Vin Ordinaire by Dh Lawrence
Vin ordinaire by Lawrence
Lawrence
His biography can help understand his work but it is not enough: his work exceeds his life.
Lawrence (1885-1930) was a very isolated man but was also a visionary. He came to maturity at period of WWI, a time of political and cultural changes when the question “where is the western civilization going” was asked. Question imposed by the traumatic effects of mass destruction.
And by the many changes in society: social classes, roles of men and women, how to find meaning, spiritual values in a world dominated and destroyed by machines.
Increase in materialism. Old structures don’t correspond anymore to a society that is more and more industrialized.
Values, structures, and roles given to individuals were fast changing and put into question.
Identity of the individual was put into question by the savagery and the absurdity of WWI.
Individuals are swallowed up by nationalism, regiments, are erased, blurred by the group.
The theme of opposition between the group and the individual is a major theme in Lawrence’s work.
He felt the pressure of the group; he was a loner, an outsider.
Social classes mattered way more at that time (class ridden society).
Lawrence comes from a working class background (mining): his father was a working class man and his mother middle class. Lawrence was one of the first to show the working class point of view. He got a good education for someone of his class.
He was very interested in relationships between man and woman, as well as between man and man, as woman and woman:
Sex and - what it means to the individual, links with spiritual meaning, the idea of fusion – is one of his great interests, at a time when it’s a great taboo, and homosexuality a crime.
He is a pioneer.
He saw the religious, the individual and materialist system as corrupt and saw sex as a way to develop and to fuse with other others and nature.
On the eve of WWI, Germans are seen as enemy; nationalism is strong and
Lawrence
His biography can help understand his work but it is not enough: his work exceeds his life.
Lawrence (1885-1930) was a very isolated man but was also a visionary. He came to maturity at period of WWI, a time of political and cultural changes when the question “where is the western civilization going” was asked. Question imposed by the traumatic effects of mass destruction.
And by the many changes in society: social classes, roles of men and women, how to find meaning, spiritual values in a world dominated and destroyed by machines.
Increase in materialism. Old structures don’t correspond anymore to a society that is more and more industrialized.
Values, structures, and roles given to individuals were fast changing and put into question.
Identity of the individual was put into question by the savagery and the absurdity of WWI.
Individuals are swallowed up by nationalism, regiments, are erased, blurred by the group.
The theme of opposition between the group and the individual is a major theme in Lawrence’s work.
He felt the pressure of the group; he was a loner, an outsider.
Social classes mattered way more at that time (class ridden society).
Lawrence comes from a working class background (mining): his father was a working class man and his mother middle class. Lawrence was one of the first to show the working class point of view. He got a good education for someone of his class.
He was very interested in relationships between man and woman, as well as between man and man, as woman and woman:
Sex and - what it means to the individual, links with spiritual meaning, the idea of fusion – is one of his great interests, at a time when it’s a great taboo, and homosexuality a crime.
He is a pioneer.
He saw the religious, the individual and materialist system as corrupt and saw sex as a way to develop and to fuse with other others and nature.
On the eve of WWI, Germans are seen as enemy; nationalism is strong and