Abstract

GREEK GODS AND OTHER OLD BELIEFS ACCORDING TO D. H. LAWRENCE S POEMS

Mohammed Abdulhussein Muneer

Volume: 9 Issue: 3 2019

Abstract:

For the D. H. Lawrence, the anthropomorphic deities led to a higher valuation of man, and "encouraged man to worship the universe with his whole body, rather than with only his spiritual part." Anyone reading the stories of Zeus, Dionysus and Hermes immediately notices their strongly physical character. In addition to the stress on physicality, Tracy says that Lawrence attempted to recapture the worshipful attitude towards nature of archaic man by returning to a mythical consciousness. He sought to regain "the conception of the vitality of the cosmos" lost in the other-worldly religions like Judaism, Christianity and others. The thoughts and lives of men of ancient cultures were firstly an irrational mass, an undeliberated force of nature, like the currents of a river, and secondly they found their natural expression in stories and symbols. This aspect of the Last Poems has been called the "return of the Olympians".

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