D.H. Lawrence

David Herbert Lawrence, novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist, was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England, in 1885. Though better known as a novelist, Lawrence's first-published works (in 1909) were poems, and his poetry, especially his evocations of the natural world, have since had a significant influence on many poets on both sides of the Atlantic. His early poems reflect the influence of Ezra Pound and Imagist movement, which reached its peak in the early teens of the twentieth century. When Pound attempted to draw Lawrence into his circle of writer-followers, however, Lawrence decided to pursue a more independent path.

He believed in writing poetry that was stark, immediate and true to the mysterious inner force which motivated it. Many of his best-loved poems treat the physical and inner life of plants and animals; others are bitterly satiric and express his outrage at the puritanism and hypocrisy of conventional Anglo-Saxon society. Lawrence was a rebellious and profoundly polemical writer with radical views, who regarded sex, the primitive subconscious, and nature as cures to what he considered the evils of modern industrialized society. Tremendously prolific, his work was often uneven in quality, and he was a continual source of controversy, often involved in widely-publicized censorship cases, most famously for his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). His collections of poetry include Look! We Have Come Through (1917), a collection of poems about his wife; Birds, Beasts, and Flowers (1923); and Pansies (1929), which was banned on publication in England.

Besides his troubles with the censors, Lawrence was persecuted as well during World War I, for the supposed pro-German sympathies of his wife, Frieda. As a consequence, the Lawrences left England and traveled restlessly to Italy, Germany, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, the French Riviera, Mexico and the United States, unsuccessfully searching for a new homeland. In Taos, New Mexico, he became the center of a group of female admirers who considered themselves his disciples, and whose quarrels for his attention became a literary legend. A lifelong sufferer from tuberculosis, Lawrence died in 1930 in France, at the age of 44.

This bio was last updated on Jan 31, 2001.

A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

Prose

Letters

Shop for D.H. Lawrence books at your local bookstore, through Booksense.com. (This link will open in a new browser window.)

Learn more about why poets.org loves Booksense.com

D.H. Lawrence exhibits on this site:

• High Talk: Influences from the British Isles

 

D.H. Lawrence exhibits elsewhere on the web:

• Amores (1916) and New Poems (1919)
  From the Columbia University Bartleby Library.
   
• D. H. Lawrence Index Page
   
• The Poetry Grove: D. H. Lawrence
  by Tina Ferris.
   
• D. H. Lawrence: Life Stories, Books, and Links
  The Today in Literature website features original biographical stories about great writers, books and events in literary history.
   

Baby Tortoise

The Elephant is Slow to Mate

How Beastly the Bourgeois Is

Nothing to Save

Trees in the Garden

Whales Weep Not!

The White Horse