Writing the Journey: June 1999

"Through the eyes of D.H. Lawrence: Journeyman life philosopher charting a physical and metaphysical voyage"

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Gregory F. Tague
St. Francis College
gregorytague@hotmail.com

In his so-called "Italy books" (Twilight in Italy, Sea and Sardinia, and Etruscan Places), D.H. Lawrence, expatriate traveler, not only paints a colorful physical landscape with his sharp eye attentive to the personal characteristics of the local people, but he transcends his frugal and arduous journey by exploring, simultaneously, realms of the metaphysical. In his Italy books there is a movement from German idealism, through a Jungian-type metempsychosis, to a Bakhtinian confusion of dialectics. Never far from his grounding in English practicality, Lawrence is nevertheless a spiritual traveler, content with ample good food but seeking nourishment for the soul.

Covering a period from, roughly, 1912 through 1927, Lawrence expands the notion of travel to include cultural, historical, and, most importantly, philosophical reflection. At first, Lawrence leaves England, in 1912, as a free and rebellious young Englishman full of daring and hope. Then, in 1921, Lawrence returns to Italy, writing about his trip to Sardinia, full of despair stemming from his personal and collective distress after the war. Finally, in 1927, near the end of his life, ill, after having travelled to Ceylon, Australia, America, and Mexico, Lawrence returns to Italy to visit Etruscan tombs, a man full of consternation over the world but overflowing with the light of humanity. This tripartite Italian journey proceeds from the young Lawrence's grappling with definitions of self and soul, to a re-discovery of living archetypes, to a reified concept of humankind through its various incarnate civilizations.

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Gregory F. Tague
St. Francis College,
180 Remsen Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11201.
(718) 489-5217
gregorytague@hotmail.com

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