Death and Sensuality in D. H. Lawrence's "The Princess," "The Man Who Loved Islands," "St. Mawr," "Sun," "The Man Who Died" and "The Woman Who Rode Away"

• Main Authors: Lo, Tsui-chu, 羅翠珠
• Other Authors: Tsai, Yuan-huang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1994
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/03355039846385247764

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國語文學系 === 82 === This thesis is an intertextual reading of D. H. Lawrence's "The Princess," "The Man Who Loved Islands," "St. Mawr," "Sun," "The Man Who Died" and "The Woman Who Rode Away" alongside with Georges Bataille's treatise on death and sensuality. In this connection, the thesis is mainly concerned with the reciprocity of Lawrence's proposition on the fulfillment of self through sensual communions and Bataille's notion of the completion of self through death and sensuality. Both Lawrence and Bataille agree the access to the comple- tion of self is sensuality and death. For Lawrence, the self is incomplete and suffered in the way he is sensually repressed, or spiritually dominated. To regain the sufficing completeness, he must renounce the futile and fatal spirituality and undergo com- pensating sexual or sensual activities in order to retrieve his lost sensuality. In parallel to Lawrence's elaboration, Bataille states that the self is insufficient and tormented because he is sensually limited, restrained, or reserved in usual condition. Only when he is utterly in the effervescence of sensuality, such as in the act of sexuality or sacrifice does he become a limited- less existence which is identical with the complete universe and is he sufficed by his communication with the complementary other or universe. The reciprocity of Lawrence's proposition on the fulfillment of self through sensual communications and Bataille's notion of the completion of self through death and sensuality is illumi- nated in the progressive view of the thesis from the collapse of human spirituality in "The Princess" and "The Man Who Loved Islands," the awakening of human sensuality in "St. Mawr," "Sun" and "The Man Who Died" to the culmination of human sensuality in "The Woman Who Rode Away."