POETRY REVIEW D H LAWRENCE PURPLE ANEMONES

Lawrence had great fun with this poem and how it goes against the traditional notion and trend for seeing springtime flowers in full bloom and petal as symbols of love and renewal.

Here, the flowers of the Sicilian countryside are agents of Hades, and pushed up through the rock and soil from the Underworld to spy on, pursue, capture and re-imprison Persephone, who has dared to declare her independence and flee to the surface, away from the embrace and control of her estranged husband, Hades himself. Her spirited sense of feminism has driven the God of Hell to such extreme pursuit.

Lawrence clearly sees himself in the Hades role in the silent, subtle subtext to the poem, lost and alone in his lonely Hell, without his love, desperate to draw her back down to him, rather than raise himself to her surface World freedom level. He corrupts the natural, beautiful World of flowers to trap her, and so many rogues have used flowers, poetry and gifts to seduce a woman into a less than happy relationship.

Here Lawrence uses traditional mythology very much as intended by the Greeks, as a means to explain and explore the human condition. The sense of a power struggle between the sexes explodes through the deceptively pastoral imagery, in a poem that turns convention on its head. This is very much among Lawrence’s most unexpected masterpieces.

Arthur Chappell