In 1912, a young D.H. Lawrence left England for the first time and travelled to northern Italy. He spent nearly a year on the shores of Lake Garda, lodged in elegantly decaying houses set amid lemon groves and surrounded by the fading life of traditional Italy. This is a travel book unlike any other, where landscapes and people are backdrops to Lawrence's deeper wanderings - into philosophy, opinion, life, nature, religion and the fate of man. With sensuous descriptions of late harvests, darkening days and fragile ancient traditions, Twilight in Italy is suffused with nostalgia and premonition. For, looming over the idyll of rural Italy hover dark spectres: the arrival of the industrial age and the brewing storm of World War I, upheavals that would change the face of Europe forever.
In 1912, a young D.H. Lawrence left England for the first time and travelled to northern Italy. He spent nearly a year on the shores of Lake Garda, lodged in elegantly decaying houses set amid lemon groves and surrounded by the fading life of traditional Italy. This is a travel book unlike any other, where landscapes and people are backdrops to Lawrence's deeper wanderings - into philosophy, opinion, life, nature, religion and the fate of man. With sensuous descriptions of late harvests, darkening days and fragile ancient traditions, Twilight in Italy is suffused with nostalgia and premonition. For, looming over the idyll of rural Italy hover dark spectres: the arrival of the industrial age and the brewing storm of World War I, upheavals that would change the face of Europe forever.
Introduction The Crucifix across the Mountains Part I On the Lago Di Garda 1.The Spinner and the Monks 2. The Lemon Gardens 3. The Theatre 4. San Gaudenzio 5. The Dance 6. Il Duro 7. John Part II Italians in Exile 8. Italians in Exile Part III The Return Journey 9. The Return Journey
D.H. Lawrence's first travel book and an important insight into the roots of his literary genius.
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), novelist, poet, playwright, painter, critic, is an icon of 20th century literature. His hatred of militarism, openly expressed during the First World War, sparked a wave of vilification that forced him to leave England and embark on what he called his 'Savage Pilgrimage'. He spent the remainder of his life travelling - to America, Italy, Austria, Mexico, the South of France and Sri Lanka - and it was during this time that he wrote such classics as Sea and Sardinia, The Plumed Serpent and Lady Chatterley's Lover. With the exception of E.M. Forster, who called him 'the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation' and friends such as Aldous Huxley, Lawrence's obituarists were dismissive and hostile. It was not until The Lady Chatterley trial thirty years after his death and the subsequent publication of the book that Lawrence was finally recognised as one of the great writers and thinkers of his age.
If this is travel writing, it is travel writing in excelsis -
beyond the spectacle, beyond the experience, beyond even the
interpretation, into profound conclusions of the spirit,
*Jan Morris*
It cannot be read as an ordinary travel book, for his voyage is
philosophic, as well as a symbolic and sensuous one.
*Anais Nin*
The sharpness of Lawrence's eye is incredible...brilliantly
informative, educative, entertaining and moving.
*Anthony Burgess*
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