D. H. Lawrence and Ambivalence in the Age of Modernity: Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature

Introduction
Annihilating Borders: Nature, Human Beings, Machinery in “Odour of Chrysanthemums”
 
Chapter 1.  Degeneration, Aestheticism and Empire: Middle-Class Ideology and
The White Peacock
 
Chapter 2.  Bestwood and the Morels under Evolution: Parallelism through Procreation and Evolution in Sons and Lovers
 
Chapter 3.  The Brangwens and Construction of the Towns in The Rainbow
 
Chapter 4.  Lawrence and War: Historical Contexts
I. Lawrence and the First World War
II. Lawrence and Anti-German Propaganda
III. History Books in Context
 
Chapter 5.  Wartime Discourses on War and Peace in Movements in European History
I. The Germanic Race
II. The Huns
III. The Unification of Germany
 
Chapter 6.  To Produce, or Not to Produce, That is the Question: Materialism, Democracy and War in Women in Love
 
Chapter 7.  Wartime Short Stories from “The Thimble” to “The Blind Man” and “Tickets Please”
I. Popular Wartime Romance and Lawrence’s Anti-Romance: Berta Ruck’s “The Infant-in Arms” and Lawrence’s “The Thimble”
II. The Path to Resurrection or Becoming a War Machine in “New Heaven and Earth”, “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani” and “England, My England”
III. Short Fiction in 1918: “The Fox”, “The Blind Man” and “Tickets Please”
 
Chapter 8.  Class Conflicts in Ambivalence from “Daughters of the Vicar” and “Hadrian” to Lady Chatterley’s Lover
I. Middle-Class Anxiety and its Solution in “Daughters of the Vicar”
II. Returned Soldier and Working-Class Threat in “Hadrian”
III. Lady Chatterley’s Lover: Temptation to the Bourgeois Myth
 
Epilogue.  Which Class Do Lawrence’s Texts Belong To?

"Gaku Iwai tactfully achieves his aim of the book by presenting a fresh interpretation of a clichéd remark that Lawrence’s texts are “ambivalent, multilayered and overdetermined” by aptly placing them in the social and political Zeitgeist. He is particularly successful in discussing Lawrence’s wartime writings, showing how intimately they are intertwined with the atmosphere of the age by closely examining his long-neglected history book, Movements in European History. He skillfully shows that Lawrence’s exquisite encapsulation of the conflicting voices of the age makes his works a profound testimony of modernism."
--Masashi Asai, Emeritus Professor at Kyoto Tachibana University, Japan
 
"This new book by Gaku Iwai is a great addition to D. H. Lawrence’s scholarship worldwide from which both scholars and students will benefit. It discusses in detail a central aspect of Lawrence’s works within a leitmotiv of British Culture in the early 20th century, the vital and tormented conflicts within social classes and the profound social and cultural changes overcoming British society at that time. With an accurate analysis of most of Lawrence’s works, spanning from the early novels and short stories to Lady Chatterley’s Lover and taking into account a seminal work like Movements in European History, Gaku Iwai’s book highlights a central, conflicting aspect in Lawrence’s aesthetics, that is multiple ideological forces and perspectives within his oeuvre, unfolding his modernity as a writer appealing to the new generations."
--Stefania Michelucci, Professor at University of Genoa, Italy

Gaku Iwai is Professor of English at Konan University in Kobe, Japan. He is a co-editor and co-translator of the Japanese version of the Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence, and the former chief editor of Japan D. H. Lawrence Studies. He has published numerous articles on D. H. Lawrence, J. M. Barrie, J. G. Ballard and Margaret Atwood, among others. He is also a co-author of several books on Lawrence and twentieth-century British writers, including D. H. Lawrence, Technology, and Modernity (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).