Flowery Tuscany Close Reading
E-concept: River-world
What is a river-world but a way – a path – into accessing the ecological, an “-ism” enabling the practice of thinking ecologically. In this way, a river-world can also be a plant-world, an animal-world, a bird-world, an insect-world, an anything-world. Such a world the reader finds in D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Flower Tuscany’ which passionately exhales Lawrence’s existence not in the world of the human-centric, but in the world of flowers. Lawrence is not only passionate about this fauna world, he believes that mastering an existence within the flower-world can effectively produce poetry – a form that in itself estranges the reader from the normal patterns of language much in the way of Gertrude Stein who wrote “a rose is a rose is a rose”. The reader is always subconsciously aware of the world of flowers, for if they were not, we would not possess in our understanding the language of flowers, or the ritual of flower-giving. But this is a human based perception of the flower-world, and it does not activate or vitalise those parts within the individual that were also simply natural, living in harmony and congruence with the plants around them. Keith Sagar argues that this approach “bypasses or undermines the usual tyranny of the ego even more than the animal world, because of its extreme otherness from the human” (140) and indeed offers an entryway into the panoramic diegesis which forms the introduction of the Lawrence’s essay:
“Each country has its own flowers, that shine out specially there. In England it is daisies and buttercups, hawthorn and cowslips. In America, it is goldenrod, stargrass, June daisies, Mayapple and asters, that we call Michaelmas daisies. In India, hibiscus and dattura and champa flowers, and in Australia mimosa, that they call wattle, and sharp-tongued strange heath-flowers. In Mexico it is cactus flowers, that they call roses of the desert, lovely and crystalline among many thorns; and also dangling yard-long clusters off the cream bells of the yucca, like dropping froth.”
Indeed, this almost omniscient narratorship of Tuscany detailing the nature, Lawrence’s love for it, and his botanical knowledge of flowers. Lawrence’s expertise offers itself to guide us through the flowery world, but only if the reader is curious, and dares to separate themselves for a moment from the yoke of connections tying them back to the industrial, the human-centric, and the selfish, the non-custodial. A reading and appreciation of the flower-world requires openness, energy, readiness to learn, an awareness of personal stupidity and obliviousness to the totality of the ecological ambience encircling, or more so, decentring the reader. Simonetta de Filippis observes that:
“The third part, following the previous discourses on nature, develops into ideological comments and remarks, discussing the concept of permanency as a deathly characteristic of the northern countries, whose sense of tragedy is determined by their non-acceptance of the temporal, and consequently the idea of death; conversely, “in the sunny countries, change is the reality, and permanence is artificial and a condition of imprisonment”.” (Filippis 100)
Lawrence is the guide – our Guido – through the circles of limbo and hell on his way to heaven, to enlightenment of the ecological, for it is only then that one may perceive the metaphorical “sun” and “shine”: “For my part, if the sun always shines, and always will shine, in spite of millions of clouds of words, then death, somehow, does not have many terrors. In the sunshine, even death is sunny. And there is no end to the sunshine”.
He describes to the reader - who performs their own parallel journey towards the sun and the flowers – two young Germans making their way through Florence city towards a place unknown to Lawrence but with “that sense of remote, far-off lands […] that sense of mysterious, unfathomable purpose”. The Northerners have followed the sun and warmer climes towards Tuscany, an environment wherein one can truly abandon the grind and mechanics of life and survival to appreciate and return to nature, to flowers. The pull and seduction of the sun has made for these men a way in which to access the flower-world which floats and flows them downstream towards a new sea of perceptions, senses, observations, and the subconscious:
“The young don’t choose to think any more. Blindly, they turn to the sun. Because the sun is anti-thought. Thought is of the shade. In bright sunshine no man thinks. So the Wandervögel turn instinctively to the sun, which melts thoughts away, and sets the blood running with another, non-mental consciousness.”
Jack Stewart argues that “Lawrence's ecological vision is a philosophical yet personal conception of man's relation to earth, air, water, the forces of germination and climate; to local habitat, dwelling-place and natural environment; to other species, plants, and trees; and ultimately to "the circumambient universe"” (108). It is then possible to read Lawrence’s expertise as reflective of his once lack of understanding and ignorance of the flower-world, and that he too was once tasked with navigating blindness towards sight and then epiphany. ‘Flowery Tuscany’ then mimics a natural progression through this journey once travelled by Lawrence, re-made and transcribed for the reader to also experience. Tuscany’s ambience is particularly well-suited to fostering this journey for it balances man and environment because it is “especially flowery, being wetter than Sicily and more homely than the Roman Wils" and remains uncorrupted by man who has lived harmoniously with fauna and flora without subjugating it.
Although Lawrence’s ‘Flowery Tuscany’ is not the only ecological text marking an individual’s journey from the human-world to which they are bound to a river-world, it is one that affirms the existence and need for a theory of river-worlds which offers itself as an eco-method in which to access Lawrence’s and other’s ecological visions. As eco-criticism develops, it is all the more imperative that theory and abstract reasoning also cater to practice and method which must be achieved if humanity is to achieve harmonious interaction with their environment, ecology, and with Mother Nature.
Word count: 996
Works Cited
Filippis, Simonetta de. “D. H. Lawrence and Tuscany: Art, Nature, Ideology.” D.H. Lawrence, Florence and Lady Chatterley's challenge, edited by Serena Cenni and Nick Ceramella, Editions of the Assembly, 2008, pp. 95-109. Unora: http://opar.unior.it/325/1/de_filippis_D.H._Lawrence_and_Tuscany-_Art%2C_Nature%2C_Ideology.pdf
Sagar, Keith. "The Poet as Botanist." D.H.Lawrence Review, vol. 34/35, 2010, pp. 140-142. ProQuest, https://login.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/poet-as-botanist/docview/759753015/se-2.
Stewart, Jack. "Lawrence's Ecological Vision in Nottinghamshire and Tuscany." D.H.Lawrence Review, vol. 41, no. 1, 2016, pp. 108-133. ProQuest, https://login.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/scholarly-journals/lawrences-ecological-vision-nottinghamshire/docview/1931959854/se-2.