Synopses & Reviews
This book demonstrates how D. H. Lawrence's prophetic ambitions impelled him to create novels that would radically transform the consciousness of his readers. Charles Burack argues that Lawrence's major novels, beginning with The Rainbow, are structured as religious initiation rites that attempt to break down the reader's normative mindset and to evoke new, numinous experiences of self and world.
Review
"This is the sort of book which makes one glad to be an academic, which is to say it is a pleasure to read and demonstrates the added value that original scholarship can bring to works of literature. Charles Buracks book is well-written and persuasively argued." --Consciousness, Literature and the Arts "While most critics have emphasized his psychological insights or uncanny evocations of place, Charles Burack's fresh study focuses on the novelist's prophetic aspirations. As this commentator plows new ground, the reader reaps new perspectives."--Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
About the Author
Charles Burack, Ph.D., teaches literature, writing, and religion at St. Mary's College of California. He also teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and Naropa University, Oakland. A widely published scholar, writer and poet, Burack received the New Scholar Award 2000-2001 (first recipient) of the D. H. Lawrence Society of North America. His articles were cited as the best new scholarship on Lawrence in the last five years. He specializes in interdisciplinary approaches to modern literature, with an emphasis on religious and psychological issues. Burack is on the Editorial Board of
Tikkun magazine and is a reviewer for
Mosaic interdisciplinary journal and
D. H. Lawrence Review. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and Masters degrees in English and Human Development from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He has also worked as a psychology researcher at the University of Chicago Medical Center and co-authored articles on child development.
Table of Contents
Introduction * The Destructive Phase of
Lady Chatterley's Lover * The Sacralization Phase of
Lady Chatterley's Lover * Transformative Uses of Kabbalistic Concepts and Terms in
The Rainbow * Mechanistic and Yoga Discourses in
Women in Love * The Implosion of the Transformative Pattern in
The Plumed Serpent * Conclusion