I.
Vultures are large scavenging birds of prey. Although they rarely attack healthy animals, they may move in for the kill if they chance upon a wounded or sick individual.
Found in both the New and Old World, many think of them as secretly belonging to a dark and disgusting Underworld due to their penchant for feasting on the decaying flesh of corpses until their crops bulge and they vomit like an Ancient Roman. They're able to safely digest putrid carcasses infected with dangerous bacteria thanks to exceptionally corrosive stomach acid.
Their looks don't do them any favours either; particularly the bald head, devoid of feathers. And - just to ensure their repulsiveness - nor does their habit of pissing on themselves in order to keep cool and clean (the uric acid kills those bacteria picked up from walking through blood and guts).
Vultures are large scavenging birds of prey. Although they rarely attack healthy animals, they may move in for the kill if they chance upon a wounded or sick individual.
Found in both the New and Old World, many think of them as secretly belonging to a dark and disgusting Underworld due to their penchant for feasting on the decaying flesh of corpses until their crops bulge and they vomit like an Ancient Roman. They're able to safely digest putrid carcasses infected with dangerous bacteria thanks to exceptionally corrosive stomach acid.
Their looks don't do them any favours either; particularly the bald head, devoid of feathers. And - just to ensure their repulsiveness - nor does their habit of pissing on themselves in order to keep cool and clean (the uric acid kills those bacteria picked up from walking through blood and guts).
According to D. H. Lawrence, the vulture was once an eagle who decided that it was the high point of evolution and thus no longer in need of any further change; it would henceforth remain as it was for all eternity, in a state of static perfection.
The vulture, in other words, is a perfectly arrested egoist as well as a foul carrion-eater; fixed in form and corrupt of soul. It should be noted that Lawrence says the same of the baboon and the hyaena too, but here I'm only interested in his particular fear and loathing of vultures: shameless birds with "obscene heads gripped hard and small like knots of stone clenched upon themselves for ever".
The vulture, in other words, is a perfectly arrested egoist as well as a foul carrion-eater; fixed in form and corrupt of soul. It should be noted that Lawrence says the same of the baboon and the hyaena too, but here I'm only interested in his particular fear and loathing of vultures: shameless birds with "obscene heads gripped hard and small like knots of stone clenched upon themselves for ever".
His ornithophobic vision is a crescendo of vulture hatred:
"So the ragged, grey-and-black vulture sits hulked, motionless, like a hoary, foul piece of living rock, its naked head and neck sunk in, only the curved beak protruding, the naked eyelids lowered. Motionless, beyond life, it sits on the sterile heights.
It does not sleep, it stays utterly static. When it spreads its great wings and floats down the air, still it is static [...] a dream-floating. When it rips up carrion and swallows it, it is still the same dream-motion, static, beyond the inglutination. The naked obscene head is always fast locked, like stone.
It is this naked, obscene head of a bird [...] that I cannot bear to think of. When I think of it, I never live nor die, I am petrified into foulness."
As we'll discover in part two of this post, other poets have a rather less negative view of the vulture - and some even manage to write about the actual animal, without immediately assigning it a symbolic role within their own philosophy.
Lawrence, however, can never resist lapsing into metaphysics. Indeed, the argument has been made that ultimately - for all his sensitivity to the otherness of birds, beasts and flowers - Lawrence only has two great objects of concern: (i) himself and (ii) language.
Amit Chaudhuri is right to suggest that Lawrence never accurately describes creatures at all, nor directly touches on them as things in themselves. Rather, he recreates and imitates them for his own artistic and philosophical amusement, assembling a menagerie of textual mannequins and symbolic beasts.
"So the ragged, grey-and-black vulture sits hulked, motionless, like a hoary, foul piece of living rock, its naked head and neck sunk in, only the curved beak protruding, the naked eyelids lowered. Motionless, beyond life, it sits on the sterile heights.
It does not sleep, it stays utterly static. When it spreads its great wings and floats down the air, still it is static [...] a dream-floating. When it rips up carrion and swallows it, it is still the same dream-motion, static, beyond the inglutination. The naked obscene head is always fast locked, like stone.
It is this naked, obscene head of a bird [...] that I cannot bear to think of. When I think of it, I never live nor die, I am petrified into foulness."
As we'll discover in part two of this post, other poets have a rather less negative view of the vulture - and some even manage to write about the actual animal, without immediately assigning it a symbolic role within their own philosophy.
Lawrence, however, can never resist lapsing into metaphysics. Indeed, the argument has been made that ultimately - for all his sensitivity to the otherness of birds, beasts and flowers - Lawrence only has two great objects of concern: (i) himself and (ii) language.
Amit Chaudhuri is right to suggest that Lawrence never accurately describes creatures at all, nor directly touches on them as things in themselves. Rather, he recreates and imitates them for his own artistic and philosophical amusement, assembling a menagerie of textual mannequins and symbolic beasts.
See:
D. H. Lawrence, 'The Crown', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Amit Chaudhuri, D. H. Lawrence and 'Difference', (Oxford University Press, 2003).
To read part two of this post - on Robinson Jeffers and his poetic vision of the vulture - click here.
D. H. Lawrence, 'The Crown', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Amit Chaudhuri, D. H. Lawrence and 'Difference', (Oxford University Press, 2003).
To read part two of this post - on Robinson Jeffers and his poetic vision of the vulture - click here.
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