Figure del discorso amoroso nella letteratura europea moderna , edited by Stefano Manferlotti Roma: Carocci Editore, , Indeed, although Lawrence is undoubtedly one of the greatest artists and novelists of the twentieth century, his true popularity depends above all on one single novel, and not for its artistic qualities, but rather for its erotic contents.
Which is certainly not what he aimed at, considering how strongly he believed in the function of the novel:. The novel is the one bright book of life.
Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man-alive tremble. Which is more than poetry, philosophy, science or any other book tremulation can do. A novel deeply criticised, initially, as a pornographic text, later appreciated for its artistic value and its ideological depth, often indicated as a text-symbol of erotic literature in the twentieth century.
But what is generally meant by eroticism in literature? And how is it possible to distinguish artistic erotic writing, which offers its readers a significant intellectual and emotional experience, from literary products which exploit eroticism only to draw readers into an experience of voyeurism. Yet the characteristic language of that representation also insists that sex is a way of talking about something else, so that Eros becomes Metaphor.
Sexual activity and consciousness become the vehicle for exploring wider and wider relationships, within people, between them, throughout society, and the connection of man to the universe. The great relationship, for humanity, will always be the relation between man and woman. The relation between man and man, woman and woman, parent and child, will always be subsidiary.
