Lawrence, D. H. - Frederic Vanson (essay date 1985)

Frederic Vanson (essay date 1985)

SOURCE: "D. H. Lawrence—The Poetry," in Contemporary Review, Vol. 247, No. 1438, November, 1985, pp. 257-60.

[In the following essay, Vanson argues that Lawrence was a master craftsman, and places him alongside such poets as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Robert Browning, while finding him not equal to Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare.]

At the time of the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial in an article for a provincial newspaper I suggested that in time to come (i.e. now!) the real fame of D. H. Lawrence would derive not from his novels but from his poetry. Time has proved me wrong, for there are today probably a hundred readers of The Rainbow or Women in Love to every one familiar with "The Ship of Death."

No doubt this is in part due to the Chatterley affair and its aftermath, but I do hold the view that if the fame of this brilliant writer (for brilliant he...

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