Abstract

The title of this dissertation is deliberately ironic. Using philosophical inquiry, I make several challenges to basic Lawrencean criticism. My thesis in Chapter One, "The Paradox of Pleasant Anxiety," is that in Lawrence's principal prose works there are exceptional characters who are dynamically engaged in a fluctuating, continuous process of recovering an identity that does not fit traditional definitions of self or fulfillment. I employ ideas about individual action within society from a range of nineteenth century thinkers, such as Carlyle and Nietzsche. Principally, I argue, more thoroughly and systematically than other commentators, that Arthur Schopenhauer, a nineteenth century German philosopher, is a more enduring influence on Lawrence than is generally acknowledged. ;The thesis of the dissertation is arranged thematically, in the three central chapters that discuss Lawrence's novels, as follows: Chapter Two, "Detachment and Beyond"; Chapter Three, "Discovery and Knowledge"; Chapter Four, "Estrangement and the Sublime." Schopenhauer's philosophy and Lawrence's thought use an idea of duality in in polarity. There is a subject-object division in a connected yet tense relationship. I relate these ideas not only to the traditional critical thinking of Lawrence's characters in relationships of equilibrium, but how these notions affect the individual striving for recognition of an undefinable, personal identity. The exceptional characters of Lawrence experience a process of mental and physical detachment , discovery , and estrangement . ;The notions of Schopenhauer's Will and Representation are examined in light of Lawrence's ideas of the unstable ego. Contrary to many modernist writings, I argue that Lawrence, within this recovery process thesis, creates characters who do not succumb to alienation but rise above it in their constant questioning and re-evaluation of perfection and completion. In my conclusion, Chapter Five, "Apocalyptic Dehiscence," I argue that Lawrence, essentially a moralist, challenges prevailing ideas of self, finding that individuality is neither whole nor alienated but open to personal creativity in an interchange with the natural cosmos