Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism | Lawrence, D. H. - William J. Fisher (essay date 1956)

William J. Fisher (essay date 1956)

SOURCE: "Peace and Passivity: The Poetry of D. H. Lawrence," in The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 55, 1956, pp. 337-48.

[In the following essay, Fisher examines what he believes is the paradoxical nature of Lawrence's poetry. ]

To read the poems of D. H. Lawrence after knowing his novels and other prose is to confront the paradox of the romantic. The rebellious individualism which distinguishes Lawrence's fiction is inverted in the poetry into a continuing desire to be merged, to be soothed into some harmonious and self-obliterating whole. In contrast with the turbulent fiction, Lawrence's poetry is generally temperate, expressing a craving for an "oblivion," for an "utter sleep," or for some other quiescent oneness. The passive conception and the passive image prevail: the poet yearns to be taken, touched, folded, enclosed; to be eased into darkness; to be immersed softly and unconsciously.

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