ウィッター・ビナー著,D.H.ロレンス回想録『天才との旅』におけるロレンス : D.H.ロレンスは悪漢なのか?(<特集>D.H.ロレンス-新しい「読み」への試み-)

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D.H. Lawrence has appeared in more than seventy biographies and memoirs as their subject matters. This number itself indicates how intensely his life has inspired other writers. Witter Bynner's Journey with Genius (1951) is one of such biographical works. It has often been criticized and undervalued for its apparently malicious portrait of Lawrence. Truly, he focuses on drawing out the temperamental, self-centered behaviors of Lawrence. In the present paper, however, contrary to the critical views on this work, Bynner does not use his writing as a weapon to attack Lawrence, but intends to create a portrait of Lawrence as Bynner had seen him while they were living together. Lawrence also fictionalizes Bynner as a poet: He is considered to be the model of Owen in The Plumed Serpent (1926). Bynner is seemingly dissatisfied with the negative portrait of himself as a frivolous American poet. Nevertheless, while Lawrence uses a real person to represent the phenomenon or the culture of a certain country or region, Bynner turns an individual in reality into a new fictionalized character. The difference in their approaches shows that Bynner is profoundly attracted to Lawrence's gift, and attempts to draw out his "genius" through his own eyes. This paper, therefore, aims to examine the degree of fictionalization in Journey with Genius and to clarify Bynner's intention of recreating Lawrence as a leading literary figure.
2010-03-31