Reviews for Space and Place in the Works of D.H. Lawrence

The average rating for Space and Place in the Works of D.H. Lawrence based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-02-04 00:00:00 Matt Collins Rochester has been ill-served by biographers to date so this is a welcome scholarly life which places John Wilmot at the centre of Restoration culture and mores. Johnson `reads' Rochester's life from a range of primary sources, and is particularly good at drawing a convincing narrative from the various letters which circulated between Rochester and his wife, and his libertine friends. This isn't perfect and depends on some rather old-fashioned frameworks: Freudian readings, for example, that posit various older men as father-substitutes for Rochester; a dependency on modern paradigms of sexuality (`homosexual', `bisexual') in a culture with a more fluid and less fixed understanding of `sexuality' than ours; reading poetic texts as if they're bits of autobiography, almost snippets from a secret diary bequeathed to us. Despite these flaws, however, the overall work is so well-written, so rich in atmosphere, detail and empathy, that it's easy to forgive the minor niggles.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-13 00:00:00 James Dunevent I'll be honest, here: I LIKE boys. By 'boys,' however, I truly mean 'men,' so let there be no misunderstanding, but sometimes I prefer to refer to the bad ones as 'boys' as in the old standby, "bad boys." There is something about bad boys that redeems them, and in spite of everything bad about the subject of James William Johnson's biography of the Earl of Rochester, there is good, too. This was a case of movie-sparks-an-interest-in-true-story, and after catching Johnny Depp's performance in The Libertine, my curiosity was piqued. Just who was this earl, and was he truly as bad as what Depp depicts him? While A Profane Wit sometimes reads like a textbook -- lots of history, and the spark must come from the student -- the history was necessary, or at least for this student, me. So little I know of the period of Charles II, aside from what we do get from our textbooks or coursework, or a film here and there. Enjoyed A Profane Wit as much, or more, than what Depp even portrayed in the film, largely in part because I always find myself rallying for an underdog, and the Earl of Rochester, in spite of his wealth and position, was an underdog -- if only to the rank of his King, Charles II. But, the earl accomplishes much, if only in getting across that while he may be 'bad,' he does have revealing qualities, the least of which is hardly that he is brilliant. He is. This Libertine thinks circles around the circles into which his class and station often confine him. For the history buff, a good read. For the women who like 'bad boys,' a great read.