Critical Appraisals

Abstract

When it was first published Sons and Lovers had a mixed reception, though Lawrence himself was not displeased with the reviews. Several critics found it too outspoken in sexual matters. Among these the essayist, Robert Lynd, though recognising Lawrence’s ‘curious eagerness for the beauty of words’, thought that he had ‘an exaggerated sense of the physical side of love’ (Daily News, 7 June 1913); and another critic shrank from what he felt to be Lawrence’s excessive frankness, and deplored his lack of spiritual uplift: ‘Mr Lawrence strips everything naked; there is no delicacy nor reticence about his work … His people are animals — highly developed, it is true — and very fine mentally, but throughout all the book there is no glimpse of spirit — Paul and the circle of people among whom he moves live by sense and sense alone’ (Academy, 28 June 1913).