.jpg) Title page of the first edition | |
| Author | D. H. Lawrence |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Thomas Seltzer |
Publication date | 1920 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 536 (first edition hardcover) |
| Preceded by | The Rainbow |
| Followed by | The Lost Girl |
Women in Love is a 1920 novel by English authorD. H. Lawrence. It is a sequel to his 1915 novelThe Rainbow, and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an industrialist. Lawrence contrasts this pair with the love that develops between Ursula Brangwen and Rupert Birkin, an alienated intellectual who articulates many opinions associated with the author. The emotional relationships thus established are given further depth and tension by an intense psychological and physical attraction between Gerald and Rupert.
The novel ranges over the whole of British society before the time of theFirst World War and eventually concludes in the snows of theTyrolean Alps. Ursula's character draws on Lawrence's wifeFrieda and Gudrun's onKatherine Mansfield, while Rupert Birkin's has elements of Lawrence himself, and Gerald Crich is partly based on Mansfield's husband,John Middleton Murry.[1][2]
Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters living inThe Midlands in the 1910s. Ursula is a schoolteacher, Gudrun a painter. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich, heir to a coal mine, and the four become friends. Romantic relationships quickly develop as the novel progresses.
All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Shortlands, the Crich family's country manor home, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of Gerald's youngest sister. Soon, Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her while her parents sleep in another room.
Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy.
The two couples take a holiday together in the Austrian Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but emotionally commanding artist fromDresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke and most of all by Gudrun's verbal abuse and rejection of his manhood, and driven by his own internal violence, tries to strangle Gudrun. He suddenly becomes repulsed by his actions and lets her go. He leaves Gudrun and Loerke to climb the mountain, eventually slipping into a snowy valley where he falls asleep and freezes to death.
The impact of Gerald's death upon Birkin is profound. The novel ends a few weeks after Gerald's death with Birkin trying to explain to Ursula that, although he needed no other woman than Ursula, he valued a relationship with Gerald that is gone forever.
After years of misunderstandings, accusations of duplicity, and hurried letters,Thomas Seltzer finally published the first edition ofWomen in Love inNew York City, on 9 November 1920. This had come after three drawn out years of delays and revisions.[3] This first limited edition (1,250 books) was available only to subscribers, due to the controversy caused by Lawrence's previous work,The Rainbow (1915).
Originally, the two books were written as parts of a single novel, but the publisher had decided to publish them separately and in rapid succession. The first book's treatment of sexuality was frank for the mores of the time, and, after anobscenity trial, the book was banned in the UK for 11 years, although it was available in the US. The publisher then backed out of publishing the second book in the UK, soWomen in Love first appeared in the US.Martin Secker published the firsttrade edition ofWomen in Love in London, on 10 June 1921.[citation needed]
As with most of Lawrence's works,Women in Love's sexual subject matter caused controversy. For example, W. Charles Pilley, an early reviewer wrote of it inJohn Bull, "I do not claim to be a literary critic, but I know dirt when I smell it, and here is dirt in heaps—festering, putrid heaps which smell to high Heaven."[4] Lawrence was sued forlibel byLady Ottoline Morrell and others, who claimed their likenesses were unjustly drawn upon inThe Rainbow.[5] The book also later stirred criticism for its portrayal of love, and was denounced as chauvinistic and centred upon the phallus by the philosopherSimone de Beauvoir inThe Second Sex (1949).[6]
In contrast, the criticCamille Paglia praisedWomen in Love, writing inVamps and Tramps (1994) that, though she initially reacted negatively to the book, it became a "profound influence" on her as she was working onSexual Personae (1990). Paglia compared Lawrence's novel to the poetEdmund Spenser'sThe Faerie Queene (1590). Paglia observed that, thoughWomen in Love has "bisexual implications", she is skeptical that Lawrence would have endorsed "full sexual relations" between men.[7] The criticHarold Bloom listedWomen in Love in hisThe Western Canon (1994) as among the important and influential books in Western culture.[8] Frances Spalding suggested that Lawrence's fascination with the theme ofhomosexuality is manifested inWomen in Love, and that this could be related to his own sexual orientation.[9] In 1999, theModern Library rankedWomen in Love forty-ninth on alist of the 100 best novels in English of the 20th century.[10]
Screenwriter and producerLarry Kramer and directorKen Russell adapted the novel into the film,Women in Love (1969), for whichGlenda Jackson won theAcademy Award for Best Actress. It was one of the first American theatrical films to show male genitals, in scenes when Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed) and Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) wrestle in the nude in front of a roaring fireplace, in several earlyskinny dipping shots, and in an explicit sequence of Birkin running naked in the forest after being hit on the head by his spurned former mistress, Hermione Roddice (Eleanor Bron).
William Ivory combinedWomen in Love with Lawrence's earlier novel,The Rainbow (1915), in his two-partBBC Four television adaptation titled,Women in Love (first transmitted 24 and 31 March 2011), directed by Miranda Bowen. The cast is headed bySaskia Reeves as the mother, Anna Brangwen, withRachael Stirling andRosamund Pike as her daughters, Ursula and Gudrun. Other cast members includeRory Kinnear as Rupert Birkin,Joseph Mawle as Gerald Crich, andBen Daniels as Will Brangwen. In this adaptation, Ivory sets the final scenes and Gerald's death not in theTyrolean Alps, but in South African diamond mines and desert sands, where Gerald walks out in the dunes and meets his demise.
BBC Radio 4 broadcastWomen in Love as a four-part serial in 1996, dramatised byElaine Feinstein and starringStella Gonet as Gudrun,Clare Holman as Ursula,Douglas Hodge as Gerald andNicholas Farrell as Rupert. It has been repeated several times onBBC Radio 4 Extra, most recently in July 2022.[11]
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