T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, and the Structure of Feeling of Modernism

Eliot and Lawrence have long been considered the opposed critical, social and intellectual poles of Modernism. F. R. Leavis's indignant catalogue of Eliot's attacks on Lawrence established the orthodox position: Eliot was 'the essential opposition in person'. However, more recent research-drawing on the many newly accessible materials by and about Eliot-demonstrates that Eliot's relationship with Lawrence was far more complex, volatile and intriguing than this orthodoxy allows. Not only is the extent, intensity and acuity of Eliot's readings of Lawrence overlooked, so also is the pattern of intertextual echoes and references which mark his work, and the uncanny overlap of the two men's social circles. Bertrand Russell, John Middleton Murry, Richard Aldington and Aldous Huxley were close friends of both men, and they also shared a wide circle of acquaintances which included Ottoline Morrell, Katherine Mansfield, Brigid Patmore, Ezra Pound and others. This essay explores the ways in which Lawrence's example, his life and writing, perplexed and provoked Eliot, revealing new aspects of the emergent modernist structure of feeling