Showing posts with label circus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label circus. Show all posts

29 Apr 2022

On D. H. Lawrence and Circus Elephants

The people watched and wondered, 
and seemed to resent the mystery that lies in beasts. [1]
 
 
I.
 
Put two men in a ring and there's a fight on. Add some performing animals to the mix and you have a very different type of spectacle: circus
 
Circus is a form of popuar entertainment involving men and beasts that, in its modern form, developed in England in the mid-18th century. Although there were travelling zoological exhibitions and clowns and acrobats before this time, it was the combination of these elements within the confines of a circular arena that was unique, and for this we can thank Philip Astley [2]
   
For some people, the star of the circus is the ringmaster; for others, it's the trapeze artists, or the showgirls on horseback wearing their sparkling costumes and feathers. But for D. H. Lawrence, the figures which seemed to best capture his imagination were the elephants. 
 
 
II. 
 
As far as I know, Lawrence never saw elephants in the wild; only captive beasts at London Zoo in 1911 [3]; ceremonial creatures taking part in a Buddhist festival in Ceylon in 1922 [4]; and trained elephants at a circus in Toulon (France), where he went with Frieda in December 1928. 
 
Whilst the magnificent tusker elephants in Kandy certainly left their impression on Lawrence (and his poetry), it's the much shorter series of verses - or pansies - that he wrote about the circus elephants that I wish to discuss here. 
 
These verses are:
 
 
Elephants in the circus [5]
 
Elephants in the circus
have aeons of weariness round their eyes
Yet they sit up
and show vast bellies to the children.
 
 
Elephants plodding [6]
 
Plod! Plod!
And what ages of time
the worn arches of their spines support!
 
 
On the drum [7]
 
The huge old female on the drum
shuffles gingerly round
and smiles; the vastness of her elephant antiquity
is amused.
 
 
Two performing elephants [8]
 
He stands with his forefeet on the drum
and the other, the old one, the pallid hoary female
must creep her great bulk beneath the bridge of him.
 
On her knees, in utmost caution
all agog, and curling up her trunk
she edges through without upsetting him.
Triumph! the ancient pig-tailed monster!
 
When her trick is to climb over him
with what shadow-like slow carefulness
she skims him, sensitive
as shadows from the ages gone and perished
in touching him, and planting her round feet.
 
While the wispy, modern children, half-afraid
watch silent. The looming of the hoary, far-gone ages
is too much for them. 
 
 
III. 
 
What these verses suggest is that elephants not only look old and worn out - their saggy, wrinkled skin doesn't help with this - but belong to a prehistoric world or time gone by, as if they were relics or living fossils, who have nothing more to offer than entertainment value (and ivory). 
 
It's often assumed by stupid people that animals that predate man and haven't physically changed much for thousands (if not millions) of years are somehow less evolved than us, or have reached an evolutionary dead end and are thus deserving of no place in the modern world. 
 
But whilst it's true that most species of proboscidean are extinct - and the future's not looking hopeful for the remaining elephants that do roam the Earth in ever-dwindling numbers - this mistaken line of thought is simply an example of anthropocentric conceit. Elephants are as evolved as us and belong as much to the world today as we do.    
 
I'm surprised Lawrence doesn't see this. And disappointed that he suggests performing elephants are having fun. For whilst I'm not an expert in elephant psychology and welfare, I very much doubt they enjoy exposing their vast bellies or find it amusing to balance on a ball or drum. Nor - I imagine - do they want to plod or shuffle around a ring, or crawl on their knees in utmost caution.  
 
Does anyone really imagine that the strange postures and poses they are forced to take up - "showing the pink soles of their feet / and curling their precious live trunks" [9] - come naturally? Or that training doesn't involve cruelty and the brutal use of bull-hooks, whips, and electric prods?  
 
And let's not even mention the physical and emotional abuse these poor creatures are subjected to when they are not in the spotlight; confined and chained for hours on end, or transported from town to town in the back of trucks and boxcars. 
 
Obviously Lawrence was writing a hundred years ago and so can't be expected to share a contemporary view of zoos and circuses in terms of so-called animal rights. But it is strange that a writer who was acutely sensitive to animals in all their wild otherness or mystery - and who hated the attempt by mankind to impose its will over the natural world - should have not been angered or outraged by the indecent sight of an elephant performing on command. 
 
 
Notes
 
[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'When I went to the circus', The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 386. Click here to read in full online.
 
[2] Philip Astley (1742-1814) staged a show at an ampitheatre in London in 1768, featuring trick horseback riding and music. He later added other acts which quickly became associated with the circus, a term coined by Astley's rival, Charles Dibdin, who opened The Royal Circus in London in 1772.
      Readers who are interested, can find more details and a brief history of circus on the website of the National Fairground and Circus Archive (part of the Special Collections and Archive Division of the University of Sheffield Library): click here
 
[3] In a letter written to his girlfriend at the time, Louie Burrows, on 9 May 1911, Lawrence is excited by the prospect of her visiting at the weekend (if only for a day) and he proposes taking her to London Zoo, where, he says, he has never been (but presumably wanted to go). See The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. I, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 266. 
      Whether they did go, is uncertain. But if they did visit, they surely called in at the Elephant-House, to see one of the Zoo's main attractions. Readers who are interested to know what other creatures were on display in 1911 might like to consult the illustrated official guide to the London Zoological Society's gardens in Regent's Park, by P. Chalmers Mitchell, published in that year: click here.   

[4] In the Spring of 1922, the Lawrence's spent six weeks in Ceylon. On arrival, they witnessed the Pera-hera (or Festival of the Tooth); a night-time procession involving savage music and devil dancers, as well as huge tusker elephants dressed in gorgeous apparel. Lawrence was impressed, particularly by the latter stepping forth to the beat of a tom-tom and illuminated by torch-light, and he wrote a powerful poem entitled 'Elephant' shortly afterwards which was published in the English Review (April 1923).
      See D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 338-43. Alternatively, to read 'Elephant' online, click here
      My recent post on Lawrence's time in Ceylon can be read by clicking here.  

[5] D. H. Lawrence, The Poems I. 369.

[6] D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, I. 370.

[7] D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, I. 370.

[8] D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, I. 370. 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, 'When I went to the circus', The Poems, I. 386.

 
For a sister post to this one in which I discuss Lawrence's poem 'The elephant is slow to mate', click here.