English literature regards D. H. Lawrence as one of the most incredible nature poets in history. In his descriptions of nature, Lawrence combines the genius of a painter with that of a poet. He is a painter in his technique and a poet in his attitude to nature.
Lawrence’s observation of Nature is at ways minute, and his descriptions are always graphic. Wordsworth is the lake districts painter, Hardy of the Wessex, Lawrence is of Eastwood.
Lawrence Depicts A Colorful And Fragrant Nature in Sons and Lovers
Like Wordsworth, Lawrence is not a mystic in his approach towards Nature. He does not believe like Wordsworth in Nature’s formative and instructive powers. Like Keats, his descriptions are replete with beauty, colors, and scents.
Like Keats, he is a man of solid perceptions, for he shares the Keatsian sensibility to the poetic charm of Nature. There is hardly any trace of the natural dynamics of Shelly in Lawrence.
Nature’s Images in Sons and Lovers
The recurrence of nature’s images in the novel Sons and Lovers shows that Lawrence is no less interested in the life of Nature than he is in the life of human beings. He surpasses any modern writer in the description of the landscape. He uses both dark and bright pastels of color.
Nonetheless, Lawrence subordinates neither man nor nature. There is glow, warmth, beauty, rhythm, and color, specifically the pulse of life beauty in the descriptions of success. Just mark this sky cape:
The sun was going down. Every open evening, the skill of Derbyshire was blazed over with red sunset. Mrs. Morel watched the sun sink from the glistening sky, leaving a soft-flower blue overhead, while the western space went red, as if all the fire had swan down there, leaving the bell cast flawless blue. The mountain-ash berries across the field stood fierily out from the dark leaves for a moment.
D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers.
Nature’s images constitute one of the most conspicuous features of Sons and Lover: The drama of human life and human emotions in the strong is inextricably bound up with the interplay of natural phenomena and natural objects.
An exquisite pattern results from this artistic mingling of the two ingredients: human life and natural life.
Lawrence Symbolizes Human Emotion through Nature
Lawrence used nature’s elements as symbols in the novel. Miriam’s reaction to the daffodils on one occasion signified this connection when Paul and Miriam were walking in silence. To them, the daffodils seemed to be craning forward from among their sheaves of grey-green blades.
Miriam began to show Paul the faces of all the flowers one by one – fondling them lavishly all the while. Then she asked him if the daffodils were not magnificent. She was at this moment sipping the flowers with fervent kisses.
Paul thereupon asks her why she is always fondling things. She replies that she loves to touch them. Steering her adoration of flowers symbolizes her over-spiritual attitude to Paul, at the same time conveying to us her suppressed sexual passion.
The flowers also symbolize the innocence and youth of Miriam. Moreover, flowers and plants, all-natural growth, represent life, vitality, and spontaneity. By contrast, the human relationship tends to decline and to become sterile. Not only do we have landscape descriptions in the novel but vivid pictures of individual objects of nature such as the birds, the flowers, the beasts, the sky, the moon, the sun, the trees, the hedges, the meadows, the grass, the thickets, and so on.
Lawrence Nature Depiction Is Vibrant Yet Balanced
Furthermore, Lawrence presented nature to us in all its hues, colors, and tints. We find many shades: luminous, bright, dim, and dark. As Lawrence’s love for nature is Keatsian in quality, it is also deep and sensuous.
At the same time, Lawrence does not overwhelm us with a profusion of nature’s description. He maintains an artistic balance between such description and narration. He does not cloy us with that description as the romantic poets often do.
Lawrence Portrays Both Serenity And Animosity of Nature
Generally, Lawrence depicts Nature in its serene mood. However, he is not blind to the grim and stormy aspects of it. Lawrence symbolized the strife in the Morel household by the great ash tree, which produces shrinking sounds when the west wind blows through its branches.
However, the fields around Willey Farm are peaceful and tranquil to harmonize with the human beings’ idyllic life. One reason why Lawrence turns to nature repeatedly is his revolt against industrialization and machinery. It symbolizes the instinctive life while machinery exercises a disruptive and dehumanizing influence on human beings.
Conclusion
In conclusion, considering the above discussion, we may assume that we have pictures for our eyes and pictures for our ears in all the cases of Lawrence’s treatment of Nature.
Thus these pictures have an audio-visual appeal.
