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4 - ‘A Furious Bliss’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Sydney Janet Kaplan
Sydney Janet Kaplan
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Summary

There is a moment in Women in Love when Birkin at last concedes to Ursula's demand and admits that he loves her, saying: ‘“Yes, I do. I love you, and I know it's final. It is final, so why say any more about it”’ (WL: 251). He then embraces her and suddenly feels

such peace and heavenly freedom, just to fold her and kiss her gently, and not to have any thoughts or any desires or any will, just to be still with her, to be perfectly still and together, in a peace that was not sleep, but content in bliss. To be content in bliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to be together in happy stillness. [my emphases] (WL: 252)

The words ‘still’ and ‘bliss’ should remind us of the titles of the two works of fiction by Murry and Mansfield which have occupied our attention so far in this book. If Murry – who could not stop talking – envisioned what is still as lifeless, and Mansfield a bliss that was deflected hysteria, Lawrence – seemingly without effort – momentarily penetrates to the essence of these words. True, he describes a moment that will not last, as is the nature of all epiphanic experience. But linked with his emphasis on finality, it is a moment that should endure underneath the struggles yet to come.

Type
Chapter
Information
Circulating Genius
John Middleton Murry Katherine Mansfield and D. H. Lawrence
 , pp. 72 - 95
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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