This dissertation examines D.H. Lawrence’s and Wyndham Lewis’s exploration of the evental subject, and asks how their work might help us understand agency in a way that does not discount powerful forms of socio-historical determinism. Examining a variety of their critical and fictional writing from the first three decades of the twentieth century, I argue that Lawrence and Lewis explore ways of thinking about the subject’s relationship to radical novelty without occluding the constraining forces of mass culture. Challenging conventional modernist forms of novelty which seek to except themselves from forces of historical and social determination, they pursue a form of novelty that emerges from these forces, yet radically reconfigures the world that history has produced. Similarly, even though the “evental subject” is conditioned by the forms of relation encoded by society, its agency lies in the power to transfigure the modes of being that have been normalized. The evental subject is not an autonomous source of agency that is exempted from the social order, but derives its agency from reconceptualizing the nature of social embeddedness—understanding social relations as unpredictably generative rather than narrowly limiting. In this regard, the forms of subjectivity articulated by Lawrence and Lewis substantially anticipate, and are illuminated by, Alain Badiou’s theory of the event. Chapter 1 argues that Lawrence’s Study of Thomas Hardy and Studies in Classic American Literature approach the problem of the evental subject largely in terms of affect, understanding the subject not as the preexistent and stable bearer of affective experience, but as the processual product of mutually-constituting affective relationships. Chapter 2 examines Women in Love to find Lawrence negotiating love as an affective site of radical subjective possibility that reconfigures the cultural norms through which intimate relationships are coded and constrained. Chapter 3 turns to Lewis’s The Enemy to ask how his version of the evental subject largely inhabits the tension between personality and selfhood, where the former suggests social performance and the latter denotes an autonomous, ontological category. Contra the conventional turn to the autonomous self as the source of agency, he seeks to understand the subject, and its agency, as the product of social performance. Finally, Chapter 4 argues that Tarr articulates the possibilities of a radically exteriorized understanding of personality; through Lewis’s ironic portrayal of the ineluctable ways in which even the perception of choice is coded by the situation, he presents fiction and authorship as the spaces in which to imagine an evental subject.

S’inspirant des théories de « dégénérescence » avancées par Nordau et Spengler à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle, Lawrence pose l’hypothèse d’un déclin physique et moral des individus et des formes sociales collectives en Europe. Il se met donc en quête, à travers le voyage et sa narration, de possibilités de « régénération » que pourraient offrir les lieux et les cultures extra-européens. Ce faisant, il analyse la confrontation entre ses personnages voyageurs européens et l’altérité culturelle qu’ils découvrent, une altérité portée à la fois par les individus étrangers et les sociétés auxquelles ils appartiennent, les lieux et les forces sacrées qui peuplent ces derniers. Lawrence postule que la régénération, ou réanimation, du sujet européen dépend de la capacité du voyageur à se laisser altérer par la puissance étrangère. Chaque œuvre examine ainsi le processus d’altération que subit le sujet européen et qui dépend de divers facteurs, tels que la relation à la patrie, la finalité poursuivie à travers le voyage, la condition sociale, l’éducation, et le genre.L’œuvre lawrencienne s’intéresse en effet majoritairement à la réanimation du sujet féminin et la plupart de ses personnages voyageurs sont des voyageuses non-accompagnées, un choix singulier pour l’époque. Pourtant, Lawrence n’envisage pas d’auto-émancipation du sujet féminin, car sa réanimation n’est possible que grâce à la rencontre érotique avec un autre masculin, porteur d’un monde étranger.Lawrence expérimente toutefois avec diverses formes de régénération, individuelle et collective, politique et spirituelle, susceptibles de contribuer au renouveau de la civilisation occidentale. / Drawing on Nordau and Spengler’s theories of “degeneration” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Lawrence posits the idea of a physical and moral decline of both individuals and collective social forms in Europe. He therefore sets out, through his personal travels and travel narratives, on a quest for the “regenerative” possibilities which he believes non-European places and cultures may have to offer.His travel writings examine the encounter between his European characters and the cultural otherness they experience abroad in the form of foreign individuals and societies, places and the sacred powers that inhabit those places. Lawrence postulates that the “regeneration” or revitalisation of the European subject is determined by the traveller’s ability to let himself or herself be altered by the power of otherness. Each of his works thus analyses the process of alteration undergone by the European subject, which is affected by various factors such as the latter’s relationship to the home country and the end sought through travel, his social status, education and gender.Lawrence’s works are primarily concerned with the revitalisation of the female subject and most of his travelling characters are in fact unaccompanied female travellers – an uncommon choice at the time. Yet Lawrence does not contemplate the possibility of the female subject’s self-emancipation since her revitalisation can only be brought about by the erotic encounter with a male other endowed with the power of otherness.Lawrence nonetheless experiments with several types of regeneration – individual and collective, political and spiritual – which may contribute to the renewal of western civilisation.

The thesis presents an analysis of the selected themes of D. H. Lawrence's aesthetics and philosophy in relation to his short stories. The main focus of the presented argument is the notion of language (Chapter 2), knowledge (Chapter 3) and the Self (Chapter 4). These chapters form and constitute a coherent thematic unity of the Lawrentian "triptych". The above mentioned phenomena are demonstrated to form the foundation of Lawrence's aesthetical and philosophical thought as it is put into practice in his short fiction. The argument aims to introduce these as applied and integrated in the substance of Lawrence's shortest prose. The structure of the thesis is based on a concept in which the next chapter develops and relies on the previous one chapter, while extending and augmenting the original argument. In addition to this, all of the three notions are unified under the key concept of Lawrence's philosophy, i.e. the notion or the theory of the "idea" and "idealism". The discussion of these three phenomena is followed by a brief appendix chapter (Chapter 5). This chapter does not add any new topic, however, supplies the text and deepens the existing argument with what might be understood as a diachronic supplement and summary of an otherwise prevailingly synchronic study. Key Words: D. H. Lawrence,...

Literacy theory, a multi-disciplinary, late-twentieth century endeavor, examines the acts of reading and writing as cognitive and social processes, seeking to define the relationship between reading and writing and other social and cognitive - especially linguistic - acts. As such, literacy theory intersects with discussions of public and individual education and reading habits that surface with the rise of the mass reading public. This dissertation analyzes scenes of reading and writing in the fiction of Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley as implicit authorial discourses on the function of literacy, including properties of written language and the social consequences of literate acts. It argues that reading and writing form important thematic concerns in Modernist fiction, defines fiction that theorizes about reading and writing as "literacy fiction," and proposes fictional dramatizations of literate activity as subjects for literacy theory. Chapter I argues that early twentieth-century Britain is an important historical site for intellectual consideration of literacy because near-universal access to education across social classes influences an increase in middle and working class readers. Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway provides a test case for the analysis of scenes of reading because her democratic concern with education is well established in the scholarly literature. Chapter II argues that in "The Celestial Omnibus" and "Other Kingdom," Forster critiques use of literacy as cultural capital. Chapter III argues that Forster's A Room with a View and Howards End portray the dangers of naive reading and the difficulties of autodidacticism for the working class, respectively. Chapter IV argues that Lawrence's "Shades of Spring" and Sons and Lovers introduce the theoretically unexplored topic of literacy's influence on intimate relationships. Chapter V argues that Huxley's Brave New World responds to the Modernist discourse on literacy by addressing the restriction of individual literacy by the State and elite intellectuals. The conclusion summarizes Modernist representation of literacy, states the significance of the methodology and its further applications, and refines the definition of literacy fiction. Because Modernist writers scrutinize the relationship between external forces and the individual psyche, their anxiety-tinged portraits treat both cognitive and social functions of literate acts.

Lawrence's work has almost invevitably been read as an aesthetic production whereby one must eventually agree or disagree with his vision of "reality". Those who assume a formalist standard of taste often find that Lawrence "loses control" of his material; those who offer ideological apologies for his work argue that disruptions in the aesthetic plane are representative of an exploratory genius, often seen as the outstanding characteristic of literary modernism. Both approaches, explicitly or otherwise , rely on the ultimate sanction of the achieved image, transmuted by the author always in control of his material. Yet anyone who reads Lawrence with an eye to to what the "tale" says in addition to what the "teller" claims discovers that Lawrence is not in full control of his material, thought it cannot simply be argued, on aesthetic or linguistic criteria, that he is out of control. Rather, there exists a "third" state whereby Lawrence both writes and is written, gives us a message with one hand, yet retracts, as it were, with the other. Because this double-move is preeminently suited to the language of fiction, and because it appears in Lawrence's fiction with the greatest versatility and incisiveness, this dissertation analyzes six of his novels for their rhetorical significance, understood as both an organization of tropes and figures and as a system of persuasive doctrine. A new definition for allegory is proposed, the introductions of thematic and structural "blanks" is examined, and a spread of narrative delays are identified and discussed, all concerned with the central problem of writing novels that direct themselves to the resurrection of a pre-linguistic universe, yet ironically depend more and more upon writing to bring this about. Ideas drawn from Continental philosophy and recent critical theory are incorporated for support and instruction. Attention is also focused on Lawrence's revision processes, often with specific emphasis on unpublished manuscript material.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Göteborg University, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-241).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Göteborg University, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-241).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-69).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-69). Also available in print.

Thesis--Paris VII, 1974. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 423-444).