...Life, the ever-present, knows no finality, no finished crystallization...Give me nothing fixed, set, static. Don't give me the infinite or the eternal: nothing of infinity, nothing of eternity. Give me the still, white seething, the incandescence and coldness of the incarnate moment: the moment, the quick of all change and haste and opposition: the moment, the immediate present, the Now. The immediate moment is not a drop of water running downstream. It is the source and issue, the bubbling up of the stream. Here, in this very instant moment, up bubbles the stream of time, out of the wells of futurity, flowing on to the oceans of the past. The source, the issue, the creative quick.
1. How does D.H. Lawrence try to capture or embody this idea/conception in his poetry? If possible, identify instances of this in his poetry. If not, show in what ways Lawrence has failed.
2. Is free verse the appropriate medium for the task D.H. Lawrence set himself? In what ways has he succeeded and in what ways has he failed? Compare a poem done in more traditional metered verse with one of his poems in free verse.
3. According to Ellmann and O'Clair, Lawrence believed that "form must arise spontaneously from the material, not be imposed upon it from above." What do they mean by this? Can we find instances of this in Lawrence's poetry? If not, how has Lawrence missed his mark?
Links
On D.H. Lawrence
Books
Works
On American Literature (for those interested)