The Great Strike and rise of fascism threaten to unsettle Lawrence’s Tuscan calm...
For nine days in 1926, Britain experienced its first and only General Strike when workers from various industries downed tools in support of the rights and pay of miners. When Lawrence reads that ‘the government will maintain an iron resistance’, it fills him with dread.
‘Since the war, I’ve no belief in iron resistances. Flesh and blood and a bit of wisdom can do quite enough resisting, and a bit of adjusting into the bargain – and with iron one only hurts oneself and everybody.’
There’s tension in Italy which has become ‘wildly nationalistic’ so much so ‘that I think Tuscany feels she may as well go one further back than Rome, and derive herself from Etruria’.
For now, Lawrence is happy to turn his back on the complexities of bigger issues, preferring to embrace the simple tasks of life.
‘I just go quietly on from day to day; paint the cupboard and window frames, go into Florence, write a dozen lines of a short story: nothing more thrilling.’
These video essays are based on the letters of D.H. Lawrence one hundred years ago and are published monthly. To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1926, click here, from 1923, click here, from 1924, click here, from 1925, click here.
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