Why
the Novel Matters
How does Lawrence highlight the superiority of the novel
over other forms of literature?
Or, Comment on Lawrence conception of novel and his criticism
of philosophy in the essay “Why the Novel Matter”.
Answer:-
The essay “Why the Novel Matters” is D. H. Lawrence’s
statement about his belief in the novel as a means of instructing human being
to live life to the fullest. So, in other sense this essay also reveals
Lawrence’s philosophy of life. It was first published posthumously in 1936 in
the collections of essays entitled Phoenix. Modern novelist like James Joyce,
Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence extended the frontiers of
fictional practice by breaking the convictions established by the Victorian
novelist.
In the hands of these modern writers of fiction, the novel
no longer remained as predictable form and with each new text, fresh vistas
were framed. Lawrence’s essay, “Why the novel matters” is a part of this
culture.
Lawrence proclaimed in this essay that being a novelist, “I
consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosophers and the
poets, who are all great masters of different bits of men alive. But never get
the whole hog.” Lawrence mood of argument is simple but extremely effective. He
places the novel on one side and the rest of literary practice on the other. He
indicates that novel is the most flexible and creative of all literary forms.
That is why carries the conviction when he writes, “Only in the novel are all
things given full play”. Lawrence says that a novel presents the whole and it
is the novel which holds the potential to reveal the manifested dimensions of
life in all its depth and variety.
There are many examples in the essay which show how Lawrence
foregrounds novels capacity to explain the different aspects of life. It is a
well established notion that the whole is greater than the part. So, Lawrence
said that denied when the philosophers say that he is only a soul, or a body or
a mind, or intelligence. Hence he is a man alive, greater than his soul or
body, or mind or spirit or anything else that is a part of him. In other words
Lawrence’s contention is that the nature of a living ting can only be communicated
by an open-ended form, like the novel and not by any of the other literary
forms which only projects a particular theme or subject matter at a given
situation.
Lawrence is conscious that he is taking on the discipline
of philosophy where the focus is on the conduct of human being and on the
condition of thought. What he is also trying to argue is that it is only in the
novel that characters are brought to life and this is the only platform where
the process of living in the actual sense can be realized by the reader. It is
apparent that Lawrence’s emphasis on the novels ability to represent life has
been highlighted to show how this form is flexible to make everything visible
to the mind of its readers. It is also a true fact from this point of view that
why a novel tries to project a complete whole of its characters life, it also
gives an opportunity to the writer to include everything which can guide human
being to the right way of life. In this sense novels are more instructive and
informative comparing to other literary forms. Lawrence himself showed his
imaginative power in his own novels and most of those instructions holds-good
almost a century since he wired them.
Lawrence concludes his essay with the assertion that life
is full of rights and wrong, good and bad but they are never absolutely
constant forever. Perception of such instincts keeps changing and only in the
novel all things of life can be given to it’s a full play.
Thank you for read this topic.