Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [269]
2 (p. 319) His arms and his breast and his head were rounded and living like those of the Greek: Lawrence identifies the Greeks with the brain and intellect and the Egyptians with phallic or body knowledge; it is the latter that Lawrence most values and the former that has doomed Europe.
Chapter XXIV
1 (p. 346) “If there weren’t you in the world, then I shouldn’t be in the world, either”: This is Gerald’s dilemma as ice-king; his love and passion are contaminated with death, yet he cannot live without them.
Chapter XXV
1 (p. 353) “You are like Lord Bacon, Gerald,”he said. “You argue it like a lawyer—or like Hamlet’s to-be-or-not-to-be”: Lord Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a lawyer and statesman, as well as a philosopher and a great essayist. Many of his themes and passages wound up in Shakespeare’s work virtually unedited. It is this fact that led some to believe that Bacon was really William Shakespeare. Actually, Shakespeare, like the artist Pablo Picasso in our time, was a great borrower—some would say a great thief—which the lack of copyright laws at the time made possible.
2 (p. 354) “marriage in the old sense seems to me repulsive. Egoisme à deux is nothing to it”: The French phrase translates as “egotism of two,” meaning two people sharing a common egotism or conceit. This is the way Birkin views traditional marriage. Gerald and Gudrun would be just going through the motions.
Chapter XXVI
1 (p. 356) A Chair: Having shown how Gerald and Gudrun represent the old, worn-out values of love, Lawrence is ready to show the new love in action, of which the chair is a symbol in this chapter.
2 (p. 358) “And if you have a perfect modern house done for you by Poiret, it is something else perpetuated on top of you”: The reference is to French fashion designer Paul Poiret (1879-1944). Lawrence is again invoking his “lilies of the field” motif, in which he rails against possessions and designer homes and clothes. His stance is very much a sort of neo-primitivism.
3 (pp. 358-359) “You have to be like Rodin, Michael Angelo, and leave a piece of raw rock unfinished to your figure”: French artist Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), perhaps the greatest modern sculptor, emulated Italian artist Michelangelo (1475-1564), arguably the greatest sculptor ever. Both often intentionally left their work unfinished. Birkin is suggesting that one should live as these sculptures are created—by leaving a little piece of nature in one’s life.
Chapter XXVII
1 (p. 374) “She’s a born mistress, just as Gerald is a born lover—amant en titre”: The French phrase translates as “lover in title.” Birkin is saying that Gerald is not necessarily born to be married but is a man born to be the keeper of a woman such as Gudrun, who is a “born mistress.”
Chapter XXVIII
1 (p. 382) In the Pompadour: This chapter, in which Gudrun retrieves Birkin’s letter from the bohemian group at the Pompadour, is based on a similar incident in which writer Katherine Mansfield stole a book of Lawrence’s poems, Amores, from the Philip Heseltine (see note 2 to chapter V) group while they were in the midst of making fun of Lawrence.
ChapterXXIX
1 (p. 397) “Don’t be too hard on poor old England, ” said Gerald. “Though we curse it, we love it really”: Many of Lawrence’s countrymen have never forgiven him for living most of his life abroad. This is his way of saying that in spite of his hardships in England during World War I, and in spite of England’s intractability, which will doom it and all the West, he still loves England, in his own way.
2 (p. 406) Herr Loerke was the little man with the boyish figure, and the round, full, sensitive-looking head: This character is based on Loki, the trickster god from the Nordic myth also used by composer Richard Wagner in his operas (see note 1 to chapter I and note 1 to chapter IV). Loerke’s dissembling nature intrigues Gudrun, especially his commercializing of art. Lawrence’s Loerke is far more wicked than Wagner’s Loki and seems to have sprung from a modern hell, not Valhalla.
Chapter XXX
1 (p. 443) Snowed Up: In this very clever title Lawrence is stating a fact