Metaphysical and occult explorations of H.D., D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf

Classical study is the study of Greek and Roman mythology and rhetoric. It is the study of "the intellectual and imaginative sources of Greece and Rome." The classical influence, by extension, is considered by scholars such as Gilbert Highet (The Classical Tradition) to be reflections of the mythology and rhetoric in post-classical works. This study seeks to broaden this understanding of the classical influence to include frames of reference and literary conventions or devices which, though they may not ostensibly hold a mirror to classical figures, can nonetheless be traced to classical times and thought processes.; The quintessential and defining tension of emerging Western thought, that of the physical and metaphysical views of reality, gave rise to a particular rhetoric which is our inheritance from the Judaeo-Greco classical tradition: patterns of articulation in the form of figurative language which can express experiences of transformation---and, moreover, do so secretly when necessary. H.D., D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf inherited the 19th century sense of 'things Greek,' as well as the need for a gathering place of the mind, and used these to express transformative, often religious, experiences during a time of secularization, world-wide human conflict, and widespread emotional and philosophical despair. The writers in this study offered messages of faith, hope, and ever-widening vistas of reality. Believing that they were facing problems which had no precedent, they envisioned beyond the known and discovered discourses from the past flexible enough to articulate transformative futures.; The rhetoric upon which this study focuses derives mainly from the Bible: mythical language, pseudepigraphy, satire, coded language. The importance to the modernists lies in the ability of this rhetoric to communicate in layers of meaning. Each author in this study had his or her own motivation for employing such rhetoric, yet they all share the driving force, a frame of reference termed resistance, which this rhetoric inherited from the distant Judaeo-Greco past enables. Whether it be the literary Gothicism of Woolf, or the Gnostic subtext of H.D., or the magical metaphor of Lawrence, all of the works with which this study is concerned position themselves at odds with, in resistance to, the dominant culture and ideology of their time.; This study looks at ways in which modernist authors H.D., D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf expressed alternate visions of the universe and of reality through literary conventions inherited from the classical influence. Similarities between the works include ironic perspective and resistance to a marginalizing but dominant cultural stance or discourse.; In a post-classical world, the classical influence continues to evolve in part because it provides a frame of reference through an established logos, if not discourse. Ultimately, perhaps the most important aspect of Greek inheritance lies in its ability to provide a subtle discourse for resistance and change, a way to speak the unspeakable, to frame the unframable, to find for the unacceptable acceptance and a passage to future generations.