Review of Rachel Crossland’s “What D.H. Lawrence Understood of ‘The Einstein Theory’: Relativity in Fantasia of the Unconscious and Kangaroo ”

摘要

Crossland's article sets itself two aims: to map Lawrence's engagement with Einstein's theory as it shows itself in Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922) and Kangaroo (1923); and to assert that Lawrence should be more central in surveys of the relation between relativity theory and modernist writing. In terms of the former, Crossland shows clearly that Lawrence did engage with the theories in the early 1920s, although, as she acknowledges, a number of existing case studies have already made this clear. It is not really clear, though, what she is arguing is at stake in this engagement that has not been noticed before. Here, as more generally in the article, a stronger sense of the difference relativity made to Lawrence's writing would have furthered the discussion and substantiated her assertion that he has a vital place in any assessment of its significance to modernism.