| Instructor: Dr. Andrew
Leng |
Topical Introduction | Rhetorical Introduction | Readings
Unit 2-Lady Chatterley's Lover: Literature on Trial
Unit 1 examined the familiar, and ongoing, phenomenon of Disney. Unit 2 focuses
on less familiar territory-an erotic novel from Britain in 1928: D. H. Lawrence's,
Lady Chatterley's Lover. I have chosen this book in order to show you
how to respond to a cultural crisis from a period and context alien to you.
Unit 2 also reinforces the idea introduced in Unit 1, that assessments of cultural
phenomena are often (always?) relative, even (or especially?) if the critic
believes that her/his judgment is the final word on the subject.
Lady Chatterley's Lover is a "limit case" for literary culture,
because it provoked a public scandal, and extremes of critical, and legal, opinion.
It could not be published in full until 1960, when it survived prosecution in
Britain for obscenity-32 years after Lawrence had printed it privately, and
long after he was dead. This belated triumph in court was seen as a victory
for freedom of expression, and as an event that inaugurated the so-called Swinging
Sixties in the West.
Yet although Lady Chatterley's Lover is now established as a "classic
of Literature", its critical fortunes have continued to fluctuate violently,
and in the 1970s feminist critic Kate Millett launched a devastating feminist
onslaught which famously condemned the book for its allegedly grotesque male
chauvinism.
Hence Unit 2 invites you to examine the changing contexts and vocabularies
in which Lady Chatterley's Lover was first denounced and defended, and
then reconsidered over time. But we will also look for any continuities that
may exist in the treatment of the novel over the last 70 years (EG ideas about
obscenity and censorship). You are encouraged to make your own, informed assessment
of, and contribution to, the continuing debate about Lady Chatterley's Lover.
The primary rhetorical objectives of Unit 2 are to:
- Introduce you to different kinds of contextual material (EG reviews and
legal documents) in order to show you how to make use of such kinds of writing
for research purposes.
- Learn how to undertake comparative criticism between the wide range of criticism
of Lady Chatterley's Lover.
- Focus on adversarial and oppositional criticism and develop strategies for
dealing with commentators who attack their subject and may use ad hominem
criticism (personal abuse).
You will also learn how to use some basic techniques and terms of literary
criticism. This is not an end in itself, but is undertaken in order to demonstrate
the need to use appropriate terminology and the benefits of being able to so.
Critical Writing Skills: Unit 2
Learning how to:
- brainstorm a topic; select and organize relevant material; eliminate irrelevant
points.
- formulate a genuine question which can be developed in an essay.
- structure a logical, co-ordinated, and so persuasive argument.
- support your claim with evidence that is relevant and sufficiently substantial
to validate your claims.
- quote; why you need to quote; effective ways of integrating quotations;
how much to quote.
- summarise others' critical arguments, and how to incorporate, develop and/or
contest them.
- compare and/or contrast a variety of critical essays with different viewpoints,
and from a range of disciplines, on the same topic of Lady Chatterley's Lover.
- edit, revise and refine your argument in the light of constructive criticism
and discussion.
- use the basic academic conventions for the writing of scholarly essays.
- Chapter 12 from D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) Early
Reviews of Lady Chatterley's Lover: 1929-1932 All reprinted in D. H. Lawrence:
The Critical Heritage Ed. R. P. Draper. London: Routledge, 1970.
- Unsigned comment, "Famous Novelist's Shameful Book," John Bull
20 Oct 1928: 278-80.
- J. M. Murray in Adelphi June 1929: 281-284.
- Henry Hazlitt in Nation Sept 1932: 289-92.
- Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, London: Virago, 1977: 237-45.
- J. M. Coetzee, "Lady Chatterley's Lover: The Taint of the Pornographic".
From Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996:
48-60.
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