The poetry of D H Lawrence

Best known for his ground-breaking novels, D H Lawrence was also a remarkable poet, sharply observant and possessed of a highly individual poetic voice. This course will examine a selection of his poems, relating them to the wider context of his life and times.

The following poems are likely to figure significantly in discussion: please read them in advance of the course, and bring them to all of the classes. I’d suggest the Penguin edition of the Complete Poems, edited by V. de Sola Pinto and W. Roberts, though any edition containing all of the poems in the list will be fine: 

‘The Wild Common’, ‘Love on the Farm’, ‘The Collier’s Wife’, ‘Malade’, ‘Ballad of Another Ophelia’, ‘Piano’, ‘First Morning’, ‘Gloire de Dijon’, ‘Coming Awake’, ‘Song of a Man Who Is Loved’, ‘Song of a Man Who Has Come Through’, ‘Peach’, ‘Figs’, ‘Bare Almond-Trees’, ‘Bat’, ‘Snake’, ‘Mountain Lion’, ‘O, Start a Revolution’, ‘Obscenity’, ‘Leave Sex Alone’, ‘Glory’, ‘Absolute Reverence’, ‘The Rainbow’, ‘Butterfly’, ‘Bavarian Gentians’, ‘The Hands of God’, ‘The Ship of Death’.