David Herbert Lawrence, known as D. H. Lawrence, is considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Born in a mining town in Nottinghamshire, England in 1885, his father was a coal miner, but his mother was from a middle-class family that had suffered economic difficulties. She was well-educated and had a love of literature that she passed on to her son.
She also gave him a strong desire to rise above his working-class background, and class difference is a strong theme in many of Lawrence’s works.
passionate love
Lawrence published many novels and poems during his lifetime, including Sons and Lovers (1913) and Women in Love (1920), but is best known for his infamous Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The last of his novels, this book clearly illustrates the writer’s belief that men and women must free themselves from the limits of industrialised society and follow their natural instincts towards passionate love. As Lawrence himself said of the novel: “I put forth this novel as an honest, healthy book, necessary for us today.”
a ‘dirty’ book
In fact, despite its reputation as a ‘dirty book’, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is actually a sincere account of passionate, sexual love. It first appeared in Italy in 1928, but was banned in the UK until 1960 because of its graphic depictions of sexual intercourse and its use of sexual terms that society was not yet ready to accept. When it finally appeared in print, it became the subject of a notorious obscenity trial against the publishers, Penguin Books Ltd. Many eminent authors of the day appeared as witnesses for the defence, including E. M. Forster, and Penguin was acquitted.
an unhappy marriage
In the novel, Connie Chatterley is married to Sir Clifford, a wealthy landowner who is paralysed from the waist down as a result of war injuries. He dedicates himself to writing books and looking after his family estate. Lonely and unappreciated, Connie, who has had a very liberal upbringing by her artist father, begins a passionate love affair with the estate’s gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. Mellors is everything Sir Clifford is not: passionate, natural and sensitive. Here is the exact moment when a mixture of compassion and desire makes Mellors move towards Connie:
“He glanced apprehensively at her. Her face was averted, and she was crying blindly, in all the anguish of her generation’s forlornness. His heart melted suddenly, like a drop of fire, and he put out his hand and laid his fingers on her knee. ‘You shouldn’t cry,’ he said softly.”
“La guardò con timore. Connie nascondeva il volto e piangeva sommessamente, con tutta l’angoscia tipica della sua generazione. Il cuore di lui si sciolse all’improvviso, come una goccia di fuoco. Allungò una mano e le posò le dita sulle ginocchia.
“Non dovrebbee piangere,” disse dolcemente.”
female desire
One of the most powerful and unusual aspects of this novel is the fact that, unlike pornography, it celebrates female sexual desire, a theme that only really appears in much later feminist literature. It describes a woman’s experience of the pleasure of good sex and her disappointment in bad sex. In an early part of the novel, Connie has an affair with a writer called Michaelis, who, after making love, complains that he has to ‘go on for too long’ to satisfy her.
“[Connie] was stunned by this unexpected piece of brutality, at the moment when she was glowing with a sort of pleasure beyond words, and a sort of love for him. Because, after all, like so many modern men, he was finished almost before he had begun. And that forced the woman to be active.”
“Rimase sbigottita da quell’uscita brutale e inaspettata, mentre ancora ardeva di un piacere inesprimibile e di una sorta di amore per quell’uomo. Perché in fondo, come tanti uomini dei nostri giorni, Mick si sfiniva ancora prima di cominciare. E questo costringeva la donna a essere attiva.”
a moral ending
Connie eventually becomes pregnant by Mellors. She leaves her husband and the novel ends with the two lovers temporarily separated in the hope of getting divorces so that they can start a new life together. In spite of the love scenes, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is also about the importance of fidelity, as illustrated by the letter from Mellors to Lady Chatterley, which closes the book. He is far away from her but is waiting till he is free to join her and their unborn child.
“I love the chastity now that flows between us. It is like fresh water and rain. How can men want wearisomely to philander [...] But a great deal of us is together, and we can but abide by it, and steer our courses to meet soon.”
“Amo la castità, adesso che scorre tra noi. È come acqua fresca come pioggia. Com’è possibile che gli uomoni vogliano amoreggiare a destra e a manca? [...]
Ma tanta parte di noi resta unita, e non possiamo far altro che tener fede a questo e cercare di incontrarci presto.”
the sexual revolution
The publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a significant event in the sexual revolution of the 1960s. British poet Philip Larkin begins his ‘Annus Mirabilis’ poem with the lines:
“Sexual intercourse began
in nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late
for me)
Between the end of the
“Chatterley” ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.”
“La vita sessuale è cominciata
nel millenovecentosessantatré
(che era già piuttosto tardi per me) –
tra la fine del bando a Lady Chatterley
e i Beatles con il primo trentatré.”
natural love
Its themes of sincere human love in natural surroundings and the threat to culture and humanity of industrialisation are as important today as when the book was first written. Not surprisingly, it has been adapted for radio, television and film, with the most recent film version in 2015.