6 - The Symbolistic All-Knowledge

Summary

Studies in Classic American Literature would remain at a standstill for months to come. Plucked from his cozy Higher Tregerthen cottage and forced to relocate to London on three days’ notice, Lawrence, understandably, had trouble concentrating on his work. Like Somers in “The Nightmare,” he “pined for his cottage, the granite strewn, gorsegrown slope from the moors to the sea.” Tortured by nostalgia for the Cornish coast, he “craved to be back, his soul was there.”

Deprived of the closest thing to home he and Frieda had enjoyed since their marriage, they now relied on the charity of friends to keep a roof over their heads. Hoping to return to Cornwall soon, the Lawrences had left behind most of their belongings—and most of his books. Still holding the lease on Higher Tregerthen, they hesitated to lease any other place now, even if they could have afforded one.

The third week of October 1917 Lawrence and Frieda moved into the Aldingtons’ flat at 44 Mecklenburgh Square in the Bloomsbury district of London. Richard Aldington, having served in the trenches from January to July, was now at officer training camp in Lichfield. Hilda was shuttling back and forth between London and Lichfield, but she made room for them. Lawrence was grateful, but gratitude did not necessarily motivate his work. A few weeks after moving to Mecklenburgh Square, he wrote to Cecil Gray: “I get irritated here, because I cannot read, not anything at all—nor write.” His remarks are somewhat disingenuous. While he was struggling to resume his study of American literature, he did begin a new novel, Aaron's Rod.

Although he would not finish Aaron's Rod for a few years, it too reflects the influence of Moby-Dick on his development of plot and character. Like Ishmael, Aaron Sisson grows weary of the everyday world and runs away from home to escape its tedium. Ishmael leaves aboard the Pequod on Christmas, the same day Aaron abandons his family. Having Aaron leave his wife and children on Christmas without saying goodbye, Lawrence risked losing his reader's sympathy, but he took the risk because he recognized the day's symbolic importance. Like Melville, Lawrence set his hero on a new course on a day that symbolizes the start of a new era.