Revolt Against Rationalism in Lady Chatterley's Lover

Abstract

Since the time of the Greek philosopher Plato, the Western intellectuals have relied on logos or the ‘word’ for ultimate knowledge. They have heavily believed in reason as the source of knowledge. The reasoning has generally been privileged over emotion, and feeling. This privileging has sometimes been challenged by intellectual within western tradition. D.H. Lawrence was the most passionate and vocal writer to do so in the modern times. D.H. Lawrence, inLady Chatterley's Lover, challenges rationalism. He presents the bleak and degraded picture of the western civilization which tends to privilege mind over body. This study traces the development of rationalism in the western tradition and Lawrence's resistance to it. It also examines modern theoretical development and notes their convergence with Lawrence's ideas. It concludes with a claim that the awareness of the body can only emancipate modern people from mechanistic world wrought by mind.