Le Simplegadi (Nov 2017)

NATURA E MORTE AL TEMPO DELLA GUERRA SECONDO LAWRENCE

  • Maria Grazia Dongu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.17456/SIMPLE-65
Journal volume & issue
no. 17
pp. 173 – 181

Abstract

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While the propaganda language strived to promote the Great War as a fight against evil forces, the event loomed soon above English people as an anticipation of the death of Western civilization. Images of death recur in the short story “England, my England” by D. H. Lawrence. Egbert’s death stands for the death of Old England and its value system, but also for the intellectuals’ failure to speak out and mould a new language, which could defy the propaganda. In the end, the rural world is abandoned by the characters. Egbert embraces dissolution as a relief from the agony of his own world.