9 (p. 169) ponder these sayings: In the Bible, Luke 2:19, Mary rejoices in the birth of Jesus. The angel has told the shepherds of the birth, and they spread news of the things the angel tells them. “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
10 (p. 170) Reynolds’s “Choir of Angels”: Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), an English portrait painter, was admired for his paintings of women and children done in the tradition of Van Dyck and Titian. This painting titled “Choir of Angels” was very popular and much reproduced.
11 (p. 171) women who went with Mary: The reference is to the Bible, Luke 24:1-10, in which Mary Magdalene and others find Jesus’ tomb empty.
12 (p. 175) nationalizing of the land: The debate over nationalization, or state ownership of industry and agriculture, began in Edwardian England, with socialists and radicals calling for state control of coal, railways, and land. The issue was much debated at the turn of the century because many small farms were economically threatened by the inexpensive grain imported from the United States. The movement reached its height after 1945 and came to a stop with Margaret Thatcher’s government (1979-1987).
13 (p. 178) gaby: See page 49 for alternate spelling, “gabey.” This is a term for a fool, or simpleton.
14 (p. 180) Hemlock Stone: This irregularly shaped mass of red sandstone is one of the most famous landmarks in the British Midlands. While the Hemlock Stone has often been linked to the Druids, who built similar stone monuments throughout Britain, geologists now say the formation is entirely natural.
15 (p. 184) “annunciation”: In the Bible, Luke 1:26-38, the Angel Gabriel comes to Mary and announces that she will be the mother of Jesus.
16 (p. 185) letters of the law: The reference is to the Ten Commandments, which God delivers to Moses in the Bible, Exodus 20:1-26.
17 (p. 185) Bank Holiday crowd: Bank holidays are days on which the banks of Britain close, and are the equivalent to public holidays in the United States. Most workers in both the public and private sectors have Bank holidays off.
18 . (p. 186) Mary Queen of Scots: Mary Stuart (1542-1587), Queen of Scotland, was imprisoned several times, for her belief in Roman Catholicism and other misdeeds, in Wingfield Manor. She was eventually beheaded.
19 (p. 187) Crich Stand: The reference is to a well-known signal beacon that stood atop a hill outside the village of Crich in Derbyshire.
20 (p. 188) Veronese’s “St. Catherine”: Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) was an Italian painter of the Venetian School who specialized in large, detailed, and brightly colored paintings, almost always of religious themes. Saint Catherine is the patron saint of girls.
21 (p. 189) But there was a serpent in her Eden: This is a reference to the Bible, Genesis 3:1-6, in which the devil takes the form of a snake and enters the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve with the forbidden apple.
22 (p. 190) who died for the souls of men: It is a fundamental Christian belief that the Lord sacrificed his one son in order to save the eternal souls of mortal men. D. H. Lawrence concentrated much of his intellectual energies on questions of religion. In his later life, he became interested in primitive religions.
23 (p. 193) Jean Ingelow: The works of this immensely popular English poet and novelist (1820-1897) include her long poem “High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571.”The poem recounts a historic incident in which high tides flood the North Sea coast. Although the mayor of the town of Boston climbs the belfry tower to ring a warning peal across the land—“Play uppe, play uppe,” he commands—a young woman named Elizabeth drowns and is found “floating o’er the grassy sea.” The poem inspired an equally popular song.
24 (p. 194) “The Flowers o‘the Forest”: Jane Elliot (1727-1805), a member of a famous Scottish clan, wrote this popular ballad lamenting the Battle of Flodden (1513), in which as many as 10,000 Scots died at the hands of the English.
25 (p. 195) “Coons”: This is a reference to the performances in which white singers dressed as blacks. Such productions originated in America around 1840 and soon became a popular family entertainment in Britain.
26 (p. 196) some sad Botticelli angel: Sandro Botticelli (1444?-1510), an Italian painter, depicted religious and mythological subjects in a decorative style with extreme attention to detail and fine, idealized forms. Paul later compares Miriam to a Botticelli Madonna (see page 306).
27 (p. 196) Norman arches: Norman arches, also referred to as Romanesque, were built from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries and have rounded tops.
28 (p. 196) Gothic arch: Gothic arches were built from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries and have pointed tops. Norman arches and Gothic arches were commonly used in churches and cathedrals.
Chapter 8: Strife in Love
1 (p. 200) the King’s shilling: By tradition, a recruiting officer would give a new soldier enlisting in the army a token bit of money.
2 (p. 205) Women’s Rights: Feminists in nineteenth-century Britain worked to improve the educational prospects of all women and the economic prospects of working women, and also to reform the place of the woman in the domestic sphere. Due in part to industrialization and the founding of various cooperative societies, women of this time came together in a way never previously seen. D. H. Lawrence paid attention to the feminist rumblings. In a letter to his editor Edward Garnett dated April 1912, D. H. Lawrence writes, “... every evil that could be urged against a working man is urged by his women-folk. They are all aristocrats, these women, to the backbone. They would murder any man at any minute if he refused to be a good servant to the family. They make me curse.”
3 (p. 208) Verlaine: Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) was a French lyrical poet who was influential in the early Symbolist movement.
4 (p. 212) lived and moved and had her being: The reference is to the Bible, Acts 17:26-28, which provides part of the definition of God that the apostle Paul offers to the Athenians: God “hath made of one blood all nations ... ; for in him we live, and move, and have our being.”
5 (p. 215) Orion: This constellation is named after the mythological giant and hunter Orion and is easily recognizable by the three stars, called jewels, in his belt; Sirrus, his star-dog (see page 215), lies at his feet.
6 (p. 216) Balzac: French author Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) wrote more than ninety novels. His style is both melodramatic and tough-minded, realistic and extravagant.
7 (p. 223) Liberty’s: Founded in 1875 and still a prominent London department store, in the late nineteenth century Liberty’s had a great influence on fashion and the development of Art Nouveau. The shop solicited original designs from freelance artists.
8 (p. 227) King Alfred burned the cakes: Alfred the Great (849-899), the first man to be thought of as the King of England, protected the island from Danish invasion. The legend of the cakes was first recorded in the eleventh century. After a skirmish with the Danes, the King takes refuge in a cowherd’s hut. Left to watch the baking, Alfred is harshly scolded when he lets the cakes burn.
9 (p. 227) Solomon’s baby: In a biblical legend, 1 Kings 3:16-28, two women fight for possession of the same baby. When wise King Solomon suggests that they split the baby down the middle and each take half, the real mother objects to the idea and says, “Oh my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it.” Solomon gives her the child.
10 (p. 229) Ce matin ... est si clair: The translation of this French passage is: “This morning the birds woke me. It was still dark out. But the small window in my room was pale, and then, yellow, and all the birds of the forest broke out into a lively and resounding song. The entire dawn quivered. I had dreamed of you. Do you also watch the sun rise? The birds wake me up practically every morning, and there is always a hint of terror in the cry of the thrushes. It is so clear—”
11 (p. 230) Baudelaire’s “Le Balcon”: Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821-1867) published only one volume of poetry, Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), but is considered to be one of the greatest French poets of the nineteenth century. Wit
h Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, he was a so-called Decadent and infamous for his fascination with lust, decay, and perversity. “Le Balcon” is a sexually charged poem included in Les Fleurs du Mal.
12 (p. 230) “Behold her singing ... like a nun”: The quotations are from the Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850)-the first is from “The Solitary Reaper” (1807), the second from an untitled sonnet (1807). “Fair Ines” is a poem by Thomas Hood (1799-1845). The contrast between the poetry that draws Paul (Baudelaire and Verlaine) is in stark contrast to the poetry that “nourished [Miriam’s] heart.”
13 (p. 230) “Tu te rappelleras la beauté des caresses”: This passage, from Baudelaire’s “Le Balcon,” translates from the French as “You will remember the beauty of caressing.” See also note 11 above.
14 (p. 233) Herbert Spencer: A British philosopher and social scientist (1820-1903), Spencer applied the theory of evolution to human society.
Chapter 9: Defeat of Miriam
1 (p. 239) Primitive Metbodist Cbapel: This breakaway sect of the Methodist church was known for hell-fire preaching and an affinity for and with the working class. D. H. Lawrence’s wife, Frieda Lawrence Ravagli, wrote of their time in Germany in 1912, “On some evenings he [D. H. Lawrence] would be so gay and act a whole revival meeting for me, as in the chapel of his home town. There was the revivalist parson. He would work his congregation up to a frenzy; then, licking his finger to turn the imaginary pages of the book of Judgment and suddenly darting a finger at some sinner in the congregation; ‘Is your name written in the book?’ he would shout.”
2 (p. 245) He had come back ... was his mother: D. H. Lawrence wrote to the poet Rachel Annand Taylor in December 1910, “There has been a kind of bond between me and my mother. We have loved each other, almost with a husband and wife love, as well as filial and maternal. We knew each other by instinct. I think this peculiar fusion of soul never comes twice in a life-time-it doesn’t seem natural.”
3 (p. 246) “Tartarin de Tarascon”: This novel by the French writer Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) was published in 1872. Daudet also wrote a well-known collection of short stories, Lettres de mon Moulin (1872). See also note 4 in chapter 10.
4 (p. 249) Circe: Circe is a sorceress in Homer’s Odyssey. When Odysseus sends twenty-three men ashore to explore Circe’s island, she turns all but one of them into swine.
5 (p. 249) Tippoo: The family game-cock is named for Tippoo Sahib, the Sultan of Mysore (1782-1799) and an enemy of the British in India.
6 (p. 249) Renan “Vie de Jésus” stage: The French scholar Ernest Renan (1823-1892) was studying for the priesthood when he lost his faith due to the influence of German philosophy and biblical scholarship. He later became a relativist. His book The Life of Jesus (1863), the first volume of The History of the Origins of Christianity, explored the origins of Christianity from the standpoints of history, biography, and psychology.
“It requires a lot of pain and courage to come to discover one’s own creed...,” D. H. Lawrence wrote in a letter to Ada Lawrence Clark in April 1911. “It is a fine thing to establish one’s own religion in one’s heart, not to be dependant on tradition and second hand ideals.”
7 (p. 251) St. john ... the verse: The reference is to one of the four gospels in the Bible. The verse Paul cites is John 16:21, in which Jesus tells his disciples that their grief upon his death will turn to joy upon his resurrection. The King James Version of the Bible translates the verse, “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.”
8 (p. 253) Margaret Bonford’s meeting: This is a fictionalized name, based on Margaret Bondfield (1873-1953), a trade-union leader and the first female member of the House of Commons and Britain’s first female cabinet minister. Bondfield advocated women’s suffrage and a number of other feminist causes and also promoted the rights of shop workers.
9 (p. 254) ‘Nevermore’: This is a reference to “The Raven” (1845), a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.
10 (p. 256) Deirdre or Iseult: Both are heroines in Irish legends and appear as well in similar medieval tales from throughout the British Isles and other parts of northern Europe. Deirdre is the ill-fated heroine of “The Sons of Usnach,” which is considered the greatest of early Irish love legends. Iseult appears in “Sir Tristrem,” in which the knight Tristrem falls in love with her.
11 (p. 276) Omar Khayyám: This Persian poet (circa 1123) became well known in England through Edward FitzGerald’s translation of his Rubáiyát, a collection of four-line poems. Of Khayyám, FitzGerald wrote, “[He] ... pretend[ed] sensual pleasure as the serious purpose of life.”
12 (p. 277) Miriam: In a letter dated early 1911 to Jessie Chambers, the woman upon whom Miriam is based, D. H. Lawrence writes, “... the best man in me belongs to you. One me is yours, a fine strong me.... I have great faith still that things will come right in the end.”
Chapter 10: Clara
1 (p. 280) “a bit of a paintin’ as be knocked off in an hour or two!”: Though D. H. Lawrence was not successful with painting, as Paul is, he showed his father his first novel, The White Peacock, when it was printed in the winter of 1910.
“‘And what dun they gi’e thee for that, lad?’
‘Fifty pounds, father.’
‘Fifty pounds!’ He was dumbfounded, and looked at me with shrewd eyes, as if I were a swindler. ‘Fifty pounds! An’ tha’s niver done a day’s hard work in thy life.’”
2 (p. 287) sweated: The term refers to hard work. At the turn of the century, lace weaving, hosiery, and other British cottage industries notoriously underpaid workers, who were mostly women and children.
3 (p. 288) Juno: The queen of the Roman gods (known as Hera in Greek mythology) was the protector of women.
4 (p. 291) Lettres de mon Moulin: The popular collection of short stories by the Frenchman Alphonse Daudet was published in 1872. See also note 3 in chapter 9.
5 (p. 292) Penelope: In Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope is beset by suitors when her husband, Odysseus, fails to return home after the Trojan War. Ever faithful to her absent husband, Penelope promises she will choose a new mate by the time she finishes her weaving but unravels her work every evening so it is never completed.
6 (p. 296) Queen of Sheba: In the Bible, 1 Kings 10, the Queen of Sheba travels to Jerusalem and presents great riches to King Solomon in the name of the Lord.
7 (p. 297) Bulk only: The reference is to a poem, ”The Noble Nature,” by the English poet Ben Jonson (1572-1637): ”It is not growing like a tree / In bulk, doth make man better be.”
8 (p. 297) remorseful angels: In Christian theology, the angels who follow Lucifer out of Heaven and like him fall from grace spend eternity lamenting their distance from God. The poet John Milton (1608-1674) pursues this theme in his Paradise Lost.
9 (p. 298) snatching back ... with the right: The reference is to the Bible, Matthew 6:3, ”But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.”
Chapter 11: The Test on Miriam
1 (p. 307) Sir Thomas More: Paul wrongly remembers a statement by this English statesman and later a saint, who was executed when he refused to sanction the divorce of King Henry VIII from Queen Catherine (1478-1535). In Utopia (1516), More’s treatise on a peaceful society, he says that a woman shouldn’t marry before she is eighteen years old while a man should be at least twenty-two.
2 (p. 310) Gretchen way: Paul uses the term to let Miriam know that there is not much chance that he will impregnate her. Gretchen is a young woman in Goethe’s Faust, Part One, who Faust seduces and impregnates.
3 (p. 314) not-to-be: The reference is to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, act 3, scene 1.
Chapter 12: Passion
1 (p. 336) Kirke White: Henry Kirke White (1785-1806) was from Nottingham and wrote ”Clifton Grove,” published when he was in his late teens, to describe his boyhood pleasures in th
e same grove through which Paul and Clara now walk. The young poet died at the age of twenty-one.
2 (p. 342) cowering out of Paradise: Paul is referring to the way that Eve must have felt when, in the Bible, Genesis 3, she and Adam must leave Eden after she tempts him with the forbidden apple.
3 (p. 349) a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar offire by night: In the Bible, Exodus 13:21-22, a divine beacon shines before the chosen people to show the way as they flee Egypt.
4 (p. 359) Sarah Bernhardt: The French actress (1844-1923) known as ”The Divine Sarah” toured in England, mainland Europe, and America. One of her most famous roles was in La Dame aux Camélias, which she performed in Nottingham in 1908.
5 (p. 365) pierrot: In the Italian pantomime drama known as commedia dell‘arte, Pierrot was originally a sort of clown lover. However, through many interpretations and variations of his character, Pierrot evolved into an imaginative artist who conceals his true self behind a comic mask.
Chapter 13: Baxter Dawes
1 (p. 372) The aristocracy ... they want war: D. H. Lawrence predicts the coming of World War I.
2 (p. 378) “‘The man in ... quiver’ ”: Paul is reciting humorous verse based on an ode by Horace (65-8 B.C.).
3 (p. 378) ”Put Me among the Girls”: This popular comic song was written and composed by Clarence W. Murphy and Dan Lipton. The full verse is, ”Put me amongst the girls ... those with the curly curls, / They’ll enjoy themselves, and so will I, / If you put me amongst the girls.”
4 (p. 393) Orpen: Sir William Orpen (1878-1931), a portrait painter, became the official artist to the British government during World War I.
Chapter 14: The Release
1 (p. 413) ”Say ‘Caw!’...Jim Crow”: D. H. Lawrence puns on the name Dawes, which suggests jackdaw, a type of bird, which he expands to “crow.” Jim Crow was a character that the American minstrel performer Dan Rice made immensely popular in the 1830s.
Sons and Lovers Page 54