Patricia Pérez Borrero
Spain
D. H. Lawrence and Italy
"Italy has given me back I know not what of myself but a very, very great deal.
She has found for me so much that was lost: like a restored Osiris" (Sea and Sardinia, p.123)
Lawrence never had a permanent place of living. He spent all his life travelling, probably in search of some kind of Eden, a place where he could live according to his ideals:
"We travel, perhaps with a secret and absurd hope of setting foot on the Hesperides or the Garden of Eden (...) This hope is always defeated. There is no Garden of Eden never Hesperides were. Yet, in our very search for them, we touch the coasts of illusion and come into contact with other worlds" (Letters, p.713)
He went through Europe, Australia and America, exploring and observing the different societies he was in contact with. He remained an outsider almost all his life. One of the places he loved was Italy.
He spent a third part of his life living in Italy. This country gave him the clues to interpret human self and life around him. From the very first of his journeys, which was marked by a strong feeling of liberation (escaping from a restrictive atmosphere to live his love affair with Frieda in an unknown place), to the mature last ones, every journey to Italy meant a way of discovering important elements of human existence. His life and thought, and consequently his work, were highly influenced by the key concepts he observed in Italy.
His travel books are a subjective and extremely remarkable documents about it. The three ones are centered upon his experience in this country. They give an accurate and sincere account of his trips and the different moments of his life in which they took place. I will pay attention to these three books, (Twilight in Italy,1916; Sea and Sardinia, 1921 and Etruscan Places, 1932) and, in a very general way, to the influence of this country on his work.