The Escaped Cock is Lawrence's revaluation of the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. He provides a convenient summary of the first part of the tale in a letter to Earl Brewster:
"I wrote a story of the resurrection; where Jesus gets up and feels very sick about everything, and can't stand the old crowd any more - so cuts out - and as he heals up, he begins to find out what an astonishing place the phenomenal world is, far more marvellous than any salvation or heaven - and thanks his lucky stars that he needn't have a 'mission' any more."
- The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, VI. 4009, CUP, 1991.
So far, so blasphemous. But it's in the second part of the tale, however, that Lawrence attempts something far more daring and philosophically profound; namely, the transformation of the man who died via desire and sexual contact with a pagan priestess into a potent and affirmative man of flesh and an entirely different type of man-god assemblage to the Christ-figure given us by St Paul.
The man who died, we might say, gets back his body and rises into anonymity and forgetfulness by coming down from the Cross, losing the face of the pale Galilean, and surrendering his Crown of Thorns. Lawrence effectively subsumes Jesus into a much wider tradition of sacrificed gods; one which would include Dionysus and which, as Keith Sagar points out, has none of Christianity's bitterness towards the earth and fear of the flesh.
By so doing, Lawrence teaches us all a lesson: we must each be willing to let go of our own egos and histories; must each be willing to accept that resurrection into new life can only follow once we have been dipped into oblivion. This is a hard lesson, but such a thanatological teaching can be found in many great thinkers, including Heidegger, for example, who insists on the vital importance of Dasein facing up to its own mortality, if it is to have full access to the meaning of being and discover its own authenticity.
Thus, we might conclude, in The Escaped Cock, Lawrence carries the death and resurrection of Jesus to its highest point; for he offers us an interpretation in the profound sense that Nietzsche means by the term; i.e. not merely a development of uninterrupted symbol with which, according to Deleuze, the dialectic invariably confuses interpretation.
Further, Lawrence provides us with a philosophical fiction that is both truer to the spirit of the gospels and to the great pagan traditions out of which Christianity in part grew. Indeed, so successful is Lawrence in what he does, that I would suggest that were his tale of the man who died to be accepted and taught within our churches and schools, it would serve not only as an important foundation for a wider revaluation of values, but also, ironically, as a means by which Christianity could achieve its own self-overcoming and resurrection.
Of course, this is unlikely to happen: the Church of the Crucified prefers to go on funking and wilfully perverting the story of Jesus, preventing us from knowing him as a bringer of glad tidings and nailing us all to the Cross for all eternity. Still, you never know: the world is full of surprises and if I can't hope for resurrection and the life of the Greater Day at Easter then when might I do so?
The man who died, we might say, gets back his body and rises into anonymity and forgetfulness by coming down from the Cross, losing the face of the pale Galilean, and surrendering his Crown of Thorns. Lawrence effectively subsumes Jesus into a much wider tradition of sacrificed gods; one which would include Dionysus and which, as Keith Sagar points out, has none of Christianity's bitterness towards the earth and fear of the flesh.
By so doing, Lawrence teaches us all a lesson: we must each be willing to let go of our own egos and histories; must each be willing to accept that resurrection into new life can only follow once we have been dipped into oblivion. This is a hard lesson, but such a thanatological teaching can be found in many great thinkers, including Heidegger, for example, who insists on the vital importance of Dasein facing up to its own mortality, if it is to have full access to the meaning of being and discover its own authenticity.
Thus, we might conclude, in The Escaped Cock, Lawrence carries the death and resurrection of Jesus to its highest point; for he offers us an interpretation in the profound sense that Nietzsche means by the term; i.e. not merely a development of uninterrupted symbol with which, according to Deleuze, the dialectic invariably confuses interpretation.
Further, Lawrence provides us with a philosophical fiction that is both truer to the spirit of the gospels and to the great pagan traditions out of which Christianity in part grew. Indeed, so successful is Lawrence in what he does, that I would suggest that were his tale of the man who died to be accepted and taught within our churches and schools, it would serve not only as an important foundation for a wider revaluation of values, but also, ironically, as a means by which Christianity could achieve its own self-overcoming and resurrection.
Of course, this is unlikely to happen: the Church of the Crucified prefers to go on funking and wilfully perverting the story of Jesus, preventing us from knowing him as a bringer of glad tidings and nailing us all to the Cross for all eternity. Still, you never know: the world is full of surprises and if I can't hope for resurrection and the life of the Greater Day at Easter then when might I do so?
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