Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine

"Lawrence felt that, at about the time of Socrates, philosophy and fiction became split. Philosophy became abstract and dry, and literature became sloppily emotional and lacked the structuring imperative of philosophy. Bear in mind that logical positivism was gaining dominance in his time. He knew Bertrand Russell, and was familiar with the Cambridge philosophy set and the analytic tradition. You can see why he felt that philosophy and emotion had been split. What he wanted was to bring the two back into contact with each other. In his own writing, in all of its genres, he aimed to combine passional inspiration with philosophy: what he called ‘the passionate struggle into conscious being’. This is what he meant by ‘philosophicalish’. “Lawrence felt that, at about the time of Socrates, philosophy and fiction became split” It would not be classified by the Cambridge philosophers of his day—or indeed of ours—as philosophy. And yet this was the only philosophy that he thought worth writing or reading. Early on in his career, for example in the important mid-First World War essay ‘The Crown’, he started working out his philosophy of life. It is orientated around various binaries such as the male and the female, the light and dark, the northern and the southern, the Arctic and the African, and the European and the American. The crown metaphor comes from the royal coat of arms: the lion and the unicorn holding up the crown. It is when the lion and the unicorn fight that they hold the crown aloft. If the lion and the unicorn were to make peace, then the crown would lie in the dust. So, the crown of life is held up by the eternal conflict of opposites. This was translated into his agonistic relationships with his friends and wife. Although this did not work with many of his friends, who simply abandoned him, it did work with Frieda, who gave as good as she got. We see this represented in Mr Noon . The couple Gilbert and Johanna are Lawrence and Frieda fighting like—to use Lawrence’s metaphor—cats in a bag. That is presented as being a healthy and life-supporting mode of being for them. Absolutely, yes. And you can see these ideas operative in the fiction, which is why it is advisable to read the fiction in the light of the nonfiction. Always bear in mind that the so-called nonfiction has many literary qualities. There is a less sharp distinction between them than there is, for example, between T S Eliot’s poetry and his literary criticism, or Virginia Woolf’s prose and her literary criticism. Notably, Lawrence’s Walt Whitman essay, which contains a great deal of his philosophy, is also partly set out like poetry—like a Whitman poem. The genres of philosophy, literary criticism and poetry are melded in this response to another poet. This is one of those instances where tastes and people simply differ. I think it is one of the important variables between people, the extent to which they will tolerate being preached at. I have a very high tolerance which helps me, I think, in being a Lawrentian. But if you are more resistant, then consider that Lawrence was experimental. He always had a decisive tone in his prose; whenever something came into his head to posit, he said it out loud. But that did not mean that he thought that that was the final word on a subject. Bear in mind that he also valorised change and contradictoriness. This was merely his best stab at that particular moment. Yes, as might recognizing the fact that he was aware that he sounded ridiculous as a preacher. Many of his friends pointed this out to him. In his fiction he repeatedly parodies himself, for example in Mr Noon and Women in Love . Birkin is the closest thing we have to a Lawrence character in Women in Love . In one scene set in a Bohemian café based on the Café Royal on Regent Street, a character reads out loud a letter he has received from Birkin, in Birkin’s absence. He recites the letter to everyone’s amusement, making fun of its style. Eventually, Gudrun asks to see the letter, and simply walks out of the restaurant with it. The style of the letter is very much Lawrence’s own style—so he knew that people could laugh at him, and was willing to have a joke at his own expense. This scene was in fact based on a real episode when Katherine Mansfield overheard somebody reading out Lawrence’s poetry in the Café Royal, and sniggering over it. She confiscated the book."