In the valle di Comino, where my mother comes from, it is often heard of a British romantic writer born in 1885 who died at the age of 45 in 1930. DH Lawrence is actually this English writer who stayed in Picinisco at the beginning of the 20th century and who fell in love with the region. Often people stop there and, without looking any further, are satisfied with this little pride.
But if we dig a little bit around this author and ask ourselves what may have seduced him in our mountains and what are the ideas he has developed in his work, I think that the region could certainly be nourished by his infatuated gaze at her beauty.
Lawrence was keen throughout his work to combat the destructive excesses of the modern materialist world. For Lawrence, humanity has sought, in its intellectual arrogance, to cut itself off from nature and instinct. Traveling in Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century in particular and later in Australia, Lawrence rediscovers the strength of the spirits of nature, the authenticity of the relationship with the earth, convinced that we must reconnect to this force.
An author to be discovered or rediscovered because he was and remains much more than the author of "Lady Chatterley's lover" ...
The following text aims to shed light on a chapter in Lawrence's life that touches me most particularly since he lived for some time in the mountainous region of central Italy of my maternal grandparents.
Here, I post my english translation of a text I had originally written in French.
Comments