《恋爱中的女人》与劳伦斯的“小说三要素”

Women in Love and Lawrence's Essential Elements of the Novel

D.H.劳伦斯的"小说三要素"理论是其文学批评思想中的精髓,是他对自己早期小说创作实践的概括与提炼,也是理解他中后期小说创作的关键。劳伦斯认为:首先,小说必须绽放生命力;其次,小说的各部分之间必须生动而有机地关联;最后,小说必须高尚可敬。《恋爱中的女人》中的人物以一种内在的生命之火为向导,努力保持生命的活力和人性的完整;小说通过人物与环境完美关联揭示其激情洋溢的生命活力;作者运用具体的人物案例,说明小说应当直面生命本能,戒绝一切思想说教。

D. H. Lawrence's theorization of 'the three elements of the novel' constitutes an essential part of his literary criticism. This essay offers an investigation into 'the three elements' as they are represented in one of Lawrence's early masterpieces, Women in Love(1920). The novel, according to Lawrence, must be 'quick', 'interrelated in all its parts, vitally, organically' and 'honorable'. In Women in Love, Lawrence portrays lively and dynamic characters who would let themselves be guided by nothing but the flame of life; he captures some rare and almost supernatural moments when his characters merge with their environment; and he points, for a novel to become honourable, to the need for courage in the writer to face up to man's instinct and determination to stay clear from all grey-coloured philosophizing. Lawrence's theory reflects a rather traditional humanistic interest in the ethics as much as in the aesthetics of the novel as a literary form. His later novels confirmed this interest and this humanist position.