The Plays of D.H. Lawrence

Abstract

For the most part critics have ignored Lawrence's plays. They are justified in that none of them is very good drama and contains nothing new in dramatic technique. They are important, however, in their relationship to Lawrence's other work, as they do reflect and sometimes severely qualify the themes of his other forms. If we are to praise Lawrence as an important thinker as well as an artist, as Mr. Leavis does, then we had better know the plays where his ideas are not always the same as in his novels. In the differences between Touch and Go and Women in Love, which I shall treat later, we find that Lawrence has handled the theme of industrial England in opposing ways. A case, then, can be made for the plays, and in this paper I propose to discuss Lawrence's plays in relation to his other work, and to analyze their dramatic nature in order to show Lawrence's artistry, for better or worse, at work.