Sijia Yao: Cosmopolitan Love:
Utopian Vision in D. H. Lawrence and Eileen Chang
(University of Michigan Press, 2023)
This is a continuation of a post the first part of which (sections I-V) can be accessed by clicking here.
VI.
Nineteen-year-old Yvette Saywell may have had a sexual relationship with a married gipsy named Joe Boswell, but for Lawrence's most notorious tale of adultery we have to turn to the case of Lady Chatterley and her lover ...
The seemingly modern - and yet actually anti-modern [e] - relationship between Connie and Mellors, says Yao, is not merely a crossing of the boundaries of "class, convention, and ideology" (69), it's a "transgressive love that institutionally challenges the local and global norms of modernization" (69).
Again, whilst I have in the past argued something very similar, over the years (and in light of work by Foucault) I've become increasingly sceptical about the politics of desire [f] put forward by figures such as Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, and, indeed, Lawrence.
So, whilst I agree that warmhearted fucking and phallic tenderness are all well and good, I'm not sure these things are enough to bring about a revaluation of values or help us "breathe the air of freedom" (71) by overthrowing Western modernity.
And whether the union of Connie and Mellors furthers the deconstruction of capitalist society and constitutes "an organic new life" (76), is also highly debatable; they might just become the kind of self-involved and self-contained couple that Rawdon Lilly so despises; "'stuck together like two jujube lozenges'" [g].
VII.
And so we arrive at chapter 4 and the utopia of transcendental love ... The chapter which I suspect will really get my goat. But let's see. It opens thus:
"After defying both local and global discourses to reach a cosmopolitan
freedom, Lawrence [...] discovered that freedom lies not necessarily somewhere outside but inside a heart that longs for an alternative utopian existence. The longing for utopia develops into an increasingly stronger theme in [his] later writings, displaying [his] redemptive attempts to
create a new language of God's love." (95)
Lawrence, argues Yao, believes in projecting love into another mysterious dimension; one which is "intimately connected to the depth of time and the cosmos" (95). His ultimate goal, as a priest of love, is to "replace
the eroded religious tradition" (95) of his own culture.
Sex is the means not only to human wholeness, but to a mystical union with the mysterious cosmos and the vast universe: "The intimate interrelation between [...] two lovers forms the bridge
between humanity and the Absolute" (100), writes Yao (approvingly). Continuing:
"The more completely and profoundly the lovers are
sexually connected, the more sacred and transcendental their passionate
love becomes. Through sexual union, lovers achieve the ultimate, mystical
marriage in order to fulfill their unknown desire." (102)
I mention Foucault in passing above, I now think we must quote him in an attempt to counter some of this sex mysticism ...
Referring directly to Lawrence's work at several points, Foucault discusses how the concept of sex as an omnipresent meaning, a metaphysical form of agency, and a universal signified, "made it possible to group together, in an artificial unity, anatomical elements, biological functions, conducts, sensations, pleasures" [h], becoming in the process "the most speculative, most ideal, and most internal element in a deployment of sexuality organised by power in its grip on bodies and their materiality" [i].
In the imaginary element that is sex, we mistakenly believe we see our deepest and most primal selves reflected. One day, Foucault muses, "people will smile perhaps when they recall that here were men - meaning ourselves - who believed that therein resided a truth every bit as precious as the one they had already demanded from the earth, the stars, and the pure forms of their thought" [j].
The irony is that in subjecting ourselves to the austere monarchy of sex, we think we have somehow liberated ourselves.
VIII.
And so we come to The Escaped Cock ... (which was actually Lawrence's preferred title - showing his ability to laugh even at his own phallic philosophy - not The Man Who Died, as Yao informs readers).
This final great work of fiction represents Lawrence's attempt to "replace Christianity with a secular practice of healing
and rebirth" (103), says Yao, though I think it would be better (and more accurate) to say Lawrence attempts to place Christianity back within a wider (pagan) religious context via a libidinally material - but nevertheless sacred - practice of healing and rebirth.
But hey, I'm not her editor ...
IX.
Moving toward the end of her fourth and final chapter, Yao repeats the claim that Lawrence attempts to "cross boundaries of human domain in time and space through the lived experience of love" (111) and whilst that's not a sentence I could ever imagine writing personally, I suppose for those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like (although I have no idea what it means to "explore the transcendental dimension of utopia" (111-112)).
Perhaps a Lawrence scholar can enlighten me on this point. And perhaps they can also confirm or deny the truth of this claim made by Yao: "Lawrence optimistically believes that utopia can ultimately be achieved
triumphantly, and he consequently always concludes his stories with consummation and revelation." (112)
I see that with The Rainbow - but not with his other novels. In fact, I had always thought that Lawrence was known (and often criticised) for leaving his works with open-ended, ambiguous, or inconclusive endings, thereby avoiding the conventional, neat resolutions typical of Victorian literature. Even Lady C. ends a little droopingly with the lovers separated and who's to say they will ever be reunited or that Mellor's will ever regain potency?
X.
In conclusion ...
For Sijia Yao, Lawrence is to be highly esteemed as a writer for developing an aesthetico-political project "in which love as an ethical feeling plays a crucial role in creating
cosmopolitan connections" (117) and sharing with his readers a "vision of peace
and freedom that can resist violent nationalism and hegemonic discourse" (117).
She continues: Lawrence adopts love as his "mode of
engagement with the multidimensional world" (117), because love, for Lawrence, "is a primal living force in
its dynamic and undefinable state, which is tightly interconnected with
utopia" (117) and it is the concept of utopia that "fulfills the possibility of a jump from personal love
to cosmopolitan engagement" (117).
Ultimately, I suppose whether one chooses to see Lawrence as a utopian or not depends on how one imagines his democracy of touch and how one interprets his injunction to climb down Pisgah. I agree with Yao that Lawrence's work has socio-political significance and philosophical import. But, unfortunately, she and I completely disagree as to the nature of this.
Although, having said that, Yao nicely surprised me with the final paragraph in her book, in which she writes:
"While utopia itself would be a fixed
state, the longing for utopia defines a particular relationship that leaves
abundant space for possibilities. This mode of cosmopolitan love does not
try to offer a solution but rather an attitude that welcomes a plasticity of
the utopian vision." (122)
Now why didn't she say that at the beginning ...!
Notes
[e] When it comes to the question of whether adultery is très moderne or actually anti-modern, Yao is very good:
"One can easily argue that adultery can be understood as a modern
relationship because it dissolves traditional bonds. [...] However, adultery in Lawrence [...] is
an antimodern relationship because the traditional bonds are themselves
now modern forms of relationship that exclude love. The structure of
modernity is still built upon the preexisting traditional norms [...] thereby breeding alienation and disconnection. Hence, the
prevailing forms of relationship are so suffused with modern alienation
that only adultery can be a pure form of love that opposes this alienation.
Adulterous love surpasses, undermines, and destroys the existing order to
set up an alternative basis for modern society." (69)
[f] See, for example, my post titled 'Lady Chatterley's Postmodern Lover' (9 Sept 2023): click here.
[g] This humorous remark made by Rawdon Lilly can be found in D. H. Lawrence's novel Aaron's Rod, ed. Mara Kalnins (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 91.
Even the narrator of Lady Chatterley's Lover is aware of the danger that Connie and Mellors will end up in a world of their own; see p. 213 of the Cambridge edition ed. Michael Squires (1993).
[h] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin Books, 1998), p.154.
[i] Ibid., p. 155.
[j] Ibid., pp. 157-158.
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