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Chapter 2 - A Great Kick at Misery

D. H. Lawrence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2020

Adam Lecznar
Affiliation:
University College London
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Summary

This chapter examines the antagonistic relationship with Nietzsche’s Greeks that was managed by one of the main writers of modernism, D. H. Lawrence. By thinking about the position of Nietzsche in the British intellectual climate of the early twentieth century, and in particular his association to the anti-Germanic feeling surrounding the First World War, this chapter contextualises the tension between Lawrence’s antipathy towards Nietzsche and the clear resonances between the two authors’ attitudes towards the irrational nature of ancient Greece. The chapter examines the differing attitudes towards tragedy that Lawrence puts forward across his voluminous writings, including especially his 1920 novel Women in Love, his critical-theoretical essay ‘Study of Thomas Hardy’ (written 1914/1915, published posthumously in 1946), and his travel writings about his visits to Etruscan tombs. It uses the idea of the ‘gay science’, which Lawrence took from Nietzsche’s work of the same name from 1882, to situate Lawrence’s desire to establish an anti-tragic form of art and literature with a genealogy that stretches back to antiquity.

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Dionysus after Nietzsche
<I>The Birth of Tragedy</I> in Twentieth-Century Literature and Thought
, pp. 68 - 98
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • A Great Kick at Misery
  • Adam Lecznar, University College London
  • Book: Dionysus after Nietzsche
  • Online publication: 27 March 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108696890.004
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  • A Great Kick at Misery
  • Adam Lecznar, University College London
  • Book: Dionysus after Nietzsche
  • Online publication: 27 March 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108696890.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • A Great Kick at Misery
  • Adam Lecznar, University College London
  • Book: Dionysus after Nietzsche
  • Online publication: 27 March 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108696890.004
Available formats
×