The English are so nice D.H.Lawrence
The English are so nice
so awfully nice
they’re the nicest people in the world.
And what’s more, they’re very nice about being nice
about your being nice as well!
If you’re not nice, they soon make you feel it.
Americans and French and Germans and so on
they’re all very well
but they’re not really nice, you know
They’re not as nice in our sense of the word are they now?
That’s why one doesn’t have to take them seriously.
We must be nice to them, of course,
of course, naturally
But it doesn’t really matter what you say to them,
they don’t really understand
you can just say anything to them:
be nice, you know, just be nice
but you must never take them seriously, they wouldn’t understand
just be nice, you know! oh, fairly nice,
not too nice of course, they take advantage
but nice enough, just nice enough
to let them feel they’re not quite as nice as they might be.
The sharp observations of a man who spent the majority of his adult life outside the country of his birth and occasionally commented on it from afar.
Lawrence's view from his house in Eastwood of the Nottinghamshire countryside
80 years ago today, the English writer D.H. Lawrence died in Vence in the south of France. He grew up in Nottinghamshire, trained as a teacher, but then left his industrialised East Midland roots to travel the world. Not unlike James Joyce, he too left for the continent of Europe with the new love of his life but 8 years later than Joyce in 1912. His first stop was Bavaria, a place I worked in as a language assistant at the age of 18 and where I first experienced the classroom in the role of a teacher.
Lawrence was on his way further south though, to the sights and smells of sunlit Italy. He had left behind the daily routines of classroom life in Croydon, London, but it is that classroom life that I’d like to investigate, remember and commemorate in this blog post and the perceptive way in which he described it in his novel “The Rainbow” and in his two poems; “Last Lesson in the Afternoon” and “Best of School.”
Iris wallpaper by william morris
The use of the rainbow, as a symbol, has a long tradition. It is displayed in many cultures around the world as a sign of diversity and inclusiveness, of hope for a better world and of yearning.
she comes in colours everywhere
In the bible it heralded the end of the flood and hope for the future, in the gay community and beyond it is a symbol of freedom and acceptance and in politics in general it has often been used to unify different groups in coalitions around single issues. The Rolling Stones sang about them in 1967 too: the year in Britain of the legalisation of homosexuality and abortion.
James Joyce loved rainbows and are systematically woven into the fabric of Finnegans Wake. Not suprisingly, as Joyce was very much preoccupied with his own iris, (Iris: goddess of rainbows) undergoing at least 25 operations on his eyes. He had very poor eyesight and was actually almost blind at some stages of his life.
…”celestial from principalest of Iro’s Irismans ruinboon pot before.” (Finnegans Wake p.612)
An exploration of the way in which different languages conceptualise rainbows sheds light on this particular line in Finnegans Wake with the references to ciel, iris and rain.
water sucked from the sea, the probable origin of the Hungarian word for rainbow, Szivárvány.
French : Arc-en-ciel, Romanian: Curcubeu, Ancient Greek: Iris and Greek ουράνιο τόξο. Iris was also a messenger of the gods. Italian: Arcobaleno (“arco”=”arch”;”baleno”=”flash, lightning”), Irish: Bogha baisti (bow of rain), Spanish: Arco Iris, Portuguese Arco-Iris, Czech and Slovak: Duha (meaning Iris), Serbian and Croatian: Duga (again meaning Iris),Hungarian Szivárvány (maybe to do with water being sucked up from the sea for readers of Hungarian.)
D.H. Lawrence worked as a teacher both in Nottingham and in London before going abroad. Two poems he wrote about teaching are particulary revealing for the exploration of classroom life in this blog. There are many binaries operating in these poems, one of them might be categorised as the optimistic teacher and the pessimistic teacher, although that, in itself, is an oversimplification. I have used both poems in my methodology classes and they have acted as a useful promt and springboard for many lively discussions about how to avoid teacher burn-out, teacher dependence, the teacher as a source of inspiration and what it means to be a teacher and teaching in general.
John McRae and Jeremy Hunter's 1991 Penguin English "Talking Texts. SCHOOL and schooldays. (Dedicated to Roy Boardman with thanks for his colloboration in text selection and performance and for numerous kindnesses over the years.
I’ve included just two brief extracts of the poems here, but you can click on the titles to see the whole poems. I first came across “The Last Lesson” in John McRae and Jeremy Hunter’s wonderful little book about school in literature shortly after I worked with John at a Language and Culture summer school for Secondary School Teachers at Balatonalmádi, Hungary in July 1996.
John and I at the end of the Balatonalmádi course in 1996, proudly showing off our new gifts from the teachers, John was given "the fifth skill, thinking" and I got "the sixth skill" observing! We mentioned these a lot!
John and Jeremy’s book features extracts from writers’ accounts of school including extracts of novels by Dickens, Huxley and Muriel Spark (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) as well as “The Last Lesson” by Lawrence. Throughout the little book students are encouraged to go through the texts and recognise situations or opinions that coincide with their own. It is an invaluable little book for training teachers.
Best of School (see whole poem here)
Vines William Morris
Touch after touch I feel on me as their eyes glance at me for the grain of rigour they taste delightedly.
As tendrils reach out yearningly, slowly rotate till they touch the tree hat they cleave unto, and up which they climb up to their lives—so they to me.
I feel them cling and cleave to me as vines going eagerly up; they twine my life with other leaves, my time is hidden in theirs, their thrills are mine.
The Last Lesson (see whole poem here)
What is the point of this teaching of mine, and of this
learning of theirs? It all goes down the same abyss.
Waiting for the bell after a long school day
What does it matter to me, if they can write a description of a dog, or if they can’t?
What is the point? To us both, it is all my aunt! And yet I’m supposed to care, with all
my might. I do not, and will not; they won’t and they don’t; and that’s all!
I shall keep my strength for myself; they can keep theirs as well. Why should we beat
our heads against the wall of each other? I shall sit and wait for the bell.
These two extracts are often enough to work with students in the beginning phase of a methodology class, but I always encourage them to read the full poems later, both to get a sense of the rhythm of the poetry and the whole context of the poems. Lawrence is,of course, far better known for his novels but the poems can often give a more concise and incise understanding of his thoughts and feelings, particularly towards education.
D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rainbow”
Beginner teachers are often confronted with rows of desks when they begin teaching,even if they have discussed the advantages of other seating arrangements in their initial teacher training.
Lawrence's "The Rainbow" was first published in 1915 but banned unti 1926. Joyce published Ulysses in 1922 and it was also banned in Britain for 11 years. 11 years seems to have been the time it took for respectable society to accept these books.
Ursula in “The Rainbow” was confronted with a similar situation. 
Lawrence captures beautifully that feeling when we go into a classroom full of enthusiasm and wanting to try out new ideas and are confronted with the stark realities of the classroom. How we manage ourselves in this initial period of our teaching is often an indication of how we are going to cope with the complexity of classroom life and whether we are in for the long haul and are going to survive classroom life at all.
The arrangement of classroom furniture is a key variable in teaching, reflecting approaches and philosophies of teaching and while worldwide most children and students sit in rows, it is no coincidence that the 1967 Plowden report marked a major shift in primary schools in Britain to sitting round tables. A thought-provoking challenge to Plowden can be found here and,contextualised within English Language Teaching, the message seems to be to pay attention to what the appropriate seating arrangements might be for specific tasks we set.
Whatever the reality my teacher trainees are faced with when they enter schools for the first time as a beginner teacher, I still encourage them to explore the possibilites of arranging the classroom furniture more effectively, albeit within the existing constraints, and to make discussions about this part of the content of in class language learning with the students they teach English to.
Ursula’s first experience of a classroom in “The Rainbow”
“There was a small high teacher’s desk facing a squadron of long benches, two high windows in the wall opposite.It was fascinating and horrible to Ursula.
The curious,unliving light in the room changed her character. She thought it was the rainy morning. Then she looked up again, because of the horrid feeling of being shut in a rigid, inflexible air, away from all feeling of the ordinary day; and she noticed that the windows were of ribbed, suffused glass.
The prison was round her now! She looked at …the long rows of desks, arranged in a squadron, and dread filled her.
angular rows of desks
This was a new world, a new life, with which she was threatened. But still excited, she climbed into her chair at her teacher’s desk. It was high, and her feet could not reach the ground, but must rest on the step. Lifted up there, off the ground, she was in office. How queer, how queer it all was!
She was here in this hard, stark reality…
This prison of a school was reality. Here, then, she would sit in state, the queen of scholars! Here she would realize her dream of being the beloved teacher bringing light and joy to her children!
But the desks before her had an abstract angularity that bruised her sentiment and made her shrink. She winced, feeling she had been a fool in her anticipations. She had brought her feelings and her generosity to where neither generosity nor emotion were wanted. And already she felt rebuffed, troubled by the new atmosphere, out of place.”
David Herbert Lawrence as a beginner teacher
Lawrence had no illusions about teaching or classrooms, he experienced both the visionary idealism of our profession and its more sobering realities. From the archives we can conclude, I think, that he was a good teacher, although in his first year’s teaching he himself admits that he had to “fight bitterly for my (his) authority” but his headmaster, George Holderness, a head of more than one school, was full of praise for his work:
“He served his apprenticeship with me and in every respect gave thorough satisfaction. He is hardworking and painstaking, energetic and bright in his manner, and at the same time kind and considerate for others. I have been in charge of these schools for 28 years and during that period have had many teachers, but in my opinion none of greater promise than Mr Lawrence. I can confidently recommend him as an exceptionally efficient teacher”.
Later on in Davidson Road School, Croydon, London he became well-known in the school for employing drama techniques in the teaching of Shakespeare, long before drama had become a feature in the English curriculum.
“He encouraged the boys to act out ‘The Tempest’, rather than sitting at their desks reading it.”
Brinsley colliery where his Dad, Arthur, worked
Like Joyce, Lawrence, the son of a Nottinghamshire miner, is better known for his literary contribution to the world than his role as a teacher but in preparing teachers to teach and working with teachers who already teach, I have found looking at the teaching side of his life a rich vein to excavate, and one to remember today along with all his other humanistic work we are well familiar with.
He died of tuberculosis in Vence, France at the terribly young age of 44.
“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot”
D.H.Lawrence born 11th September 1885, died March 2nd 1930
Lawrence holding a blue Bavarian gentian
Thanks for this rich and multi-layered post. And for reminding me of some of D.H. Lawrence’s work – as you said, his poetry is remarkable, though often overlooked. I did quite a lot of reading of his classics at university and before, and there is much passion and desire for a different world in his writing that is evocative and powerful, symbolised through the rainbow imagery you refer to. He also understood class and how it affects access to education, and this is a very important quality of his work. His subtle observations on the power of the classroom as demonstrated in the extract above are painful, and yet beautiful, to read.
My problem was and is that I find his representation of women really uncomfortable. He both celebrates and seeks to control strong women who demonstrate their own independent thoughts and actions throughout his work (in characterisations), and in some places this expresses itself in a very bitter way. It is the ultimate contradiction for me. He was way ahead of his time by speaking so boldly of female sexuality and clearly sought to paint rounded and whole female characters, and for this he should be applauded, but his view of women is sometimes twisted and distorted in a way I find hard to read. And yet in terms of literary style, he has so much in common with contemporary female writers of his day. Ultimately I feel he seems to portray women often in the role of ‘trapping’ men with a kind of sub text that they are devious?? And his disappointment with his own emotional ups and down in that respect often gets transposed onto the women in his books.
I wonder what you think about this and whether it affects your reading of Lawrence at all.
My favourite quote of his is this one
“After all, the world is not a stage — not to me: nor a theatre: nor a show-house of any sort. And art, especially novels, are not little theatres where the reader sits aloft and watches… and sighs, commiserates, condones and smiles. That’s what you want a book to be: because it leaves you so safe and superior, with your two-dollar ticket to the show. And that’s what my books are not and never will be. Whoever reads me will be in the thick of the scrimmage, and if he (sic) doesn’t like it — if he (sic) wants a safe seat in the audience — let him (sic) read someone else”.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Lawrence Sara, concerning his views of masculinity and his mistrust of women and his perception of women as in some way manipulative.
I wrote this post shortly after the Joyce post and must admit I feel that Joyce had a far more positive attitude to women and I prefer Leopold Bloom to any of the male characters portrayed in Lawrence. When I first read Lawrence at the age of 15, I was most attracted by the way he dealt with the dehumanisation of labour and an openness to sexuality which I hadn’t come across before.
On re-reading Lawrence 10 years later I found myself being very critical of the way he saw women, particularly as I was spending most of my time with men and women who were, broadly speaking, people in a feminist tradition.
Does it affect my reading of Lawrence? Yes of course, but there was an earlier pre-world war 1 Lawrence who was less exploitative of women and who embraced a more equal attitude to relationships between men and women.
The reason I wanted to include him in a blog which deals with classroom life is his sharp perception of classrooms and a richness of detail which is useful for our teacher trainees to read. I also think, whether you like him or not, he is part of a cultural and literary tradition which is worth looking at and there are some fabulous descriptive passages of life in the mining community of the East Midlands.
On another level, back to the classroom now, it’s good to expose our students to different varieties of English and the way he captures East Midlands working class language is wonderful.
“I mean as ‘appen Ah can find anuther pleece as’ll do for rearin’ th’pheasants. If yer want ter be ‘ere, yo’ll non want me messin’ abaht a’th’time.”
She looked at him, getting his meaning through the fog of the dialect…
Why don’t you speak ordinary English? She said coldly.
Me! Ah thowt it wor ordinary.” (Lady Chatterley’s Lover 1928 and then 1960)
Thanks for commenting Sara.
Hi Mark,
Yes I agree and wouldn’t say Lawrence shouldn’t be present in anyone’s blog for all the reasons you outline. I guess I have just found his bitterness towards women harder to deal with as I get older (much like you it seems!). And you are totally right that this did get worse in his writing as he himself progressed through life and became perhaps more disappointed. As I said, his celebration of how human relationships can be more open is his strongest point, as well as the insights into the lives of real people and their language. So using him in education has the thumbs up from me! A lesson on his representation of women and allowing students to criticise literary giants is, for me, an integral part of using literature anyway!
A great post Mark and thanks for reacquainting me with DH after a few years of absence!
A fantastically rich post! I have been looking forward to reading this all day.
Some decent criticisms of Lawrence mentioned above. However, his necessity as a writer within a certain time and space is undeniable, and no matter how we view his attitudes towards women, we must appreciate that he is something of a transitional fossil between that man, and this man. The fact that his work almost invites us to criticise and explore the attitudes towards men, women and relationships (knowing full well, one suspects, of his controversy whilst writing) is valuable in itself. I speak as a feminist and humanist, of course.
I am excited at the prospect of poring over the rest of your writings.
Benjamin
Thank you for that evocative post and primer on Lawrence’s work as a poet and teacher.
Lawrence also wrote an extremely influential work of modernist criticism called “Studies in Classic American Literature” – at least in the United States. His fierce intelligence exposed the psychological elements behind some popular and soon forgotten writers – and highlighted their follies. Reading this once essential collection again last summer I immensely enjoyed many chapters.
Yet, as with Lawrence’s attitudes toward women, I was also stunned at the reliance on racial notions. He criticizes Fenmore Cooper, perhaps the first successful American novelist, for showing interracial friendships and love between Indians and Whites. Further, he claimed that the Indians and Whites could only start families if one or both “betrayed” their races and blood. The rhetoric, of course, reflected the “scientific” thinking of many eugenicists of 1920s. Wells, Huxley, Ford, and many other misguided modernists embraced similar notions.
Here’s a link to that now “overlooked” work.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/LAWRENCE/dhltoc.htm
Again, Lawrence’s writing inspires and illuminates. But he was also a man of his time – even as he revolted against the class and national prejudices. We are all, alas, prisoners of our experiences and cultural paradigms. Or so it seems to me.