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Men’s Yearning Anger Toward Women in the Writings of D.h. Lawrence, Dion Fortune, and Ted Hughes: The Battle Between Jehovah and the Great Goddess
| Author: | Hardy, Robert | |
| Year: | 2015 | |
| Pages: | 256 | |
| ISBN: | 1-4955-0286-4 978-1-4955-0286-6 | |
| Price: | $199.95 | |
A new narrative on the writers who paved the way for the modern goddess movements. Utilizing themes of both the occult and magic as well exposing previously undiscovered parallels between the three writers, this book identifies how the advent of the feminine divine enabled men to confront their woman centered rage through embracing a modern form of goddess worship in order to soothe their psychological wounds.
This book locates a literary study of the goddess in Lawrence, Fortune and Hughes within a narrative in which some modern men try to confront their yearning anger toward women by embracing goddess religion. The author argues that his chosen writers each helped this narrative to emerge, The book (a) offers Lawrence readers a new angle on his preoccupation with the goddess; (b) introduces Dion Fortune (virtually unknown outside her cult following) as an important twentieth century writer on marginality and sexuality; and (c) shows how Ted Hughes’ narratives of the suffering goddess (in Gaudete and Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being especially) relate forwards to his own Birthday Letters and backwards to Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The author also takes magic and the occult as a theme linking the three writers. In doing so he aspires to place his book in the company of other texts which have also taken the occult in modern literature for their subject.
This book locates a literary study of the goddess in Lawrence, Fortune and Hughes within a narrative in which some modern men try to confront their yearning anger toward women by embracing goddess religion. The author argues that his chosen writers each helped this narrative to emerge, The book (a) offers Lawrence readers a new angle on his preoccupation with the goddess; (b) introduces Dion Fortune (virtually unknown outside her cult following) as an important twentieth century writer on marginality and sexuality; and (c) shows how Ted Hughes’ narratives of the suffering goddess (in Gaudete and Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being especially) relate forwards to his own Birthday Letters and backwards to Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The author also takes magic and the occult as a theme linking the three writers. In doing so he aspires to place his book in the company of other texts which have also taken the occult in modern literature for their subject.
Reviews
“The most engaging quality of Hardy’s work is his fusion of religion and art, personal experience and myth, such that this book is about life not just literature. It impresses with a sense of purpose, and is passionate and undogmatic in tone.”
-Frances White,
Writer in Residence at Kingston University Writing School
“This book gives a fresh look at the work of Ted Hughes, Dion Fortune and D.H. Lawrence by considering these writers in relation to one another, to pre-existing psycho-analytical and anthropological work on the sacred female, and to the contemporary rediscovery of goddess-worship.”
-Associate Professor Fiona Tomkinson,
Yeditepe University, Istanbul
“Dr Hardy’s book is an important contribution to contemporary religious and literary debate… he has also shown how Lawrence, Fortune and Hughes prepared the way for later writers on ‘goddess’ themes, such as Starhawk and Tim Ward.”
Professor Nie Wei,
Vice Dean, School of Education,
Shanghai International Studies University
-Frances White,
Writer in Residence at Kingston University Writing School
“This book gives a fresh look at the work of Ted Hughes, Dion Fortune and D.H. Lawrence by considering these writers in relation to one another, to pre-existing psycho-analytical and anthropological work on the sacred female, and to the contemporary rediscovery of goddess-worship.”
-Associate Professor Fiona Tomkinson,
Yeditepe University, Istanbul
“Dr Hardy’s book is an important contribution to contemporary religious and literary debate… he has also shown how Lawrence, Fortune and Hughes prepared the way for later writers on ‘goddess’ themes, such as Starhawk and Tim Ward.”
Professor Nie Wei,
Vice Dean, School of Education,
Shanghai International Studies University
Table of Contents
Foreword by Frances White
Author’s Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: ‘Women have very little idea how much men hate them’
Chapter 1: ‘In the scope of a vaster power’:
D.H. Lawrence’s priestesses
Chapter 2: ‘The priestess as ritual magician in Dion Fortune’s fiction
Chapter 3: ‘A wild, wild yearning to be gone: the dark goddess and the call to death in Dion Fortune and D.H. Lawrence
Chapter 4: ‘Men and the suffering goddess in D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Ted Hughes’ poetry
Conclusion: Half angels: modern men and the goddess
Bibliography
Index
Author’s Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: ‘Women have very little idea how much men hate them’
Chapter 1: ‘In the scope of a vaster power’:
D.H. Lawrence’s priestesses
Chapter 2: ‘The priestess as ritual magician in Dion Fortune’s fiction
Chapter 3: ‘A wild, wild yearning to be gone: the dark goddess and the call to death in Dion Fortune and D.H. Lawrence
Chapter 4: ‘Men and the suffering goddess in D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Ted Hughes’ poetry
Conclusion: Half angels: modern men and the goddess
Bibliography
Index