Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays

by D.H. Lawrence, Simonetta De Filippis

For D. H. Lawrence, Italy was the place of spiritual rejuvenation to which he returned frequently to free himself from what he saw as the bourgeois conventions and the grim materialism of his native England. During his final stay in Italy, Lawrence became intrigued by the Etruscan civilization. To him, the Etruscan love of pleasure is in direct contrast to the Roman desire for power and he sees evidence of their quality of life and joy in their remaining works of art.

The eight short essays in this volume, two of which appear for the first time in paperback, include sketches of Tuscany, Florence, and the Etruscan lifestyle. It is both a personal journey and a superbly imaginative traveler's guide. This Penguin edition reproduces the authoritative Cambridge text, which is based on Lawrence's manuscripts, typescripts, and corrected proofs.

"One of the most widely read books on the Etruscans in English and probably Lawrence's most successful achievement in the genre of travel literature" --Simonetta de Filippis, from her Introduction

Genres: Travel, History, 20th Century, Italy, Essays, Art, Nonfiction

325 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
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