too big a stretch?

Frost's Apple seems to be a seize-the-day kind of apple, while an apple in this poem seems to be metaphoric as our decaying body. I really appreciate your connecting other poems or plays to this one, especially Hamlet.

[Dark Muse]

I had thought the apples were from the Biblical reference of the apple, and the suggestion of the fall of man, as well as brining death into the world.



And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

Here it talks about the fallen self in relation to the apple.


Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.

I think the imagery here can also allude to the idea of the Biblical appel, the grimness that will come when the appel falls, and the bruised body and frightened soul. As well as the arrival of death in the air.

And there are other Bibilca refrences which appear within the poem.

[Paulclem]

This discussion is very interesting with loads of new info. Its going to take me a while to catch up. Thanks for your contributions. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for in a literature forum - brilliant!

[Paulclem]

I had thought the apples were from the Biblical reference of the apple, and the suggestion of the fall of man, as well as brining death into the world.

I like the apple imagewith its connoations of fall, knowledge and the self spoiled by life. It's a powerful image to combine with the actual bruising of apples.

There is a strong sense of struggle in the poem - it's almost as if he is convincing himself of death with the repeated

We are dying

I wonder why he doesn't use I am dying? Of course the poem contains exhortation to build the ship of death to others, but was it too hard to wite I? Understandable if so - perhaps a little too personal - though I think it must take a great personal effort to face up to and write about your own imminent death.

I also get the feeling hat he is grasping for comfort. He can't exhort the Gods, but holds onto some reincarnatory or resurrection belief. Is that why he packs the poem with so many links to mythology? He rejected science - he didn't get on with conventional Christianity. Where does his belief settle? Perhaps the unfinished boat idea is precisely this, that he has not resolved these things in his own spiritual life.

I also find it quite in Lawrence's character that he doesn't go along with the idea that Roman civilistion wasn't superior to the Eutruscans. Isn't that just like him to buck the current trend?

[Dark Muse]

I do not get the feeling that he uses "we" isteand of "I" just becasue it is too hard to write I am dying, but I think it is just a simple recgonition and explination of the truth. I do not think poem is meant to be purely about a single individual being, but rather about man in general.

Though it may be been written in an attempt of preparation of his own death, I do not think it is meant to be purely about his personal death but about death of man as a whole.

[Paulclem]

I just find that the first person has more impact upon the reader who reads I am dying rather than we, which does not prelude the universal message, but brings this universal message to the individual.

Just speculating though.

[Virgil]

It is quite intersting that it's not in first person. In some stanzas we get a general "man" sort of person and in some there is a second person "you" and in some there is a first person plural "we" and "us." Two thoughts. First I think Lawrence is uniting humanity into this, a common shared exeprience. It strikes me as a tone of a preacher with a sermon. Certainly not uncommon for Lawrence to be preaching. ;) Second, very little of Lawrence is in first person. I don't think any of his novels are in first person and out of the dozens of short stories and novelas only a few. Many of his poems are in first person, but still a significant portion are not. For a poet, he seems to eschew the first person more so than most poets who seem to embrace it. I don't think Lawrence felt comfortable as a rule in first person. Now why this is not in first person, it's probably anyone's guess.

[Dark Muse]

I just find that the first person has more impact upon the reader who reads I am dying rather than we, which does not prelude the universal message, but brings this universal message to the individual.

Just speculating though.


It is my impression that the primiary emphasis of this poem is meant to be the universal, not the individual, and while saying "I" may not explicitly exclude the universal, it would put more of an emphaish on a personal individual death, rather than that of man as a whole.

[Janine]

This discussion is very interesting with loads of new info. Its going to take me a while to catch up. Thanks for your contributions. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for in a literature forum - brilliant!

Paulclem, you should join in with our D.H.Lawrence Short Story discussion group; it really gets lively and interesting in that thread. I think you would like and find it fascintating. For the last month, we have been taking a break; but perhaps soon, I will choose another story and start it up again. Hope others from here join in as well.

Paulclem, I don't think I properly welcomed you to this forum, so welcome! Please forgive me.

I am glad someone started this discussion, because it got such a great response and so many terrific ideas have been expressed on the imagery and meaning of the poem. We started a discussion of the Lawrence Tortoise Poems awhile back, but we suspended it when we got to one of the last one. It's not really suspended but rather on hold. You may want to check out that thread as well. It's probably a number of pages back by now.

I am going now to read all the posts since yours above - very interesting what everyone is saying.

[Paulclem]

Thanks Janine. It's been a while since I read any of his novels. I'd be interested to have a look. I do like his poetry - particularly Bavarian Gentians - which is one of my favourite poems and relates to our current discussion. I'm really enjoying this thread.

[Virgil]

Thanks Janine. It's been a while since I read any of his novels. I'd be interested to have a look. I do like his poetry - particularly Bavarian Gentians - which is one of my favourite poems and relates to our current discussion. I'm really enjoying this thread.

"Bavarian Gentians" is an absolutely great poem and written right around the same time as "Ship of Death."

[Paulclem]

It is my impression that the primiary emphasis of this poem is meant to be the universal, not the individual, and while saying "I" may not explicitly exclude the universal, it would put more of an emphaish on a personal individual death, rather than that of man as a whole.

I agree that the primary focus of the poem is a universal message, but his situation was one of facing death - a personal situation informing a universal theme. I was just speculating on whether there was a particular reason, death being the most personal event. The question is does it work better as it is?

[Janine]

"Bavarian Gentians" is an absolutely great poem and written right around the same time as "Ship of Death."

Virgil, it's one of my very favorite poems of Lawrence's! They erected a statue to commemorate it, in front of the library at the University of Nottingham (I believe). I will have to locate the link. The statue of Lawrence is very beautiful. I think I have a closeup in my own file of just his hands holding the flower blossom...lovely image....

I am doing some research right now and will post more soon. I have some idea on the things you wrote and others as well. For starters I wanted to commenet on this:

Quote by Virgil
First I think Lawrence is uniting humanity into this, a common shared exeprience. It strikes me as a tone of a preacher with a sermon. Certainly not uncommon for Lawrence to be preaching.

This would absolutely fit Lawrence to a T. He was forever acused of being too much the preacher. Also, I didn't find the "we" that unusual; I am trying to locate the entire text now so I can quote it in relation to what we are discussing and the idea of we. I somehow recall something also in Hamlet, when Polonius and Gertrude both speak to Hamlet about death, in the very beginning of the play...the portend is that we all must die someday. Let me go now and look both of these up. I will be back soon.

Edit: Back! I can used this same post.

Here is the part of the poem I was thinking about and how it relates to that same idea in the beginning of Hamlet.


VI

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leaves us,
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.

VII

We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.

If you notice Lawrence stresses the word "we" by his repetition. I am quite sure it was intentional to make the experience of death collective at this time to include all of mankind; in this way, perhaps he would feel less alone in what was to face in him in the coming days.

[Dark Muse]

I agree that the primary focus of the poem is a universal message, but his situation was one of facing death - a personal situation informing a universal theme. I was just speculating on whether there was a particular reason, death being the most personal event. The question is does it work better as it is?

I would say the particular reason would be to emphasies the universality of it, and shift focus away from the personal asepct of it. And I do not see death as truly being a personal event, it is initself a universal event, for it is collectively experinced by every living organisim in exisince. It is not unique to the individual.

[Janine]

I would say the particular reason would be to emphasies the universality of it, and shift focus away from the personal asepct of it. And I do not see death as truly being a personal event, it is initself a universal event, for it is collectively experinced by every living organisim in exisince. It is not unique to the individual.

Dark Muse, I am thinking the same thing. Good observation and thought. He does suddenly shift that focus to include all mankind.

I just found the Hamlet quote which falls in line with the Lawrence idea, that it's natural we all should die eventually. Actually, it is his mother who says it to Hamlet.


QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

I think this poem is both universal and also deeply personal to Lawrence; in his own way it connects him to all of humanity.

Another thing is the fact that Lawrence fought death off for so long and in someway he is finally giving himself over to the his impending death. This was not an easy thing for a person as Lawrence to do; he was used to having control of his existence and being very strong-willed; surviving many a close brush with death before.

[Virgil]

Virgil, it's one of my very favorite poems of Lawrence's! They erected a statue to commemorate it, in front of the library at the University of Nottingham (I believe). I will have to locate the link. The statue of Lawrence is very beautiful. I think I have a closeup in my own file of just his hands holding the flower blossom...lovely image....

I am doing some research right now and will post more soon. I have some idea on the things you wrote and others as well. For starters I wanted to commenet on this:

Quote by Virgil

This would absolutely fit Lawrence to a T. He was forever acused of being too much the preacher. Also, I didn't find the "we" that unusual; I am trying to locate the entire text now so I can quote it in relation to what we are discussing and the idea of we. I somehow recall something also in Hamlet, when Polonius and Gertrude both speak to Hamlet about death, in the very beginning of the play...the portend is that we all must die someday. Let me go now and look both of these up. I will be back soon.

Edit: Back! I can used this same post.

Here is the part of the poem I was thinking about and how it relates to that same idea in the beginning of Hamlet.



If you notice Lawrence stresses the word "we" by his repetition. I am quite sure it was intentional to make the experience of death collective at this time to include all of mankind; in this way, perhaps he would feel less alone in what was to face in him in the coming days.


I would say the particular reason would be to emphasies the universality of it, and shift focus away from the personal asepct of it. And I do not see death as truly being a personal event, it is initself a universal event, for it is collectively experinced by every living organisim in exisince. It is not unique to the individual.

I agree with you both. It is very consciously done on Lawrence's part and it is to emphasize universality.

[Virgil]

Dark Muse, I am thinking the same thing. Good observation and Another thing is the fact that Lawrence fought death off for so long and in someway he is finally giving himself over to the his impending death. This was not an easy thing for a person as Lawrence to do; he was used to having control of his existence and being very strong-willed; surviving many a close brush with death before.

His will finally broke. Fighting death is really hard. It's like fighting waves, and then suddenly one comes as in a hurricane by that you just can't fight off.

[Paulclem]

Originally Posted by Dark Muse View Post
I would say the particular reason would be to emphasies the universality of it, and shift focus away from the personal asepct of it. And I do not see death as truly being a personal event, it is initself a universal event, for it is collectively experinced by every living organisim in exisince. It is not unique to the individual.

I agree that it is universally experienced, but clearly Lawrence's focus is tightened because of hs own personal impending death. I think the personal aspect is present in the poem - in his ordering of items upon the boat, for example. He does shift focus to the universal experience, but I wondered if by using the first person technique, he could draw the reader closer to his struggle. I wouldn't presume to suggest it would be better - I was just wondering.

[Dark Muse]

I agree that it is universally experienced, but clearly Lawrence's focus is tightened because of hs own personal impending death. I think the personal aspect is present in the poem - in his ordering of items upon the boat, for example. He does shift focus to the universal experience, but I wondered if by using the first person technique, he could draw the reader closer to his struggle. I wouldn't presume to suggest it would be better - I was just wondering.

I just think that by making it first person it would make it more specially about his own personal death and shift focus from the universality of it. It may make people be drawn more closely to his own personal struggle, but than that would be putting the primary focus upon him as an individual, rather than upon death as a collective experience. I think the use of the "we" is meant to deflect that very thing from happening, as in his talking about the ship, while he may be putting together his own ship, he is also beseeching others to build their ships.

If he said "I" it would might make people feel his own individual struggle more, but than I think that would distract from his wanting to actually be connected to the "all" of humanity in this experience. I do not think he wants the focus to be placed specifically upon himself.

As I think using the "I" would perhaps draw people closer to HIS struggle but not necessarily draw them closer to their own personal struggle. It would also isolate him from his own wish to experince the universality.

[Paulclem]

I got the impression from the poem that he tries to retain control of circumstances, but has to accept that he will have to give in to oblivion.

and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood
cowering in the last branches of the tree of life

The flood image is a powerful one from some of Lawrences stories - eg. The Virgin and the Gypsy. I wonder if he experienced it? It must have resonated powerfully linked as it was to the biblical flood.

[Paulclem]

As I think using the "I" would perhaps draw people closer to HIS struggle but not necessarily draw them closer to their own personal struggle. It would also isolate him from his own wish to experince the universality.

Perhaps that was his rationale. In this and other poems along the same theme he does exhort for the preparation for death. In "The Houseless Dead" he says,

"Oh pity the dead that were ousted out of life
All unequipped to take the long, long voyage"

It does support his universal message.

[Janine]

Interestingly enough, Lawrence did keep it about himself in his other poem approaching his own death journey,


Bavarian Gentians

Not every man has gentians in his house
in soft September, at slow, sad Michaelmas.

Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the daytime, torch-like, with the smoking blueness of Pluto's
gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto's dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off
light,
lead me then, lead the way.

Reach me a gentian, give me a torch!
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendor of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on
the lost bride and her groom.

-- D. H. Lawrence

Another amazingly beautiful poem.

Here is the link to the statue at Nottingham University; the other things on the site are very interesting as well.

http://www.dh-lawrence.org.uk/lawrence-statue.html

[Paulclem]

Do you think it would make a great subject for a piece of art? All those deepening blues and the journey down.

[Paulclem]

If you notice Lawrence stresses the word "we" by his repetition.

As I think using the "I" would perhaps draw people closer to HIS struggle but not necessarily draw them closer to their own personal struggle. It would also isolate him from his own wish to experince the universality.

What I also find interesting is the dearth of others in the later redemption part of the poem. If we accept that the poem has universal appeal, then his ressurrection/ redemption/ rebirth seems very solitary. The journey in the ship is a solitary one, and that makes sense to me. I wonder if you had any thoughts about the lack of a sense of others in the house. Or is it less a place to be populated than a state? The conventional view of heaven is one that is populated with a sense of being reunited, though there are traditions of solitary formless heavens in some Eastern religions.

[Paulclem]

I like the statue too.

[Virgil]

If you notice Lawrence stresses the word "we" by his repetition.

As I think using the "I" would perhaps draw people closer to HIS struggle but not necessarily draw them closer to their own personal struggle. It would also isolate him from his own wish to experince the universality.

What I also find interesting is the dearth of others in the later redemption part of the poem. If we accept that the poem has universal appeal, then his ressurrection/ redemption/ rebirth seems very solitary. The journey in the ship is a solitary one, and that makes sense to me. I wonder if you had any thoughts about the lack of a sense of others in the house. Or is it less a place to be populated than a state? The conventional view of heaven is one that is populated with a sense of being reunited, though there are traditions of solitary formless heavens in some Eastern religions.

Let me say Paul that Lawrence by writing it the way he did accomplished both the persoanl and the universal. There are other subtle word formations that suggest the personal (I can identify them for you later if you wish) and we know of his personal bio of the writing, and he would have realized people would know that. So i think Lawrence did it right. He accomplished a lot more by the method he chose.

[Paulclem]

Let me say Paul that Lawrence by writing it the way he did accomplished both the persoanl and the universal. There are other subtle word formations that suggest the personal (I can identify them for you later if you wish) and we know of his personal bio of the writing, and he would have realized people would know that. So i think Lawrence did it right. He accomplished a lot more by the method he chose.

I agre with what you're saying. When I read Lawrence's poems, they speak to me personally, and I can see the universality too. Yet in "All Soul's Day" he says of the dead:

They linger in the shadow of the earth.
The Earth's long conical shadow is full of souls
that cannot find the way across the sea of souls.

In "The Houseless Dead" he says:

"Gaunt, gaunt, they crowd the mud beaches of shadow"

"In Beware the Unhappy Dead" he goes even further and seems to attribute the current problems of the time to the unready dead.

I wonder why he wrote about the state of the dead, who are in a kind of limbo, but not about the aftermath of the blivion he describes.

[Paulclem]

I suppose what I'm trying to get at you may not be able to get from a poem. I was interested to see if his poems revealed his personal beliefs about life after death etc.

[Virgil]

I suppose what I'm trying to get at you may not be able to get from a poem. I was interested to see if his poems revealed his personal beliefs about life after death etc.

Yes, I understand. He may not do that in these poems, but he does in other places. I'm at work now, but I'll try to fill you in when I get home tonight.

[Janine]

Virgil, can't wait to read that. If you sum up Lawrence's views of death it would be interesting to read; but I find myself, that I can't come up with really concrete concepts on what he truly believed by the end. I read Apocalypse, which was a fascinating work, but some disregard it as anything but the ravings of a dying man. I have a copy myself now; originally borrowed it from my library, but I can't seem to locate it presently.

It was begun in early Dec of 1929. The work began as The Revelation of St. John the Divine, but later developed instead into Apocalypse. It was published after Lawrence's death, so it was one of the last things he wrote.

Reference for this information was found in D.H.Lawrence a calender of his works by Sagar.

[Dark Muse]

What I also find interesting is the dearth of others in the later redemption part of the poem. If we accept that the poem has universal appeal, then his ressurrection/ redemption/ rebirth seems very solitary. The journey in the ship is a solitary one, and that makes sense to me. I wonder if you had any thoughts about the lack of a sense of others in the house. Or is it less a place to be populated than a state? The conventional view of heaven is one that is populated with a sense of being reunited, though there are traditions of solitary formless heavens in some Eastern religions.


I do not think what is offered within the poem is enough to come to any conclusions about the "house" and just what it is meant to suggest or represent. I could not say from what is offered about it, if it is truly meant to be empty, or populated, we only are given a glimpse of it as the ship comes to port again, but beyond that really nothing is told of it. We could not even really say if it is meant to be heaven.

[Virgil]

I suppose what I'm trying to get at you may not be able to get from a poem. I was interested to see if his poems revealed his personal beliefs about life after death etc.


Virgil, can't wait to read that. If you sum up Lawrence's views of death it would be interesting to read; but I find myself, that I can't come up with really concrete concepts on what he truly believed by the end. I read Apocalypse, which was a fascinating work, but some disregard it as anything but the ravings of a dying man. I have a copy myself now; originally borrowed it from my library, but I can't seem to locate it presently.

It was begun in early Dec of 1929. The work began as The Revelation of St. John the Divine, but later developed instead into Apocalypse. It was published after Lawrence's death, so it was one of the last things he wrote.

Reference for this information was found in D.H.Lawrence a calender of his works by Sagar.
I'm afraid this will be going off the top of my head. I don' think this poem represents Lawrence's view of the after life, thoough it doesn't necessarily contradict it.


X

The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
emerges strange and lovely.
And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
on the pink flood,
and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
filling the heart with peace.

Swings the heart renewed with peace
even of oblivion.

Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a bodily resurrection before in Lawrence, though it's quite possible. The key to Lawrence's notion of the metaphysical is the absence of will. The fall from paradise for Adam and Eve was an act of acquiring ego - self - and that meant will. So our earthly lives are plagued with the notion of egocentrality and exertion of our wills, and that is source of human conflict and wearing away of our lives. The processs onto death and beyond, and for lawrence process is the key to everything, is a process of losing our wills. The ideal, the paradisial promise, is a state of being completely atuned with the natural diety that runs through all. That state is a giving up of will and sacrificing our egos, our selves. Here perhpas it's a little contradictory. At times Lawrence conceptualizes it as a non ego existence, where we are absorbed into this soul. Other times Lawrnce conceptualizes it as containing a sense of identity but without a will. Even here in this poem, you can see the suicide thoughts of the bare bodkin section is an exertion of will. Suicide is a willful act. But in the tenth stanza, the soul has no will, just a state of peace. The symbol for Lawrence of our post physical life nature is that of a flower. A flower stands atuned in nature, living and bright and will-less. It has not central willful self only a state of existence.

Hope that made sense. It's hard to explain without examples, and I don't seem to have my thesison this new laptop, where I did go into this in a particular section.

[Quark]

That was a good poem. I really didn't expect the ending at all. When I first started reading I thought Lawrence was going to do either the tearful elegy thing or maybe the optimistic afterlife thing, but the poem goes in a much more mysterious direction. The first stanzas make it sound like oblivion equals death and the ship is what's permanent and can be carried beyond death--like Good Deeds in Everyman. The rebirth in the last stanzas, though, undercuts these easy connections. If the "oblivion" of this poem is death, then how can it recede? How can one resume their house after dying? The ship becomes similarly problematic. If the ship is about permanent things capable of being brought with the dying then why is the ship lost in darkness? This part of the poem faked me out--in a good way, of course. I'm glad it's not that simple.


The key to Lawrence's notion of the metaphysical is the absence of will.

That's true. It's interesting that you point to the last stanza as an example of will-less paradise, though. The oblivion of the middle stanzas seems much more will-less than the end. It's in the darkness that the we're told "our strength leaves us" and "we cannot steer." This seems more open and passive than when the speaker is talking about the house. The house is oddly reminiscent of where we were before. The poem says we enter it "again," our heart is "renewed," and "the whole thing starts again." If the speaker was willful before the "whole thing" then he's probably willful at the end when the process starts over at the house. It's only in the oblivion that the speaker sheds his or her volition, and that's only a temporary experience between two episodes of control and willfulness at each end of the poem. The poem seems to be about preparing for those recurring "voyages" into the oblivion when one loses control.


http://www.lawrenceseastwood.co.uk/images/lawstatuniv.jpg
I wonder if I can get one of these for my living room


I do not think what is offered within the poem is enough to come to any conclusions about the "house" and just what it is meant to suggest or represent. I could not say from what is offered about it, if it is truly meant to be empty, or populated, we only are given a glimpse of it as the ship comes to port again, but beyond that really nothing is told of it. We could not even really say if it is meant to be heaven.

Yeah, I think it's left rather unexplained. We know that we've been in the house before, but beyond that there's nothing specific mentioned about it. Whether it's heaven or not is hard to say. I tend to think not, but it wouldn't be outlandish to say so. To me, though, it's just part and parcel of the scheme built up in this poem that groups everything into either violent, turbulent images or comfortable, domestic ones. The later are associated with immediate, lived existence and the former have more to do with times of inactivity or passivity--like sleep, idleness, or maybe even death.

[Janine]

Quote by Quark

I wonder if I can get one of these for my living roomhhahahaa....Quark, I think they must have a repro!

I will answer you and Virgil's posts tomorrow. You both seem to make a lot of sense to me.

[Paulclem]

A flower stands atuned in nature, living and bright and will-less. It has not central willful self only a state of existence.

This rang a bell with me from my past...long long past study of a couple of his novels. I think I remember it in his relations to the women in the novels.

I do not think what is offered within the poem is enough to come to any conclusions about the "house" and just what it is meant to suggest or represent. I could not say from what is offered about it, if it is truly meant to be empty, or populated, we only are given a glimpse of it as the ship comes to port again, but beyond that really nothing is told of it. We could not even really say if it is meant to be heaven.

I think you're probably right Dark Muse. I just wondered if anyone could enlighten me further.

The key to Lawrence's notion of the metaphysical is the absence of will.

This seems to be a theme in a number of poems grouped together in my edition. There is much less about the other end, but then the notion of mystery is not uncommon in Lawrence, and perhaps is a greater leap of faith than belief in an established set of beliefs.

I suppose a question is what were poems to Lawrence? Were they streams of thought that he pursued at a particular time, that he might discard or develop later? I was trying to see consistencies in his thought in the poems, but of course he wasnt confined to poetry with his writing.

Your posts make the discussion very interesting. Thanks all.

[Paulclem]

A flower stands atuned in nature, living and bright and will-less. It has not central willful self only a state of existence.

Not willing but just being. It sounds quite zen like. I wonder what he would have made of Haiku?

[Virgil]

[I suppose a question is what were poems to Lawrence? Were they streams of thought that he pursued at a particular time, that he might discard or develop later? I was trying to see consistencies in his thought in the poems, but of course he wasnt confined to poetry with his writing.

Your posts make the discussion very interesting. Thanks all.

You're welcome. Thanks for the interest in Lawrence. As you can guess I've spent a good deal of time with him. :)

I would say yes to your question above. Lawrence wrote and re-wrote his fiction rather carefully and deliberately. It is not my impression that he did the say with his poems. To some degree they were improvisational. This particular poem is crafted. Like I said, this was the third version, and that's somewhat unusual for Lawrence for his poems.

[LLItaly]

I am coming in rather late in this discussion - but I just noticed that Janine had posted a snippet from a very short piece I published on Lawrence in Tuscia, the ETruscan area. So thank you -- The ship of death is indeed an Etruscan symbol, as it was in many ancient Mediterranean cultures. They were, after all, a master seagoing people, and tiny clay models of ships are among frequent tomb findings, and are also depicted in frescoes.

Interestingly, in the duomo of orvieto, an Etruscan town, there is a curious detail in one of the great apocalypse frescoes by Signorelli -- of a ship with ghostly rower (Charon) who is painted blue, just like the blue devils of the Etruscan frescoes in Tarquinia -- so the pictorial tradition of the ETruscan boat and rower somehow lived on and was transmitted to relatively recent times.

A wonderful book has been written on Etruscan religion, which corroborates some of Lawrence's own ideas expressed in ETruscan Places --
by a scholar, who like Lawrence, goes against the grain - Giovanni Feo. Unfortunately they have not been published in English and have not been officially recognized by the academe as worthy studies -- but read together with Lawrence's Italian poems, including The Ship of Death, and his Etruscan writings, they are very thought provoking.

On another note - I didn't see if it is listed here -- but the famous letter Lawrence wrote to Katherine Mansfield upon the death of her beloved brother Leslie -- echoes some of the images and moods of The Ship of Death.
Mansfield herself in her diaries occasionally used boat/ship imagery to describe her spiritual condition

Actually, I have also published a novel, The Etruscan ( Wynkin de Worde, Galway Ireland, 2004) which draws inspiration from Lawrence's exploration of the Etruscan area, and from his poem The ship of death.

[Janine]

I am coming in rather late in this discussion - but I just noticed that Janine had posted a snippet from a very short piece I published on Lawrence in Tuscia, the ETruscan area. So thank you -- The ship of death is indeed an Etruscan symbol, as it was in many ancient Mediterranean cultures. They were, after all, a master seagoing people, and tiny clay models of ships are among frequent tomb findings, and are also depicted in frescoes.

Oh my gosh LLItaly, did I quote you...something here from your article? I hope you did not mind it. You thanked me so I guess I should say "you're welcome". I suppose quoting articles from the internet does promote the author in some positive way. Did you find this forum in that way? I just checked back a few pages; but didn't see the part of your article I quoted. Could you point out what post # that was?

Let me emphasis this. You are never too late for a discussion on Lawrence! Lawrence is my main focus of study and has been for some years now (I have tons of books, digital images and articles); Virgil wrote his thesis on Lawrence: the aspect of 'Transfiguration' in his work (highly interesting). I just pre-ordered Lawrence's Mornings in Mexico - yeah! They finally reprinted it; about time! This is a good sign, I believe. I hope they reprint all his books.

I would love to discuss Lawrence with you any time. Feel free to befriend me (my profile page), so we can bore everyone with our Lawrence ravings! :lol: Also, I wanted to formally welcome you to this forum. I hope you stick around and enjoy some of our Lawrence discussions. We normally have a short story discussion going. We have a thread you might want to look into. We have discovered just how fine a short story author Lawrence is and we have discussed many of his storie, perhaps half to 3/4 so far; we hope to pick up again soon with more short storie discussions. We had formal discussions aslo on Women in Love, followed a little later by Son's and Lovers. If you run searches on these you will no doubt find them but many pages back. I should post in each some tidbit on Lawrence to bring the discussion threads back into the current lineup. In our discussion groups we have learned so much. It has been a joy for me and others as well I am sure.


Interestingly, in the duomo of orvieto, an Etruscan town, there is a curious detail in one of the great apocalypse frescoes by Signorelli -- of a ship with ghostly rower (Charon) who is painted blue, just like the blue devils of the Etruscan frescoes in Tarquinia -- so the pictorial tradition of the ETruscan boat and rower somehow lived on and was transmitted to relatively recent times.

Oh wow, I love getting this added information. I find this entirely fascinating. I am into detail work, being a visual artist myself; and I love any little bit I don't know, which relates to Lawrence's own observations. I read Etrucan Places and the other travel books and loved them!


A wonderful book has been written on Etruscan religion, which corroborates some of Lawrence's own ideas expressed in ETruscan Places --
by a scholar, who like Lawrence, goes against the grain - Giovanni Feo. Unfortunately they have not been published in English and have not been officially recognized by the academe as worthy studies -- but read together with Lawrence's Italian poems, including The Ship of Death, and his Etruscan writings, they are very thought provoking.

I definitely want to look into that book. Thanks for pointing out the author to me. Unfortunately I can't read Italian but maybe it will be translated or I can find excerpts online until it is.


On another note - I didn't see if it is listed here -- but the famous letter Lawrence wrote to Katherine Mansfield upon the death of her beloved brother Leslie -- echoes some of the images and moods of The Ship of Death.
Mansfield herself in her diaries occasionally used boat/ship imagery to describe her spiritual condition

Yes, Katherine Mansfield was such a great friend to Lawrence. I think they had similiar or overlapping thoughts on life and death. I would love to read this letter. I have volumes of the letters here and I also have one book of the Collected Letters. Do you know when this letter was written? If I have the date I can look it up. I am vitally interested.


Actually, I have also published a novel, The Etruscan ( Wynkin de Worde, Galway Ireland, 2004) which draws inspiration from Lawrence's exploration of the Etruscan area, and from his poem The ship of death.

Marvelous! I would like to look into into getting a copy. Where do you have this for sale? Is it on Amazon? I seem to gather many books from independent authors about Lawrence. Someone pointed out to me the Minoan Experience which is fascinating, even if just for the photos. It deals with the travels of Lawrence. I have only read parts of it so far (so much to read, so little time!) but it's very interesting and well written. I intend to read the entire book someday.

[Virgil]

On another note - I didn't see if it is listed here -- but the famous letter Lawrence wrote to Katherine Mansfield upon the death of her beloved brother Leslie -- echoes some of the images and moods of The Ship of Death.
Mansfield herself in her diaries occasionally used boat/ship imagery to describe her spiritual condition


Welcome LL. Nice to have you on lit net and part of our Lawrence circle. I'll ave to look up that letter to Mansfield. It doesn't ring a bell. When was it written? Around 1918 or so?

Like Janine, I too would love to discuss Larence with you.

[LLItaly]

Hello Virgil and Janine thank you for the warm welcome. I'll try to keep up when I can. Yes, Janine, I found the forum by running a search on google and it brought up a snippet of my short piece published by Poets& Writers On line- but clicking back through the posts I couldn't find it again. Will check later more thoroughly for the post.

Lawrence's letter to KM was written in Dec. 1915 ( I have also published a novel about KM called Katherine's Wish, but dealing with the last phase of her life).

In his letter to her he writes " Do not be sad. It is one life which is passing away from us, one I is dying but there is another coming into being, which is the happy, creative you. I knew you would have to die with your brother, you also, go down into death and be extinguished. But for us there is a rising from the grave, there is a resurrection and a clean life to begin from the start, new, happy."

.................................................. ...........................................

Janine, I am very keen to know what this Minoan experience book is you mentioned in your post. Please tell me more ( I have just returned from a yearly visit to Crete)
I'd be honored Janine if you'd read my book. It is available on Amazon.com and also from Barnes and Nobles. It's also in some libraries, too.
There's a little about the book
available on my site www.theetruscan.com with a link to a youtube
trailer which is really a short documentary with some good shots of etruscan places

At the moment I am working on an essay about KM and Lawrence and since I am a full time teacher, have so very little time to do everything. But I look forward to getting to know you all, and diving a bit deeper into your forum.

[Virgil]

Thank you LL. I'll go see if I have that letter in my collection.

[Virgil]

Oh I do have the letter in my The Selected Letters of D.H. Lawrence (ed. James T. Boulton). And what a marevelous letter. It does lend insight into Lawrence's ideas. Let me quote a couple of passages.


I want so much that we should create a life in common, a new spirit, a spirit of unanimity between a few of us who are desirous in spirit, that we should add our lives together, to make one tree, each of us free and producing in his separate fashion, but all of us together forming one Spring, a unanimous blossoming. It needs that we be in one spirit, that is all. What we are personally is of second importance.
First, what a great sentence that first sentence is there. Lawrence was so gifted at writing such free flowing sentences. Second, so many of his ideas are packed in there. He believed in a utopia of people living naturally as in a pre-edenic state. And that pre-edenic state was a loss of will and ego (the self) and consciouness - "what we are personally is of second importance." What is of primary importance is the unconcious, rooted in connection with the natural spirit that is some form of deity. Notice also his metaphor is with vegetation and flowering. Flowers represent that perfect state of nature - no will or consciousness, just pure blooming in nature.

And later in the letter he says the following:


Let us all live together and create a new world. If it is too difficult in England, because here is all destruction and dying and corruption, let us away to Florida: soon. But let us go together, and keep together, several of us, as being of one spirit. Only let there be no personal obligation, no personal idea. Let it be a union in the unconsciousness, not in the consciousness.
The italicized words are italicized in the text, so I imagine Lawrence himself must have underlined them. Lawrence was serious around this time 1915-ish of gathering his friends and establishing some sort of commune in Florida. Remember that WWI was going on and he came to conclude that the war was a manifestation of corrupt society, a society gone wrong, and part of the root of that problem was because society had become overly conscious, overly mental, lost that connection to primal nature that enriched the unconscious and made us connected to that transcendental spirit. You can see he believed that such a pre-edenic state was possible, at least at this time in his life. He really wanted this commune and did go at length to set it up. His friends did not go along with it. Ultimately later he felt that humans could not let go of that ego, that self. Or at least he felt ambivilent that it could occur. I'm not sure myself if he ever lost that idealism. I would love to have a group read of Lady Chatterly's Lover, his last major work.

By the way LL, Lawrence's travels can be seen as a search for that utopian place, that culture that revealed the way to live in such an edenic state. Sardinia, Italy, Austrailia, New Mexico, Mexico, and finally back to Italy with the etruscans. Perhaps this is the angle you need to teach that class. Establish the utopian ideas of Lawrence and then take him through his various journeys.

[Janine]

Excellent post, Virgil! I am wishing I had more time to write something too. I am sure I also have that letter and will look it up tonight later on. I want the time to fully comprehend what he communicates in these ideas to KM. Virgil, I posted the link to an article about The Minoan Distance in the other L thread...Etruscan...I think you will find it very interesting. There are a few interesting photos, as well. The book is available on Amazon and on Half.com but it's out of print.

[Virgil]

Excellent post, Virgil! I am wishing I had more time to write something too. I am sure I also have that letter and will look it up tonight later on. I want the time to fully comprehend what he communicates in these ideas to KM. Virgil, I posted the link to an article about The Minoan Distance in the other L thread...Etruscan...I think you will find it very interesting. There are a few interesting photos, as well. The book is available on Amazon and on Half.com but it's out of print.

I found it and commented. :)

[Janine]

I found it and commented. :)

Where did you comment?

[Virgil]

Where did you comment?

Right after your post with the link, in that other thread.

[Janine]

Right after your post with the link, in that other thread.

True, but then I have commented on your comment since...go and see what I said....

[LLItaly]

Thank you for replying to my post. Yes, it is a very moving letter. Actually, as you probably know, Lawrence convinced Katherine & Murry to try an experiment in "communal living" -- and took them to Cornwall, where he installed Katherine in a very bleak tower with a view of a boulder-strewn beach. It wasn't the best thing for her health - and she very ironically commented on what it is was like to live near the volcanic Lawrences in her diary. There's a great scene in which she describes Lawrence chasing Frieda with a frying pan -roaring "I'll kill you" and then shortly afterwards, Frieda chasing Lawrence - it ended with a knock out fight, in which F beat L even more thoroughly than he had ever beaten her, and at the end of the day, he was trimming her hat by the fire. That sort of emotional explosiveness was too much for KM and she escaped after a month, but later in her diary she also confessed that she understood it - and that she was exactly like L. in that regard. I think L's friends loved to be inspired by his ideas -- by his genius, by his enormous gifts -- but at the same time, I don't think any of them would have wanted to really live in a commune very long with him.

Thank you for telling me about the Minoan Distance I looked it up and will try to get hold of it. Yes, that was the tack I usually took when teaching L - the savage journey into self and the search for wholeness. We don't have time in the class to read other works by Lawrence. They have to do other stuff, and most importantly, they have to write literary travel pieces about their explorations of italy. Even though they are staying in the heart of Etruria -- and have an opportunity to see the painted tombs of Tarquinia, and also to explore rustic tombs outlying the Viterbo area which are still more or less in the condition they were when L. was here ( there's no art work left in them. But they are fascinating tombs hollowed out of rock, out in the middle of the countryside, covered in vines and weeds - not enclosed in any fences, so you can go at any time, even camp out if you like in some of them, and sometimes my more adventurous students do that) So, even with all that, they just don't get what L is driving at in Etruscan Places. It has no resonance for them.

On that note, with regards to EP - I really do feel that Lady Chatterley's Lover was deeply influenced by Lawrence's own feelings, musings, and beliefs concerning the Etruscans -- by his ideas of cosmic sex which he read into some of their art and his interpretations of their religion and of how their society was organized

[Virgil]

Thank you for replying to my post. Yes, it is a very moving letter. Actually, as you probably know, Lawrence convinced Katherine & Murry to try an experiment in "communal living" -- and took them to Cornwall, where he installed Katherine in a very bleak tower with a view of a boulder-strewn beach. It wasn't the best thing for her health - and she very ironically commented on what it is was like to live near the volcanic Lawrences in her diary. There's a great scene in which she describes Lawrence chasing Frieda with a frying pan -roaring "I'll kill you" and then shortly afterwards, Frieda chasing Lawrence - it ended with a knock out fight, in which F beat L even more thoroughly than he had ever beaten her, and at the end of the day, he was trimming her hat by the fire. That sort of emotional explosiveness was too much for KM and she escaped after a month, but later in her diary she also confessed that she understood it - and that she was exactly like L. in that regard. I think L's friends loved to be inspired by his ideas -- by his genius, by his enormous gifts -- but at the same time, I don't think any of them would have wanted to really live in a commune very long with him.


Oh yes, I had forgotten they had tried living together in Cornwall. And it was a disaster. :lol: Like all utopias, they don't work. :D Whoo, yes Lawrence and Frieda did get into physical altercations, and Frieda was stronger than him. :lol:

[Janine]

You should both read the book D. H. Lawrence: The Story of a Marriage by Brenda Maddox (Paperback - Jun 17, 1996). It's an interesting book, which explores Lawrence's marriage to the strong willed Frieda. And yes, I agree with you, Virgil, I think she was stronger than he was, physically speaking. She didn't lose too often! :lol: