The Apocalyptic in Lawrence

ELT 36:3 1993 of efforts to "transform" contemporary theories and to "invent our own black text-specific theories" (78-79) must reserve judgment on the ultimate success of this campaign. While black studies have still an open road before them, Loose Canons makes another opening to the future that can have only salutary influence. Reminding us all, black and non-black, of our American insularity, Gates urges that we "prepare our students for their roles in the twenty-first century as citizens of a world culture" (113). Whüe the light shed by this global perspective must undergo continued theoretical adjustment—both in synthesizing the investigative disciplines and in defining the character of the national and other literatures that are to be brought together·—there is reason to hope that we may all be üluminated by it. Gates quotes once again W. E. B. Bois's famous accents, but to this ear they ring with an altered and enhanced resonance: "I sit with Soyinka, and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Achebe and Walcott____" Avrom Fleishman The Johns Hopkins University The Apocalyptic in Lawrence Peter Fjagesund. The Apocalyptic World of D. H. Lawrence. Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1991; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992 χ+ 198 pp. $39.95 IN HIS FOREWORD to Peter Fjagesund's study of D. H. Lawrence and the apocalypse, Frank Kermode reminds us that interest in the apocalypse "is apt to become very strong at the ends of centuries." Lawrence's short life spanned the end of one century and the first decades of another, and he shared in the interest in the apocalypse described by Kermode, not only writing a study of the book of Revelation but also turning to its richly complex symbols for much of his work. Of all the stories in the Bible, perhaps only that of the resurrection was of more interest to and ultimately more useful for Lawrence. But as Lawrence so frequently demonstrated, the stories of revelation and resurrection are, or should be, closely connected. Lawrence's apocalyptic vision was essentially one of doom, one in which he declared "to a largely unheeding world that the present form of life was bound to collapse," a vision that powerfully informs a novel like Women in Love. At the same time, however, and as demonstrated in his interest in the resurrection, Lawrence understood that apocalyptic destruction was essential to rebirth and could lead to it. 384 BOOK REVIEWS Lawrence had no simple or single idea of history, of this interconnection between death and resurrection. Fjagesund identifies five different visions that can be found in Lawrence's work: Joachism, an organic- +cyclical view, a heroic-totalitarian view, a view of history as a movement of blind forces, and the renunciation of history. Whüe these understandings seem inconsistent (for example, can history be both cyclical and linear?), Fjagesund concisely and coherently demonstrates how Lawrence was often able to bring together seeming inconsistencies in a complex if unsystematic philosophy. Kermode praises Fjagesund for the sobriety of his writing, and in his clear-headed discussion of Lawrence's lack of system, Fjagesund earns that praise. As with many of his contemporaries, Lawrence developed his ideas about history, doom, destruction, apocalypse, renewal, in response to World War I. As Fjagesund writes, "It was inevitable that Lawrence should draw a connection between a war-ridden Europe and the apocalyptic element in his conception of history, and he ultimately came to identify the war as the manifestation of the Armageddon itself." The vision that developed was twofold, Lawrence maintaining first that "we live in the final stages of the Christian era" and second that the promise of new birth existing in death had been thwarted. Lawrence was to devote his work to describing the first and searching for ways to reverse the latter. Fjagesund is particularly good in presenting the background, including Lawrence's reading, for this vision. In the second chapter of his study, Fjagesund discusses a variety of personal and cultural phenomena contributing to Lawrence's pessimism. Included are brief discussions of several books Lawrence was reading shortly before and during the war, including lesser-known studies...