| This study builds upon developments within postcolonial theory to argue for a reconsideration of the concept of "spirit of place" in D. H. Lawrence's travel books and "leadership" novels---works that record Lawrence's various encounters with racial and geographical "others." Exploring his relationship to colonialism, this study shows how Lawrence's belief in different "spirits" belonging to these disparate places enables him to transcend the hierarchies between metropolis and colony, between civilized and "primitive" worlds.; The introduction redefines Lawrence's "spirit of place" as a postcolonial concept that involves critique of the Western industrial and colonial expansion and carries the Lawrentian version of racial and cultural differences. Chapter 1 reads Lawrence's travelogues---Twilight in Italy (1916), Sea and Sardinia (1921), Mornings in Mexico (1927), and Etruscan Places (1932)---as contributions to anti-colonial discourse by emphasizing how his "spirit of place" makes it possible to challenge the fixed order of England, modern Europe, and America versus the rest of the world. Chapter 2 explores the significance of Alvina Houghton's and Aaron Sisson's self-exiles in The Lost Girl (1920) and Aaron's Rod (1922), which mark a transitional phase in Lawrence's sense of national and racial identity, of place, and of sexuality. Chapter 3 examines how Lawrence as an Englishman in Kangaroo (1923) understands and records the cultural hierarchy between England and Australia as a set of former white settler colonies and how he appropriates the different spirit of the land, represented by the "uncanny" Australian bush. The last section of Chapter 3 reviews Lawrence's collaboration with a colonial writer, Mollie Skinner, in The Boy in the Bush (1924). Chapter 4 challenges the convention of categorizing The Plumed Serpent (1926) as a representative "leadership" novel structured by sexual and racial hierarchies, arguing instead for reading the novel as a postcolonial text in which Lawrence envisions a coexistence of different worlds. |
