Question about a sentence (D.H. Lawrence)

[Ruben Meijerink]

Hi,

In Lady Chatterley's Lover, the narrator talks about the novel as a genre (in general):

But the novel, like gossip, can also excite spurious sympathies and recoils, mechanical and deadening to the psyche. The novel can glorify the most corrupt feelings, so long as they are conventionally "pure".

I don't understand the underlined part at all...The italics on 'conventionally' as well as the quotes on 'pure' are not mine!; I know what the words mean, just not the point of this clause.

Can anybody help? Much thanks!

[miyako73]

You have to read the passages before and after that sentence.

“She ought not to listen with this queer rabid curiosity. After all, one may hear the most private affairs of other people, but only in a spirit of respect for the struggling, battered thing which any human soul is, and in a spirit of fine, discriminative sympathy. For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places the flow of our sympathetic consciousness, and it can lead our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore, the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is in the passional secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening.
But the novel, like gossip, can also excite spurious sympathies and recoils, mechanical and deadening to the psyche. The novel can glorify the most corrupt feelings, so long as they are conventionally ‘pure’. Then the novel, like gossip, becomes at last vicious, and, like gossip, all the more vicious because it is always ostensibly on the side of the angels.”

Also, check the conventions of purists in literature. It seems D.H. Lawrence is not a fan of mechanical, predictable, stale devices and conventions in fiction.

[ennison]

Basically a cove who couldn't keep a civil tongue in his trousers and made his own cult of that. That's cult with an "n". Anything he didn't like wasn't "pure" or pure enough. The novelist as rebel evangel.

[cacian]

Basically a cove who couldn't keep a civil tongue in his trousers and made his own cult of that. That's cult with an "n". Anything he didn't like wasn't "pure" or pure enough. The novelist as rebel evangel.

does not that depends on the meaning of pure?

[cacian]

You have to read the passages before and after that sentence.

“She ought not to listen with this queer rabid curiosity. After all, one may hear the most private affairs of other people, but only in a spirit of respect for the struggling, battered thing which any human soul is, and in a spirit of fine, discriminative sympathy. For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places the flow of our sympathetic consciousness, and it can lead our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore, the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is in the passional secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening.
But the novel, like gossip, can also excite spurious sympathies and recoils, mechanical and deadening to the psyche. The novel can glorify the most corrupt feelings, so long as they are conventionally ‘pure’. Then the novel, like gossip, becomes at last vicious, and, like gossip, all the more vicious because it is always ostensibly on the side of the angels.”

Also, check the conventions of purists in literature. It seems D.H. Lawrence is not a fan of mechanical, predictable, stale devices and conventions in fiction.

miyako can I ask what you mean by conventions in fiction? I thought the whole point of fiction, if I understand it right, is that there is no convention.
fiction is unrestricted because of it.

[kelby_lake]

miyako can I ask what you mean by conventions in fiction? I thought the whole point of fiction, if I understand it right, is that there is no convention.
fiction is unrestricted because of it.

Conventions in fiction are basically formula. For example, I know when I read a romance novel that the convention is that the man and the woman will end up together and live happily ever after. Poetry is conventionally either about love, life, death or nature. Basically, conventions are what we expect. Each writer, genre and period will have their own conventions, which is why you have the impression that there aren't any conventions. Of course, the natural response of the writer is to rebel and break them. However readers need conventions. Even if one aspect of the book is crazy and unknown, they need something there that they recognise.

[kelby_lake]

Hi,

In Lady Chatterley's Lover, the narrator talks about the novel as a genre (in general):

But the novel, like gossip, can also excite spurious sympathies and recoils, mechanical and deadening to the psyche. The novel can glorify the most corrupt feelings, so long as they are conventionally "pure".


Basically, it's a rant against convention. Some of the things he read were no more lurid than his work but because they fitted into conventions, they got away with it. Lawrence sees this as morally dubious and a threat to artists who were genuinely trying to make moral points, even if it was done unconventionally.

[cacian]

Conventions in fiction are basically formula. For example, I know when I read a romance novel that the convention is that the man and the woman will end up together and live happily ever after. Poetry is conventionally either about love, life, death or nature. Basically, conventions are what we expect. Each writer, genre and period will have their own conventions, which is why you have the impression that there aren't any conventions. Of course, the natural response of the writer is to rebel and break them. However readers need conventions. Even if one aspect of the book is crazy and unknown, they need something there that they recognise.
interesting Kelby do you think DH Lawrence he wrote his stories to break conventions because he saw them as a debilitating skill and not because he believed in what he wrote?
in other words do you think his stories were as a result of the conventional establishment?

[sandy14]

in other words do you think his stories were as a result of the conventional establishment?

Yes, D H Lawrence's work was a reaction against a conventional establishment. He had clear ideas about what society should be and what the relationship between men and women should be. It was connected with a "natural" concept of Adam & Eve, that society had moved away from and this is what caused unhappiness. If men were more like Adam, and women more like Eve then everyone would be happier. This also meant sexual relations had to be conducted in this way as well and it was the depictions of this that got Lady Chatterley's Lover censored in Britain.

His depictions of sexuality pushed the boundaries of what was permissible in England (and other nations), and the eventual obscenity trail in England was a watershed, as the concept of "literary merit" was introduced into English law. As such Lawrence is seen as a liberal, however, the ideas he expressed about the relationship between men and women are not what everyone would consider liberal. His ideas on female sexuality, for example are not ones that many would consider liberating. The result is that many label Lawrence as a great reactionary, rather than a revolutionary.

So, Lawrence was reacting against the conventions of his society at the time, both in the ideas he expressed, and the manner in which he expressed them. Although there is disagreement on whether his ideas were revolutionary or reactionary. I'm not sure - certainly I don't think they are revolutionary in today's society, but what would someone think in 1928, when the concept of universal sufferage was coming into being? I don't know.

[kelby_lake]

interesting Kelby do you think DH Lawrence he wrote his stories to break conventions because he saw them as a debilitating skill and not because he believed in what he wrote?
in other words do you think his stories were as a result of the conventional establishment?

Do you mean that Lawrence was basically being a reactionary and trying to shock for the sake of it?

His work was definitely a reaction against convention but the sexual content of the novels (though for me Lady Chatterley's Lover is the only explicit one) are backed up by his philosophies. His comments on sex are particularly interesting in Lady Chatterley's Lover, where I think he tackles the subject most openly- even though at times the philosophy bogged things down.

I found his concept in Women in Love the most controversial philosophy. I'm not sure whether it is the character saying it or Lawrence, but either Gerald or Birkin says that the two should be physically close in order to strengthen their masculine bonds, their mental and spiritual connection. The wrestling scene is certainly the best scene in Women in Love and potentially the most erotic thing Lawrence wrote. We all know what the wrestling really is but of course, Lawrence is hardly going to say that. Because the passege is so intensely sexual, I wonder how much Lawrence empathised with it. Was this his fantasy, that men should reach a sexual closeness?

[Nick Capozzoli]

"The novel can glorify the most corrupt feelings, so long as they are conventionally ‘pure’. Then the novel, like gossip, becomes at last vicious, and, like gossip, all the more vicious because it is always ostensibly on the side of the angels.”

It is "corrupt feelings" and not "the novel" that Lawrence describes as conventionally "pure." He's referring to conventions of morality" rather than literary conventions. He implies that not all "conventional" morality is "real" morality, though presumably he may believe that some conventional morality is "really pure." Figuring out what Lawrence considered to be "really pure" versus "conventionally pure" is, as in Blake, not always clear. The second sentence implies that the angels know the difference, though it's not clear that Lawrence believes in angels, or at least in "conventional" angels...

[cacian]

[QUOTE=kelby_lake;1252140]Do you mean that Lawrence was basically being a reactionary and trying to shock for the sake of it?
yes that is what I mean he picked up on conventional pure corruptible and novel and decided he was going to stir it because it is easy if you know how to. he was a skilled writer so that was on his favour.
his books were all fictional and using sex as a way of getting back at convention is an easy thing to do,
anyone knows sex is a stir in the wrong direction and he saw profit in it and so used it to write and grab media attention. that is all.
controversial is another word for it. it gets attention and he certainly did get attention whether he believed in it I doubt more and more.


His work was definitely a reaction against convention but the sexual content of the novels (though for me Lady Chatterley's Lover is the only explicit one) are backed up by his philosophies. His comments on sex are particularly interesting in Lady Chatterley's Lover, where I think he tackles the subject most openly- even though at times the philosophy bogged things down.

well for a male writer to write with a female prospective as the sexual fantasist is intriguing he was a man one must not forget.
one would have thought a male character as the centre of the book would have been more appropriate since he was one himself.
whether there was any philosophical element in the sexual connotations I truly do not see it.
philosophy and sex sounds morose.



found his concept in Women in Love the most controversial philosophy. I'm not sure whether it is the character saying it or Lawrence, but either Gerald or Birkin says that the two should be physically close in order to strengthen their masculine bonds, their mental and spiritual connection. The wrestling scene is certainly the best scene in Women in Love and potentially the most erotic thing Lawrence wrote. We all know what the wrestling really is but of course, Lawrence is hardly going to say that. Because the passege is so intensely sexual, I wonder how much Lawrence empathised with it. Was this his fantasy, that men should reach a sexual closeness?
I do not know enough about the book to comment but again Women in Love sounds feminine if I go with a title.
about men sexual closeness I have not a clue what it means. sex is close enough having to wrestle it is sadistic to me and suggest underlying issues of another level it is not the sex it is the maturity of it.
it seems Lawrence explored sexuality through the eyes of a female enough to make me think was he could have explored through the eyes of a man too. that would have caused more controversy then that of Chatterley but he did not.
if he was really that bothered about conventions why not men sexuality instead? because that is the controversy of all controversies.
hence my doubts on his beliefs about society and conventions. He did not give men a voice and he was one.