Pluralists and Pantheists: Spinoza, Deleuze and the non-fiction of D.H. Lawrence

Abstract

D.H. Lawrence was not just a novelist, poet or travel writer. He was deeply interested in philosophy, and even went so far as to write a serious book of philosophy called At the Gates, which was unfortunately lost. What follows is an attempt to explain what D.H. Lawrence meant when he said: ‘The Greeks, being sane, were pluralists and pantheists. And so am I’. The way I propose to do this is by looking at the striking similarities between Lawrence, Spinoza and Deleuze. I wish to show that there is a kind of dynamic in Spinoza’s theory of knowledge, which can clarify the relationship between pluralism and pantheism. What is particularly interesting in this respect is that Deleuze comments on Lawrence in some detail in his Spinoza lectures at Vincennes. Deleuze explicitly uses Lawrence’s non-fictional writings to illustrate and elucidate Spinoza’s three types of knowledge. Ultimately, Lawrence’s pluralism leads him to a radical criticism of the inadequacy of his contemporaries’ thought, as well as an emphasis on the relationships and correspondences that constitute our daily experience. It also goes a long way to explaining his pantheism, and beyond this, to his theory of transcendence and the eternal.