The White Peacock

Hi, I am new to your group; so far I have enjoyed the postings very much...thanks! I am very interested in three authors at the moment: Lawrence, Hardy and Shakespeare. I just completed Lawrence’s first published novel, “The White Peacock”, and wondered if anyone has read it. I would love to discuss it. I had read one lone review by a customer on Amazon saying it was only for the avid fan of Lawrence, and that it contained too much description. I thought this quite unfair and I disagree with this comment; I wonder if the person giving the review really looked beyond description to see the hidden symbolism in the words. I was pleasantly surprised to like the book very much. I became quickly emersed in it. I have read most of Lawrence’s novels (also short stories, novelettes and poems). I probably loved best “Sons and Lovers”, “Woman in Love”, and “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”. I think he possessed true genius, although I just read that at an early age he hated being introduced in public and society as “a young genius”. I felt that “The White Peacock” was so luminous in a heightened visual sense that it was truly artistic. It was intensely colorful, sensitive and poetic. Lawrence’s vivid observation of nature and his world around him had a sensual quality about it that is rare. He was a man who was truly awake! His descriptions show an intensified creative power and many of his themes are coming alive in this first book, like seed beginning to burst forth with Lawrence’s potential energy and talent. At one time he said “Everything that I am now, all of me, so far, is in that”. This first novel absorbed his youth, which greatly interested me, having studied him for some time. Lawrence was just 21 when he began writing it. If you are interested in learning about all of Lawrence, especially his youth and early beginnings, I highly recommend “The White Peacock”. It might be better to first read a really good concise biography of the author. Reading “Sons and Lovers” might also help to fill you in on Lawrence’s actual life. Although “The White Peacock” is altered in plot, such as the father dying early on and is not talked about much, the other characters are definitely based on friends and family of Lawrence. I found that some of the gaps in “Sons and Lovers” were actually filled in for me in this earlier book. I would be interested if anyone has read this book for futher discussion.

Janine, I'm a huge fan of D.H. Lawrence. I've read just about all his major stuff. However, I have not read The White Peacock. I wish I could discuss it with you, but I can't. If you're interested in his life, you should pick up a good biography. The novels are not necessarily accurate. I dn't recall what biography I used when I did my master's thesis on him.

Are you doing a thesis on Lawrence?

I've also noticed from your other posts you've read a bit of Thomas Hardy. Did you know that Lawrence wrote a critical commentary on Hardy. You should get a hold of it, it's quite good. Lawrnce in many ways is the natural heir to Hardy.

Virgil, Thanks for your feedback. I am also a huge fan of Lawrence's. I can't seem to learn enough and lately that has become an obsession with me. I started reading his work many many years ago and actually did not read "Sons and Lovers" until a year ago. I had started it years back and could not get into it and now I thought it was incredible. The timing must have been right. I did read a noted biography -"D.H.Lawrence - The Intelligent Heart" a few years ago. It was amazing to me and I learned much about this poetic and complex man. A good friend of mine, whom I met in another Thomas Hardy group (online), highly recommended this biography. He was told by his university professor that this book is one of the most accurate biographies on Lawrence. I have noticed a number of new biographies that have cropped up lately, that boast of having additional materials available about Lawrence these being newly discovered. I know that there are also online exhibits of his life - one being from his HS or college and I believe the other is from Cambridge, but I could be wrong on the second source. I also love Thomas Hardy and find everything about him fascinating. I have read almost all of his novels, but not all of his poetry. My Japanese friend, from the Hardy group, knows much about Thomas Hardy, having done many independent studies on his work and his life. I am not doing a thesis of any authors; I am strickly interested and curious. You could call it independent studies. I graduated from a noted art college many years ago and did not have much time to read as I would have liked to throughout the years. I have been taking several years to catch up with reading and literary studies, renewing my interest in Shakespeare and Lawrence, and discovering Hardy (about 5 yrs back). I am fully aware that Hardy preceeded Lawrence and that Lawrence did write a critical commentary on his work. I am sure Lawrence was influenced by his work, as well. The essay you mentioned is on my "must read" list. That list keeps getting longer and longer, but I will get there. In "The White Peacock" I did not mean the book is totally autobiographical. It is hardly that, but it does capture the essense of Lawrence's youth, his surroundings and some of the people he intimately knew. I read all footnotes and how they related to his real life. This made the book very personal to me. I hope that someday you might read this book, so that we can discuss it. It is definitely not a book to dismiss lightly. It has the potential - more sensed or visceral, by the reader, of what is to come - a sort of basis of Lawrence's greatness, definitely a fine beginning. Glad to know you have read my other posts and replies to other questions. Glad you are interested in both authors, as I am. This is a good way of putting it "Lawrence in many ways is the natural heir of Hardy". I noticed a connection long before I read that Lawrence even read Hardy. Their work has many things in common. Hardy's work tends to be more tragic than Lawrence's and yet many of Lawrence's works end with an uneasy feeling or a question, maybe not quite termed true tragedy, but sad and unsettling regardless. I don't think Lawrence wanted to be tragic necessarily, but he was to a large extent or felt great joy and great sadness, again the light and the dark elements, which also reflect his life. Final note: of all the novels of Lawrence's I felt "The White Peacock" was written very reminiscent of Hardy's work - his vivid pastoral scenes and descriptions, particularly. However, Lawrence has seemed to take it a step further by giving the woodlands human and animal qualities and absolute sensuality. Hope these topics open more discussions between us.

Janine, I will now have to put The White Peacock on my list of must reads.

Perhaps it is the most hardy-esk because it was the first of Lawrence's novels, before he matured his own ideas and style.

I'm also glad you've noticed a large number of books cropping on on Lawrence. I've noticed the opposite. It used to be that the most frequent modern writers to be written on in English were James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence. A famous critic named F.R. Leavis once said you are either a Joycean or a Lawrentian in outlook. Joyce is still quite popular, but Lawrence has had a huge drop in the last 20 years. That is because most university english departments are now dominated by feminists, and the feminsts have always despised Lawrence. Sure he's not sympatheitic to them; perhaps even the opposite of sympathetic. But one should not judge a writer or artist on whether you agree with their ideas (for the record, I do not agree with Lawrence on many of his ideas) but on his art. And to me, Lawrence is one of the supreme artists writing in english in the 20th century. But many critics can't do that. I'm confident, however, that in 20 years or so, Lawrence's popularity will revive to what it once was.

Virgil, thanks for your interest. You may not like "The White Peacock" at all, or find it immature, but I have read that it is far from that and believe it to be so. The plot may have some flaws and problems, but I did not think it a wasted effort to read, and I have read Lawrence's greatest novels. I try not to compare but look at the first published one as another window into understanding Lawrence and his youth and the foundation of his work. It is funny what you say about the feminists despising Lawrence, but I have heard it said before. The more I read about the man, he becomes more of an enigma to me. One fact is that he had many feminist women friends. He seems to praise and honor them and perhaps he hated them at the same time. Or could this be a sort of self hate and scorning with much fear attached of being ruled by a woman? Not sure myself...just a thought. He got angry with some who seemed to say "I am sexually uninhibited" and then held back from him. His mother had to have played into his confusion about women. She was overbearing at times and yet he adored her. She dictated many of his early decisions. I think the duality of Lawrence does not only stem from his parents, who were so very different from each other, and usually in opposition to each other. It also stemmed from his relationship with his parents separately - both containing dark and light elements. He was actually, from what I read, a rather confused youth about his sexual desires and his coming of age. He was a virgin for many years and it bothered him. In that time period this type frustation was pretty common I would imagine, but think about Lawrence - he was young and fragile (sickly) and his sex was often questioned by the public. He must have wanted to prove himself as a man and to relieve his obvious tension. His first sexual encounters with Jesse Chambers were far from ideal, in location or experience. Let's face it - Lawrence and his life are an enigma and mystery to everyone...this is a huge part of his allure. One wants to get to bottom of the "why and wherefore "that makes up Lawrence and his extention of himself - his body of work. We all want to know how it influenced his writing. Personally, the more I read the less I truly believe the man knew himself and what he did believe, firmly. I am reading another book currently on his life and it is filling in some of the blanks, since the author (by the way, a woman) quotes many of his letter to various people during his lifetime. I think it would be most benificial to read a book of his letters. I have read some and you get a better first handed insite into the man himself. You get to the core. There is much information out there to sift throught, so you have to take it all as a whole. Look on Amazon and you will find several biographies listed now. I am not here to judge Lawrence and his values. He certainly was no angel, but he was a man. I do not always agree with his philosophy either, but it still interests me. And he had an enormous amount of innate talent, no one can deny that, and it lives on in his books. I admire that talent mostly and see him as an artist, which would probably be why I love his work so. He paints vivid pictures in my mind and is very visual. I can easily become emersed in his art. I read that when young he said he could not write when he had the urge to paint and could not paint when he desired to write. He definitely wrote vividly with his pen...that being his greatest strength...it paints a wondress picture.

I couldn't agree with you more on just about everything you say here. BTW, I had to read many of his letters for my research, and he was a great letter writer as well. You might be on to something when you say he may not of understood himself that well. Still many of his theories are well worked out. I can't recall names of essays now, but I site them in my thesis. I sent you a PM asking you if you wanted a copy of my thesis. I don't know if you saw it.

Yes, heard Lawrence was a prolific letter writer. I definitely will put a book of letters on my list of books to buy in the near future. I believe they would reveal much. I saw one advertized on Amazon recently. I believe I did read the critical commentary on Hardy (mentioned in your first post to me), but I will look into it and maybe read it again. Have read some more of your thesis and find it is very revealing to me about Lawrence's ideas and theology. Fascinating reading. Need to discuss soon. I have questions.

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Originally Posted by Janine

Yes, heard Lawrence was a prolific letter writer. I definitely will put a book of letters on my list of books to buy in the near future. I believe they would reveal much. I saw one advertized on Amazon recently. I believe I did read the critical commentary on Hardy (mentioned in your first post to me), but I will look into it and maybe read it again. Have read some more of your thesis and find it is very revealing to me about Lawrence's ideas and theology. Fascinating reading. Need to discuss soon. I have questions.

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The complete letters of Lawrence is eight volumes long. You don't need that one. The one to get is something called the elected letters of Lawrence, where the best and most imported are collected together.

Here's the list of books on his letters:
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume I, September 1901 - May 1913, ed. James T. Boulton, Cambridge University Press, 1979, ISBN 0521221471
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume II, June 1913 - October 1916, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, Cambridge University Press, 1981, ISBN 0521231116
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume III, October 1916 - June 1921, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, Cambridge University Press, 1984, ISBN 0521231124
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume IV, June 1921 - March 1924 , ed. Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield, Cambridge University Press, 1987, ISBN 0521006953
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume V, March 1924 - March 1927, ed. James T. Boulton and Lindeth Vasey, Cambridge University Press, 1989, ISBN 0521006961
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume VI, March 1927 - November 1928 , ed. James T. Boulton and Margaret Boulton with Gerald M. Lacy, Cambridge University Press, 1991, ISBN 0521006988
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume VII, November 1928 - February 1930, ed. Keith Sagar and James T. Boulton, Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN 0521006996
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, with index, Volume VIII, ed. James T. Boulton, Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0521231175
The Selected Letters of D H Lawrence, Compiled and edited by James T. Boulton, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0521401151


The last one is the one I'm referring to.

As you can imagine, Lawrence was a prolific letter writer. The eight volumes are only the ones that were recovered. I'm sure many other were destroyed.

Thanks! This is great. You did not have to post all the volumes, but thanks; glad to know the last is the one to get. I will look around for it. Yes, I know L was constantly writing letters. That is something greatly fascinates me. It is hard to imagine he would have the time between novels and in the state of health he was in; his productivity never ceases to amaze. Also, it makes L very human to me, personally. One question - does this last volume give an overview of his entire letter writing from all stages of his life? I have read 25 pages of your thesis and like it very much. It is right to divide his life in the various developmental stages, each being distinctly alike and yet different from the other - thus reflecting his work and expression. I think your thesis well written and very well documented; your own thoughts are well set forth. I had a clearer mind when I read the 25 pages last night and that was my third reading. My understanding was much better and I am anxious to read on. I studied many of these theories or ideologies back when I was in college, so my mind is a bit dusty, but eventually memory of various books and authors that tie in with Lawrence's ideas are surfacing. There is much to comment about and I will have many questions for you. It is a good companion at this time to the biography I am reading. Thanks again for the suggestion of the letter volume, very helpful.

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Originally Posted by Janine

Thanks! This is great. You did not have to post all the volumes, but thanks; glad to know the last is the one to get. I will look around for it. Yes, I know L was constantly writing letters. That is something greatly fascinates me. It is hard to imagine he would have the time between novels and in the state of health he was in; his productivity never ceases to amaze.

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I just cut and pasted from a web site; no burden to me.

Novels, short stories (three volumes collected), poetry, essays, letters, literary criticism, book length treatise on philosophy and psychology. And he died at only 44 years old. He was incredible.

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Also, it makes L very human to me, personally. One question - does this last volume give an overview of his entire letter writing from all stages of his life?

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I believe so, but it's been a number of years since I looked at it.

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I have read 25 pages of your thesis and like it very much. It is right to divide his life in the various developmental stages, each being distinctly alike and yet different from the other - thus reflecting his work and expression. I think your thesis well written and very well documented; your own thoughts are well set forth. I had a clearer mind when I read the 25 pages last night and that was my third reading. My understanding was much better and I am anxious to read on. I studied many of these theories or ideologies back when I was in college, so my mind is a bit dusty, but eventually memory of various books and authors that tie in with Lawrence's ideas are surfacing. There is much to comment about and I will have many questions for you. It is a good companion at this time to the biography I am reading. Thanks again for the suggestion of the letter volume, very helpful

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Thank you. It was well recieved by the professors. To be honest i had forgotten some of my own thoughts until I skimed through it the other day to send it to you. :)

Your welcome. Would you believe it - I ran out of printing paper! I had to go buy some tonight so I could print out the rest of your thesis, among other things. Easier to read offline. Earlier today I pulled out two books from my bookshelf - "St. Mawr & The Man Who Died" and "D.H.Lawrence England, My England". I read them all such a long time ago. I noticed you mentioned them in your thesis quite often (at least in the first half). I have a feeling I will have to reread them to be able to fully relate to those points in your thesis. Yes, I find all the numerous and various pieces of literature Lawrence wrote to be totally amazing. The man was incedible to have written so much in his short span of life. He obviously had a continually outpouring of creativity and expression! I don't recall how to format this so everything runs together - paragraphs I am referring to. Is there a "Help" section on this site with a key to formating posts? Also, I wanted to say - I posted in a religious section and I can't seem to find it now. I don't quite know how I found it to begin with. I posted a question to you on Catholisism. Did you see it? If you can give me some pointers in manuvauring around this site, I would be highly greatful. I am still feeling new and a little inept.

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Originally Posted by Janine

Also, I wanted to say - I posted in a religious section and I can't seem to find it now. I don't quite know how I found it to begin with. I posted a question to you on Catholisism. Did you see it? If you can give me some pointers in manuvauring around this site, I would be highly greatful. I am still feeling new and a little inept.

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Yes I saw it. It was in one of the recent threads out there.

Glad you saw my other post; I found it a short while ago and commented. Hey, Virgil.... knock, knock...you awake?....I need help on formating. I know HTML from eBay formating, but do not see that it will work here...I tried it. Help! How can I get separate paragraphs? Do I need to reset something? On the left hand side of one page it did list formating styles or codes but seemed to say the HTML has been turned off. How do I turn it on?

HTML doesn't work in the forums, you use the vBcode (basically square brackets instead of < > , just click on the links above the white text window when composing a post to format :)

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Originally Posted by Janine

Glad you saw my other post; I found it a short while ago and commented. Hey, Virgil.... knock, knock...you awake?....I need help on formating. I know HTML from eBay formating, but do not see that it will work here...I tried it. Help! How can I get separate paragraphs? Do I need to reset something? On the left hand side of one page it did list formating styles or codes but seemed to say the HTML has been turned off. How do I turn it on?

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Janine, I'm computer illiterate. I'm too old. I did not grow up with computers. Sorry.