Shortlisted for the ASLE-UKI Prize for Best Academic Monograph
This is the first ecocritical book on the works of D. H. Lawrence and also the first to consider the links between nature and gender in the poetry and the novels. In his search for a balanced relationship between male and female characters, what role does nature play in the challenges Lawrence offers his readers? How far are the anxieties of his characters in negotiating relationships that might threaten their sense of self derived from the same source as their anxieties about engaging with the Other in nature? Indeed, might Lawrence’s metaphors drawn from nature actually be the causes of human actions in
The Rainbow
, for example? The originality of Lawrence’s poetic and narrative strategies for challenging social attitudes towards both nature and gender can be revealed by new approaches offered by ecocritical theory and ecofeminist readings of his books. This book explores ecocritical notions to frame its ecofeminist readings, from the difference between the ‘Other’ and ‘otherness’ in
The White Peacock
and
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
, ‘anotherness’ in the poetry of
Birds, Beasts and Flowers
, psychogeography in
Sea and Sardinia
, emergent ecofeminism in
Sons and Lovers
, land and gender in
The Boy in the Bush
, gender dialogics in
Kangaroo
, human animality in
Women in Love
, trees as tests in
Aaron’s Rod
, to ‘radical animism’ in
The Plumed Serpent
. Finally, three late tales provide a reassessment of ecofeminist insights into Lawrence’s work for readers in the present context of the Anthropocene.