D.H.
Lawrence (1885-1930) Why the Novel Matters
How does Lawrence highlight the superiority of the novel over other
forms of literature?
Or, Comment on Lawrence conception of novel and his criticism of
philosophy in the essay Why the Novel Matter.
Answer:-
The essay Why the Novel Matters is D. H. Lawrences statement about his
belief in the novel as a means of instructing human being to live life to the
fullest. So, in other sense this essay also reveals Lawrences philosophy of
life. It was first published posthumously in 1936 in the collections of essays
entitled Phoenix. Modern novelist like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, E. M.
Forster and D. H. Lawrence extended the frontiers of fictional practice by
breaking the convictions established by the Victorian novelist.
In the hands of these modern writers of fiction, the novel no longer remained
as predictable form and with each new text, fresh vistas were framed.
Lawrences essay, Why the novel matters is a part of this culture.
Lawrence proclaimed in this essay that being a novelist, I consider myself
superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosophers and the poets, who are all
great masters of different bits of men alive. But never get the whole hog.
Lawrence mood of argument is simple but extremely effective. He places the
novel on one side and the rest of literary practice on the other. He indicates
that novel is the most flexible and creative of all literary forms. That is why
carries the conviction when he writes, Only in the novel are all things given
full play. Lawrence says that a novel presents the whole and it is the novel
which holds the potential to reveal the manifested dimensions of life in all
its depth and variety.
There are many examples in the essay which show how Lawrence
foregrounds novels capacity to explain the different aspects of life. It is a
well established notion that the whole is greater than the part. So, Lawrence
said that denied when the philosophers say that he is only a soul, or a body
or a mind, or intelligence. Hence he is a man alive, greater than his soul or
body, or mind or spirit or anything else that is a part of him. In other words
Lawrences contention is that the nature of a living ting can only be
communicated by an open-ended form, like the novel and not by any of the
other literary forms which only projects a particular theme or subject matter
at a given situation.
Lawrence is conscious that he is taking on the discipline of philosophy
where the focus is on the conduct of human being and on the condition of
thought. What he is also trying to argue is that it is only in the novel that
characters are brought to life and this is the only platform where the process
of living in the actual sense can be realized by the reader. It is apparent that
Lawrences emphasis on the novels ability to represent life has been
highlighted to show how this form is flexible to make everything visible to
the mind of its readers. It is also a true fact from this point of view that why
a novel tries to project a complete whole of its characters life, it also gives
an opportunity to the writer to include everything which can guide human
being to the right way of life. In this sense novels are more instructive and
informative comparing to other literary forms. Lawrence himself showed his
imaginative power in his own novels and most of those instructions holds-
good almost a century since he wired them.
Lawrence concludes his essay with the assertion that life is full of rights and
wrong, good and bad but they are never absolutely constant forever.
Perception of such instincts keeps changing and only in the novel all things
of life can be given to its a full play.
Posted by Podmeswar Bora
Let us learn from the novel. In the novel, the characters can do nothing but live.
If they keep on being good, according to pattern, or bad, according to pattern, or
even volatile, according to pattern, they cease to live, and the novel falls dead. A
character in a novel has got to live, or it is nothing.
D.H. Lawrence set the world wondering how wonderful wonder is, and the
novel was his primary vehicle. Since Lawrence was a writer, he wanted the novel
to be a vehicle for learning. Lawrence embraces a solicitude for life. Life is more
than the journey itself, but being alivetouching, feeling, contact awareness;
these were what mattered to Lawrence. The novel explores, discusses, creates
these moods, and so, believed Lawrence, the novel matters.
The English author, poet, playwright, essayist, critic, and painter David Herbert Richards
Lawrence was born on this day in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. While Lawrence was
immensely interested in human touch behavior and physical intimacy in relationships, which
he explored in his well-known novels Sons and Lovers (1913), Women in Love (1920),
and Lady Chatterleys Lover (1928), he was also a passionate advocate against moral
absolutes, believing that all things flow and change and that the whole is greater than the
part. Unlike philosophy, science, and religion, which only address different bits of us, the
novel reaches us whole hog. It is for this reason, according to Lawrence, the novelist is
superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and even the poet. To be alive, to be
man alive, to be whole man alive: that is the point. And at its best, the novel, and the novel
supremely, can help you. It can help you not to be dead man in life.
Virginia Woolf mentined hardly and praised him and
Woolf, writers and fiction[edit]
Woolf's "Modern Fiction" essay focuses on how writers should write or what
she hopes for them to write. Woolf suggests, Any method is right, every
method is right, that expresses what we wish to express, if we are writers;
that brings us closer to the novelist's intention if we are readers".[1] Woolf
wanted writers to express themselves in such a way that it showed life as it
should be seen not as "a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged".[1] She
set out to inspire writers of modern fiction by calling for originality,
criticizing those who focused on the unimportant things, and comparing the
differences of cultural authors, all for the sake of fiction and literature.
