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 thing
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.
Note: This note is only for a little help
and better understanding, you should add some more to get score marks &
advised to read the main text. By P.B.