The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-11-29

equally vital, now come foremost
Gregory takes his stand with Shell
ley against the aestheticians and
classicists Of the Hound and Horn
and T. 8. Eliot's Criterion. But 81
seems to me that in their attacks on
Marxism thoSe on the extreme right
have said very much what Gregory
implies in Pilgrim Of the Apocalypse,
that the artists first concern Is with
spiritual revolution, that change must
proceed outward from the individual
The conservatives go on from that
to make allegiance to q mass move
uent with an economic program COM
plete betrayal Of the individual spirit
This position is supported logically
enough by most Of the principles OF
their bourgeoisRomantic predeces-
sors.
And in so far as it has a unified
theory-with its nationalisra, anti-in-
tellectualisn, its debts to Nietzchs.
Sorel d'AnnunEio and the rest-Fas-
cisn is certainly closer to Romantic
cism than Marxism can be. Although
such G. Characterization is TOO easily
made, 7 think that Lawrence was
pretty completely Fascist in theory.
AS an individual he was a man With
out a class, q condition that explains
many of his peculiarities. His expo
rience was Of the kind that breeds
Hitlers or the Steei-nnill bosses who
have risen from the ranks. With 2
coal-miner father and genteei
mother, he hated the class into which
he was born and which his father
represented. But he never felt free Of
it, and was always aware Of the
strength of its people as compared
with the decadence Of the bourgeoisie
whom he hated in another way, end
with whom he always felt III at ease.
His father constantly reappesrs IN
his work as the symbol Of animal Vi
rility. Lawrence longed for the de-
structicn Of classes, but always
through liberation OF the individual
spirit. He thought that If men could
realize their own powers, they would
appreciate the powers Of stronger
men, would gain strength from them,
and follow them as FJIhrers in q
free functional society without regi-
mentation or political authority. He
saw mass movements merely as ae-
cumulsted weakness, spiritually de-
structive. "A man like Lenin," Law
renee wrote in Apocalypse, sis . great
evil saint who believes in the utter
destruction of power. It leaves men
mutterably bare, stripped, mean,
miserable and Inundated" The Book
of Revelations is for him this religi-
Gus counterpart Of Communism, q
gospel Of second-rate minds with the
imagery of Bethels and Salvation
Armies, promising the weak tyranny
and power.
In his opposition TO intellect and
authority, his struggle for "the pilal-
lie reality as against the non-phallic
cerebration unrealities," Lawrence ex-
presses another tendency in Roman
ticisn, the Qualification Of natural
Impulse, the elan vital, the subcon-
Scious, the blood stream. This is
source Of strength and weakness.
Lawrence has been able to describe
the irrational and apparently arbi-
trary behavior that is so much a part
of human experience, not only TO de-
scribe it but give it conference and
far-reaching significance. But in the
instability and decsdence OF Roman
ticism this emphasis is responsible
also for the night literature Of Joyce
and the siIr-realiSts, the perversity
and sensuality of our own young writ
ers. Throughout Lawrence's work
there is acceptance OF anger, cruelty
and savagery as the necessary accom-
paniments Of seX-tenderness and
self-realization. In the Fantasia Of
the Unconscious and Apocalypse there
is some pure medieyalism. These
traits are certainly comparable as
Romantic phenomena to the "heroic'
actions and race or national mysti-
cism OF Fascism with the accompany
ing Iynch-fervor and pathology. the
sinister occultism OF the reversed
swastika
Gregory's attitude toward Shelley
and Lawrence, his desire to reha-
bilitate Romanticism, is very ma
tural one at this time. 1t represents
a sincere attempt to combine support
of a proletarian revolution With
aesthetic values that derive from 3
bourgeois cultural background. But
this can be done only by a virtual
denial OF the effects Of class differ
ences in culture, and by putting
Marxism culturally, rs Edmund VII"
son has tried to do, on superclass
basis. This is not, I believe, ten
able position, but rather hesitation at
point from which roads branch
very definitely right and left.