Michael Bell
University of Warwick, UK
Lawrence on the One and the Many: Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine
The question of the one and the many, whether reality is ultimately unity or difference, has exercised philosophers since ancient times, as in the fragments of Parmenides, and William James thought it the fundamental issue for any philosophical thinker. Although Lawrence did not engage this question in a formally philosophical way, he did so informally in so far as his relation to the world involved an intense awareness of the unifying value of life along with an equally vivid appreciation of difference in all living beings. In this respect he can be compared to Gerard Manley Hopkins who shared some of this concern and who, as a priest, had a theologically trained responsibility for thinking the question in philosophical terms. Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine perhaps provides the occasion on which Lawrence came closest to engaging the question philosophically, and reading the essay in that light helps to explain some of its otherwise peculiar features. Indeed, it is appropriate to read the apparently factual account in the essay as a piece of creative writing making its point through concrete instantiation rather than what Lawrence, with misleading modesty, calls reflection.