On Lawrence's‘the nostalgia of the heathen past’

Abstract

There is an interesting phrase in The Lost Girl, ‘the nostalgia of the heathen past’. Lawrence uses a similar one, ‘the nostalgia for the old pagan world’in his essay, Apocalypse. Both expressions evoke an important image, namely the image of a god who wears various reddish colours all about him and‘dips his lips in blood’of sacrifice. My purpose in this paper is to probe the image of such a fierce god and elucidate the meaning of the phrases.
I also analyse the image of‘the immense piles’of clouds glowing red which appears in Sons and Lovers, because it is closely associated with the image of a fierce god. This analysis makes it clear that the image of glowing clouds signifies Paul's release of passion.
My contention is that those images implying liberation of passion play a significant part throughout Lawrence's career and provide an important clue for understanding one of the chief characteristics of his novels.