10.6092/issn.1973-9494/1394
D.H. Lawrence, who spent two years in Sicily, precisely in Fontana Vecchia, near Taormina and
Aetna (where the God Vulcan used to live), has always been fascinated by Italy and Sicily in particular,
the places where, in his opinion, most myths are rooted. His fascination for Sicily is due both to
the sculpture of The Seated Demeter or Core, that he saw in the archaeological Museum in
Syracuse, and to the Sicilians, described “as handsome as Adonis”, and who seem to manifest and
share the sexual energy usually connected to Pan and Dionysus. The image of Sicily recurs in D.H.
Lawrence’s entire production, often indirectly suggested by images such as: the volcanoes, the mythical Sicilian monsters “Scylla and Charybdis”, and the references to the Myth of Pluto and
Persephone, which took place in Enna, as told in his poem "Purple Anemones" (in Birds, Beasts and
Flowers). Moreover, his novella Sun deals with the flourishing Mediterranean landscape of Sicily,
with Aetna in the distance, and the memory of the Sicules, the archaic inhabitants of the island. It is
also worth mentioning that D.H. Lawrence translated several works by the Sicilian Giovanni Verga:
from Mastro-Don Gesualdo (1923) to Cavalleria Rusticana and Other Stories (1928).
application/pdf
1973-9494
1394
en
Carla Comellini
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery
Text.Serial.Journal
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/
8
Articles
2009-04-02
2008-04-17
2015-11-02
29-47
CSCH
Carla Comellini
2008
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/1394
29
1973-9494
en
47
Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/1394/767
8
S
    ICILY IN D.H. LAWRENCE’S IMAGERY


Carla Comellini
Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere Moderne
Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna




1. Introduction

    Similarly to several, other British artists, D.H. Lawrence has always been fascinated
by the Mediterranean Myth and, consequently, by Italy and Sicily in particular, the places
where most myths are strictly rooted, at least in his opinion [1]. In fact, D.H. Lawrence (fig.
1) uses only Sicily, although there are
other places for the myth, as suggest-
ed by J. Campbell [2]. Thus, D.H.
Lawrence’s visits to Italy were not
only rooted in the wish of perpetuating
the eighteenth century “Grand tour”,
or the Byron-Shelley Italian experi-
ence which brilliantly he alludes to in
Twilight in Italy [3], but also in his



                                                                                                   Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage, 8/2008
desire of penetrating – as he says –
into Italy whose life is, just to quote his
words from Sea and Sardinia:

      so primitive, so pagan [...]
      Whenever one is in Italy, either
      one is conscious of the present,
      or of the Medieval influences, or
      of the far, mysterious gods of the
      early     Mediterranean          [...]
      Proserpine, or Pan, or even the
      strange    “[..]   gods”    of   the
      Etruscans [4].                           Figure 1. Photo of D.H. Lawrence.


                                                                                                  29
                                                       Thus, D.H. Lawrence’s appeal for Italy and Sicily is connected to his visits to different
                                                   Italian places in three different periods1. Among the places, which are transcribed not only
                                                   in his travel books, but also in some of his novels, short-stories, essays and poems2,
                                                   Sicily has an important role not only because of the myth, which seems to be inborn in
                                                   the island, but also because of the beauty of the landscape and of the people, not to men-
                                                   tion the influence of the Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga. Impressed by his literary produc-
                                                   tion, D.H. Lawrence translated some novels and stories by G. Verga, such as: Mastro-
                                                   Don Gesualdo (1923), Little Novels of Sicily (Novelle Rusticane, 1925), and Cavalleria
                                                   Rusticana and Other Stories (1928).
                                                       It is worth adding, that D.H. Lawrence’s literary production, strongly imbued with auto-
                                                   biographical nuances, is deeply connected to his experience of self-discovery as to con-
                                                   tribute to constituting his whole poetics which ends up in representing both a spiritual and
                                                   a metaphysical quest. D.H. Lawrence himself declares in Sea and Sardinia, his travel
                                                   book dealing with Sicily and Sardinia, that his discovery of Italy was also a discovery of
                                                   himself, a “self-discovery”:

                                                         to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-dis-
                                                         covery - back, back down the old ways of time [...] 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 [5]. (p. 123)

                                                   2. D.H. Lawrence’s vision

                                                       D.H. Lawrence’s vision can be traced to mythological, biblical and esoteric sources
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                   leading back not only to the Etruscan gods, but also to the Magna Mater, the Earth
                                                   Mother, that triple Mediterranean goddess which is reflected in the three phases, or trin-
                                                   ity, of the Moon Goddess [6]. His fascination is certainly due to the visual image of the
                                                   Earth Mother as the goddess of corn, represented in the sculpture of The Seated
                                                   Demeter or Core, in the archaeological Museum in Syracuse which he visited. Thus, the
                                                   triple Mediterranean goddess which has been constantly proposed and re-proposed, for
                                                   the following centuries, in the Italian works of art such as, for instance, in The Rape of
                                                   Persephone by Lorenzo Bernini in Rome, becomes one of the main themes in D.H.
                                                   Lawrence’s books as well as in his collection of poems, Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)
                                                   (fig. 2).
                                                       In fact, Italy seems to preserve its past and to preserve the unknown, the mystery of
                                                   the Mediterranean Mother Earth, or to use D.H. Lawrence’s words in Twilight in Italy: “the


                                   30
                                                     possession of the unknown, through the
                                                     senses, which happens under a superb
                                                     moon” [7]. As well, in Twilight in Italy,
                                                     Italy, as the country of music and wine,
                                                     seems to keep Pan alive3, together with
                                                     all the underlying symbolic meanings
                                                     referring to his myth which is strictly
                                                     linked to the Moon symbolism. Pan, the
                                                     expression of vitality, of the phallus con-
                                                     sciousness and consequently of the
                                                     senses over the mind, of the instinct
                                                     over the rationality, seems to be the
                                                     main reason of D.H. Lawrence’s appeal
                                                     for Italy and Sicily in particular. But the
                                                     spontaneous and joyous approach to
                                                     Italy, which is expressed in D.H.
                                                     Lawrence’s first Italian sketches as they
                                                     were published in The English Review,
Figure 2. Cover of the 1992 edition of Birds,
                                                     is modified in the revised essays printed
Beasts and Flowers.
                                                     with the title Twilight in Italy in 1916, two
years after his first Italian experience: at the end of his first visit, his disillusionment was
caused by the discovery that even the Italians – as the English before them – were very
close to lose most of their ancient qualities, even the instinctual way of living life and, con-
sequently, the capacity to the express themselves physically with a touch which
metaphorically leads to the idea of a possible contact with the cosmos.                               Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage


3. D.H. Lawrence’s imagery of the Italians and the Sicilians

    D.H. Lawrence’s great appeal for the Italians is declared in Twilight in Italy: “I liked
them [the Italians] too much”. In his first perception of the Italians, he had thought of
having found the perfect expression of human life, the balance of spirit and senses,
which constitutes the spring of the vitality of the Italians, described like this in Twilight in
Italy:

         These young men are all free-thinkers, great dancers, singers, players of the gui-
         tar. [8]


                                                                                                     31
                                                   In Sea and Sardinia, the Italians, who ‘become’ Sicilians, are not less “lively”, as D.H.
                                                   Lawrence describes them:

                                                        They are lively, they throw their arms round one another’s necks, they all but
                                                        kiss.[…] That is how they are. Each one thinks he is as handsome as Adonis and
                                                        as “fetching” as Don Juan.[…] And that also is how they are. So terribly physi-
                                                        cally all over one another. […] They catch each other under the chin, with a ten-
                                                        der caress of the hand, and they smile with sunny melted tenderness. [9]

                                                      With their physical approach, the Sicilians, described “as handsome as Adonis”, or as
                                                   some reborn “Don Juan”, seem to manifest and share the carnal and sexual energy usu-
                                                   ally connected to Pan and Dionysus. Moreover, with their physical contact, they seem to
                                                   simultaneously express the individual and collective touch in a metaphorical reference to
                                                   the universal, cosmic touch. The Sicilian attitude of “fetching”, which was shared by all
                                                   the Italian men at the time of D.H Lawrence’s visits, recalls “Man is a Hunter”, an essay
                                                   by D.H. Lawrence. In this essay, the natural, vital, or lively characteristics of the Italians
                                                   are seen as an expression of the pervasive permanence of the Mediterranean Myth. The
                                                   double-meaning of “man is a hunter! L’ uomo è cacciatore” simultaneously suggests the
                                                   ancient rituals of hunting and the idea of virility and sexual energy, symbolized by Pan.
                                                   As D.H. Lawrence himself explains, in Italy the sentence “man is a hunter! l’uomo è cac-
                                                   ciatore” “sounds so virile”: it alludes both to the “game” of hunting and to the “game” of
                                                   sexes because, as D.H. Lawrence reports, “if it is a question of a man who has got a girl
                                                   into trouble: l’ uomo è cacciatore! man is a hunter! What can you expect?” [10].
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                      In Etruscan Places, D.H. Lawrence expresses the same fascination, felt during his
                                                   first visit to Italy, for that spontaneity and vitality of the Italians that he himself had sought
                                                   in vain throughout his whole life. In his opinion, the Etruscans embody the expression of
                                                   an ideal society, a mystical past to be brought back to light again [11], because, as he
                                                   says, “the Etruscan civilization seems a shoot, perhaps the last, from the prehistoric
                                                   Mediterranean world” [12].

                                                   4. The Mediterranean Myth

                                                      After his long pilgrimage throughout Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Australia and Mexico, D.H.
                                                   Lawrence came back to those Mediterranean Gods whose echo resounds even in his
                                                   travel book, Mornings in Mexico. Even from Mexico, D.H. Lawrence was forced to recog-
                                                   nize the strength of Italy and of the Mediterranean civilization in his process of self-dis-
                                                   covery. In fact, in the last chapter of Mornings in Mexico, he perceived the similarities

                                       32
between Mexico and Sicily, created by the hot climate, the sea, and the pristine Gods.
Thus, as if he were feeling nostalgia for Italy and the Mediterranean places of his quest,
D.H. Lawrence writes:

     There is a bright moon, so that even the vines make a shadow, and the
     Mediterranean has a broad white shimmer [...] Sono io! say the Italians. I am I
     [...] They say: in vino veritas [...] The Mediterranean, so eternally young, the very
     symbol of youth! [13].

   If the title of the last chapter of Mornings in Mexico, “A Little Moonshine with Lemon” –
which is also the name of a cocktail – suggests both the Moon and the Pagan Gods,
Dionysus or Pan, the Latin sentence in vino veritas easily evokes the ancient Mediterranean
rituals connected to the magic of drinking, and symbolizing, at the same time, the first step
in the process of self-discovery. It is not by chance, then, that Mornings in Mexico ends with
Italian words which are the translation of the title: “Un poco di chiar di luna, con canella e
limone...” [14]. With the allusion to the Moon together with the use of Italian words, D.H.
Lawrence seems to express his nostalgia for the Mediterranean, for the old and hot, hot
Sicily, as he defines the island both in the novella Sun and in the poem “Snake”.
   As already said, in his visits, D.H. Lawrence perceived that Italy was permeated by a
lively atmosphere made up of music, dancing and wine; an atmosphere which seemed to
be reminiscent of Pagan times, of the old vegetative myths and, consequently, of the pris-
tine Mother Goddess as well as of the God Pan/Bacchus/ Dionysus, traditionally consid-
ered the Gods of wine, of fertility and sexual energy. As is revealed even by the title of
Birds, Beasts and Flowers, D.H. Lawrence’s idea of life is rooted in a complete com-
munion with nature as in archaic times when Gods were strictly linked to the vegetative
process of renewal: in pristine times, both the Moon and the Mother Goddess represent-                Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
ed the one, or the whole, in which the multiple aspects of reality co-existed in perfect
harmony and balance. At the time of his visits in Sicily, some legacies of Pagan and pris-
tine gods were in part still traceable and visible, as “Purple Anemones”, a poem written in
Taormina and collected in Birds, Beasts and Flowers, clearly manifests.

5. The imagery of Sicily

   Undoubtedly, D.H. Lawrence’s sojourn in Sicily, an island so imbued with mythical
hints, confirmed his belief that the only way for revitalizing humanity was a journey back
to “the world before the floods”, where Bacchus was still the God, whereas nowadays
“Bacchus is a dream’s dream”, as he is defined in the poem “Grapes” [15].

                                                                                                 33
                                                      The image of Sicily recurs in D.H. Lawrence’s entire literary production, although it is
                                                   often indirectly suggested, such as in the images of the volcanoes, echoes of that Mount
                                                   Aetna where the God Vulcan was supposed to live, or in the recurring mythical monsters
                                                   of Sicily, “Scylla and Charybdis” – as in the novel Kangaroo –, or in the pervasive refer-
                                                   ences to the Myth of Pluto and Persephone, which seems to have taken place in Sicily4,
                                                   and precisely in Enna, as told in D.H.Lawrence’s poem “Purple Anemones” in Birds,
                                                   Beasts and Flowers. Moreover, in several poems of Birds, Beasts and Flowers, Sicily is
                                                   described in the richness of its nature, with figs, grapes, pomegranates, peaches, almond
                                                   trees, purple anemones, hibiscus and salvia flourishing everywhere. In other poems of
                                                   Birds, Beasts and Flowers, such as “Pomegranate”, “Medlars and Sorb-Apples” and
                                                   “Hibiscus and Salvia Flowers”, Sicily is recurrently cited: it is “Syracuse”, with “the pome-
                                                   granate-trees in flower” [16], to offer the background in the poem “Pomegranate”, while
                                                   Syracuse is indirectly mentioned through the image of the “Syracusan wine” in “Medlars
                                                   and Sorb-Apples” [17]; in the same poem, it is through the double-meaning reference that
                                                   “Marsala” evokes both the Sicilian town, and the homonymous liquor. Moreover, Sicily is
                                                   indirectly cited with the reference to “the Sicilian townlets skirting Etna” in “Hibiscus and
                                                   Salvia Flowers”, another poem written in Taormina [18].
                                                      It is in “Sicily, [in a] December’s Sicily in a mass of rain [...] round Etna” that one can
                                                   perceive and re-experience the interaction between humanity and nature, that feeling of
                                                   wonder and mystery which was inborn in primitive peoples and, consequently, in their reli-
                                                   gions and rituals, as D.H. Lawrence masterly recreates in the poem “Bare Almond-Trees”,
                                                   written in Taormina:
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                        Wet almond-trees, in the rain,
                                                        [...]
                                                        Out of the deep, soft fledge of Sicilian winter-green,
                                                        [...]
                                                        What are you doing in the December rain?
                                                        Have you a strange electric sensitiveness in your steel tips?
                                                        Do you feel the air for electric influences
                                                        Like some strange magnetic apparatus?
                                                        Do you take in messages, in some strange code,
                                                        From heaven’s wolfish, wandering electricity, that prowls so
                                                        constantly round Etna?
                                                        [...]
                                                        Sicily, December’s Sicily in a mass of rain [...] [19].
   34
   It is worth adding – just to underline how much, for D.H. Lawrence, the Mediterranean
Myth is visible in Sicily – that the almond-trees were strictly related to “the white Goddess
Artemis [who was] identified with the nymph Phyllis who was metamorphosed into an
almond tree” [20].
   Moreover, it is in Sicily and precisely in Fontana Vecchia, near Taormina (where D.H.
Lawrence spent almost two years) that the Volcano Aetna is a pervasive presence,
because, according to the myth, it is there that the God Vulcan used to live. In “Peace”,
another poem written in Taormina, he uses the eruptive lava of Aetna as an expression
of change and transformation, thus elusively suggesting the process of self-renewal lead-
ing to fulfilment. In the poem, he brilliantly shows that everything in life is in constant,
although long, transformation, thanks to the image of lava whose meaning is reinforced
and multiplied by a subtle comparison with a snake:

     [...]
     Brilliant, intolerable lava,
     Brilliant as a powerful burning-glass,
     Walking like a royal snake down the mountain towards the sea. [...]

   As D.H. Lawrence reveals in the poem “Peace”, lava can only symbolize an endless
process of change, a process which is remarked upon not only thanks to the allusive
comparison of lava with the snake – one of the best emblems of transformation – but also
thanks to the changes of lava which transforms itself from a “brilliant, burning” and “white-
hot” lava into a “Grey-black rock” [21].

5.1. Sicily and Myth

   Lava is part of the earth just like any snake, or to use D.H. Lawrence’s words: “the snake            Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
was part of the place” in Sicily [22]. One could add that in the volcanic area of Taormina,
where D.H. Lawrence had lived, also lava is part of the place like any other flower, or tree,
or like the “Sicilian Cyclamens” of the homonymous poem [23], written in Taormina. He
describes the Sicilian cyclamens as strictly connected to earth, “Drawn out of earth [...]
stone-engendered”, as “ecstatic fore-runner[s]”, and as an expression of a primeval world, a
world so old as only the “far-off Mediterranean mornings, when our world began” can re-
evoke [24]. Similarly, a fig-tree flourishes from a nude rock, as specified in “Bare Fig-Trees”,
another poem written in Taormina: the fig-tree5, which is “like a rock living [...] Flourishing
from the rock in a mysterious arrogance”, seems to be carrying the knowledge of the past,
the burden of mystery and to preserve it, and, by “laugh[ing] at Time”, to transmit it endlessly:

                                                                                                    35
                                                        [...] And laugh at Time, and laugh at dull Eternity,
                                                        And make a joke of stale Infinity,
                                                        Within the flesh-scent of this wicked tree,
                                                        That has kept so many secrets up its sleeve,
                                                        And has been laughing through so many ages
                                                        At man and his uncomfortablenesses,
                                                        And his attempt to assure himself that what is so is not so,
                                                        Up its sleeve. [...] [25].

                                                      This idea of continuity expressed by the elements of nature, such as cyclamens and
                                                   fig-trees, is reinforced by “Almond Blossom”, a poem written in Fontana Vecchia; this
                                                   inextricable link is manifested by the strength of the almond-trees: not weaker than that
                                                   of the eruptive lava of the poem “Peace”, the strength of the almond-trees emerges as a
                                                   “supreme annunciation to the world”, with “insuperable, subtly-smiling assurance” [26].
                                                   This subtle smile, which can be perceived as an untouchable, but pervasive presence in
                                                   “Almond Blossom”, seems to be reminiscent of the smile connected to the fig-trees of the
                                                   previously cited poem. It is a smile which alludes to the endless cycle of life through a
                                                   constant renewal, where the new is simply a transformation of the old, a process visible
                                                   in Sicily thanks to the volcano and its lava. This renewing of life, or the mystery of cre-
                                                   ation is in line with the primitive religions and with the archaic vegetative myths where the
                                                   Triple Goddess was an emblem of the whole, or “the mother of all things” who “ruled all
                                                   living creatures” [27], or the “divine multiplicity in unity” [28]. Thus, as in the archaic, veg-
                                                   etative myths, in D.H. Lawrence’s “Almond Blossom”, “The tree [,] being life-divine/
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                   Fearing nothing” represents the mystery of creation, or of the perennial renewal of life: it
                                                   is the mystery which is inborn in nature itself and which is particularly visible in Sicily, as
                                                   is suggested by the poem: “Something” as a mysterious entity, “Something [which] must
                                                   be reassuring to the almond, in the evening star [...]/ So that the faith in his heart smiles
                                                   again”. Then, it is not by chance that D.H. Lawrence refers to mythical elements such as
                                                   “the evening star”, connected to the Goddess, and “Sirius”6, in “Almond Blossom” where
                                                   “Sirius” is alluded to as “the dog-star” and Aetna is evoked as “the snow-wind”, while D.H.
                                                   Lawrence significantly invokes: “give me the tree of life in blossom”.
                                                      This “perennial” cycle of life is particularly visible in Sicily, where the transformation of
                                                   everything is manifested by the previously cited lava which, at the end of a long process,
                                                   becomes one of the best fertilizers of the land. The same long process is retraceable in
                                                   those old objects which were first transformed into iron and which, later, after centuries,


                                     36
became assimilated as part of the almond-trees, or inborn in them, as is revealed in
“Almond Blossom”, where the almond-trees are described as “enveloped in iron [...]
against the ages”. In the poem, the process of change, which simply means an endless
transformation of elements, is explained with these words:

     [...]
     This [Sicily] is the ancient southern earth whence the vases
                              were baked, amphoras, craters [...]
     Bristling now with the iron of almond-trees
     Iron, but unforgotten,
     Iron, dawn-hearted,
     Ever-beating dawn-heart, enveloped in iron against the exile,
                              against the ages. [...] [29].

   Sicily is described again by D.H. Lawrence as a land imbued with mythological refer-
ences in “Purple Anemones”. In this poem, written in Taormina, he rewrites, or “revises”
the Myth of Pluto and Persephone, as if it had taken place in Sicily and precisely in Enna.
Alluding to Pluto, who was “Proserpine’s master” as “the dark one”, as well as to
Persephone, Proserpine and Ceres, D.H. Lawrence writes:

     [...]
     And in Sicily, on the meadows of Enna,
     She thought she had left him;
     But opened around her purple anemones,
     Caverns,

                                                                                                   Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
     Little hells of colour, caves of darkness,
     Hell, risen in pursuit of her; royal, sumptuous
     Pit-falls. [...] [30].

5.2. Sicily and the snake in poetry and in Sun

   The strictly correlated myths of the Moon Goddess and of the Mother Goddess (or
Magna Mater), emerge clearly in the references to Proserpine, Persephone and Ceres,
three deities representing the Goddess in her multiform manifestations. Mythically both
the Moon and the Magna Mater are emblems of transformation, since the Moon changes
shape weekly in a cycle of twenty-eight days and the Magna Mater renews herself year-
ly in a four-seasons cycle. Consequently, all the elements and creatures sharing these


                                                                                              37
                                                                                              characteristics are under their dominion: among
                                                                                              these, the snake, able to renew “itself by slough-
                                                                                              ing its skin, suggests the annual renewal of the
                                                                                              earth itself [; it] was sacred to Dionysus, and to
                                                                                              Asclepius, god of healing and renewal” [31].
                                                                                              Thus, it is not surprising that just in Taormina,
                                                                                              “On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking”,
                                                                                              D.H. Lawrence ended up not only by comparing
                                                                                              lava with a snake, as reported in the poem,
                                                                                              “Peace”, but also by writing a poem, entitled
                                                                                              “Snake”, when he had the chance to meet a rep-
                                                                                              tilian creature7; “the same snake as in the poem,

                                                   Figure 3. Snake (bronze sculpture).        is given in Sun”; the snake, which is “both phal-
                                                                                              lic symbol and sacred messenger from the burn-
                                                   ing darkness” [32], is described by D.H. Lawrence, in the poem “Snake”, in connection
                                                   with its divine mythical characteristics8, connected to the legend of Zeus, who, in the form
                                                   of a snake, fertilized the virgin Persephone in Sicily (fig. 3):

                                                        [...]
                                                        Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the
                                                                                              earth
                                                      On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking [...]
                                                      He drank enough
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                      And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, [...]
                                                      And looked around like a god [...] [33].

                                                      The snake, which is “like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld/ now due to be
                                                   crowned again”, and “one of the lords/ Of life” [34], is associated to Pan, a God who, as
                                                   a fertility symbol, suggests the eternal struggle for life9. Once more, D.H. Lawrence elu-
                                                   sively suggests that only by restoring old religions – or one could say – by crowning the
                                                   snake again and consequently the pristine goddess, can humanity rediscover the real
                                                   meaning of life. Thus, the only way to revitalize our ghostly society seems to go back to
                                                   the way of life of archaic peoples whose echo is resounding in Sicily. And the snake, with
                                                   all its metaphorical references, “was part” of Sicily, as D.H. Lawrence declares in the
                                                   novella Sun.



                                    38
5.3. Sun

   It is Sicily, and precisely a place facing the sea in Fontana Vecchia, near Taormina, to
offer the set for the novella Sun. This Sicilian place is described as warm and hot and not
only in its landscape with “the bluest seas”, with a richness of wine and olive trees,
“groves of lemon” and with the view of the volcano in the distance, but also in its histori-
cal roots even older than the Greeks’ arrival in Sicily.

     Even she had a house above the bluest seas, with a vast garden, or vineyard, all
     wines and olives, dropping steeply in terrace after terrace […] and the garden full
     of secret places, deep groves of lemon […], and hidden, pure green reservoirs
     of water; then a spring issuing out of a little cavern, where the old Sicules had
     drunk before the Greeks came […] There was the scent of mimosa, and beyond
     the snow of the volcano. [35]

   From this description, it is easy to recognize not only the flourishing Mediterranean
landscape, but also the Sicilian area, as the hints both to the volcano Aetna, and to the
pristine people, the Sicules who had inhabited this part of the island, clarify. And the beau-
ty of the fertile Sicily is remarked by other descriptions in Sun, which underline the hot
weather and the landscape, so deeply imbued with colours (pink, mauve, blue) and rich
in corn:

     The end of February was suddenly very hot. Almond blossom was falling like pink
     snow, in the touch of the smallest breeze. The mauve, silky little anemones were
     out, the asphodel tall in bud, and the sea was corn-flower blue. [36]

   In the novella, the relationship of the heroine – the woman who had landed in Sicily –         Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
with the Sun is stronger than any other links that the woman has: it is stronger than her
ties with her husband and her son. This relationship between the woman and the Sun in
the hot Sicily ends up by representing a sacral marriage, as is written in Sun:

     She could feel the sun penetrating into her bones; nay, further, even into her
     emotions and thoughts. [37].

   At the very end – as D.H. Lawrence lets us perceive – it “was not taking sun-baths”
only, but [..i]t was more than that”: in fact, the woman seems to be ambiguously attract-
ed both by the Sun and by a Sicilian peasant, who seems to recall the supposed, clan-



                                                                                                 39
                                                   destine lover of Frieda, D.H. Lawrence’s wife, in the days spent in Fontana Vecchia.
                                                   Confused by these new feelings, elusively, the woman of the novella ends up not only
                                                   worshipping, but also becoming part of the Sun and, thus, creating a direct and complete
                                                   connection with the universal, the Sun:

                                                        Something deep inside her unfolded and relaxed, and she was given to a cosmic
                                                        influence. By some mysterious will inside her, deeper than her known con-
                                                        sciousness and her known will, she was put into connection with the sun, and the
                                                        stream of the sun flowed through her, round her womb. [38].

                                                      Moreover – just to stress once more D.H. Lawrence’s idea that the Mediterranean
                                                   Myth is rooted in Sicily, and still visible there – in the last lines of Sun, the mythical image
                                                   offered by the “Almond blossom falling like pink snow” and the “mauve, silky little
                                                   anemones”, which are both emblems of the Goddess, is reinforced by another mythical
                                                   reference to Perseus, the son of Zeus who freed Andromeda; this mythical reference
                                                   offers an underlying comparison between Andromeda and the American woman who had
                                                   landed in Sicily.

                                                   6. Conclusions

                                                      D.H. Lawrence’s travels in Sicily and Italy can be defined as a significant contribution
                                                   to his whole literary production, not only because of the artistic and archaeological impor-
                                                   tance of Italy10, or of the descriptions of the landscape and of the inhabitants, not only
                                                   because Italy represents a form of spiritual quest, and not only because of the
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                   Mediterranean myth that ends up in constituting the metaphorical structure by which most
                                                   of his works are sustained. I would suggest that Italy permeates D.H. Lawrence’s pro-
                                                   duction and life in a sort of mutual relationship. For instance, it is curious that the Italian
                                                   Angelo Ravagli, who embodies Mellors in D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by
                                                                                                   marrying Frieda after D.H. Lawrence’s
                                                                                                   death, paradoxically became in part inheritor
                                                                                                   of Lawrence’s legacy. Although much differ-
                                                                                                   ently from the intriguing A. Ravagli, even
                                                                                                   Pino Orioli, from Florence, constituted a very
                                                                                                   stimulating presence in D.H Lawrence’s life
                                                                                                   and work, being the publisher of his last
                                                                                                   works (fig. 4)11.
                                                   Figure 4. Photo of D.H. Lawrence.                  But, there are even more significant

40
Italian influences because, as he reveals, his interior wish was to penetrate into Italian
culture. Then, it is worth noting that D.H. Lawrence knew the Futurists during his stay in
Lerici in 1914 –12, as he himself wrote in a letter – and that he was used to read Gabriele
D’Annunzio and Giovanni Verga since 1916. Moreover, he is also the translator of the
Sicilian Verga, thus revealing his interior need to penetrate not only into Italian culture,
but also into the Sicilian one and testifying his capacity of mastering the Italian language
as well. As a matter of fact, G. Verga influenced D.H. Lawrence strongly, as can be seen
in D.H. Lawrence’s story “The Fox”, revised after his immersion in the translation of G.
Verga’s Novelle and particularly of “La Lupa”. To testify his strong connection with G.
Verga, D.H. Lawrence named his house in Fontana Vecchia “La Casa del nespolo”, or
“The Medlar Tree House” in the English translation13.
     But perhaps the most intriguing influence of the Italian culture can be found in D.H.
Lawrence’s indirect message to humanity: the only possible future can be rooted on that nat-
ural vitality and spirituality which, to his belief, the old Sicilians, the Etruscans and all the
archaic Mediterranean people possessed. Thus, by restoring the old Mediterranean civiliza-
tion, so strictly preserved in Sicily at the time of his visit (1919-1922), humanity can survive.

Notes
1 His first visit in the north of Italy, from 1912 to June 1914, is reported in Twilight in Italy (1916); the

    second one, from November 1919 to February 1922, in Sicily (in Fontana Vecchia, near Taormina
    with visits to Messina, Syracuse, Catania and Palermo) and with a tour of Sardinia described in
    Sea and Sardinia (1921), is completed by his visits to Florence, Picinisco and Capri; the third one,
    from November 1925 to July 1929, is mostly in Florence with a tour to the Etruscan area (April
    1927) which is depicted in Etruscan Places, published posthumously in 1932. Although these
    works can be defined as Italian travel books because of the descriptions of the landscape and the                Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
    environment, of the Italian people and of their artistic expressions, they are more than just travel
    books, or a series of essays both on his personal impact with Italy and on his process of self-dis-
    covery: they express the interaction of D.H. Lawrence’s sensibility with the realities of Italy, with
    the places and modes of life he encountered, and especially with Sicily, Sardinia and with the
    ancient Etruscan civilization.
2   His works with Italian setting are: the novels The Lost Girl (1920) and Aaron’s Rod (1922); some
    essays and most poems of the collection, Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923). The Lost Girl, which
    deals with Picinisco, was written in Fontana Vecchia, while the novella, Sun (1926), set in Sicily,
    was composed later on the memory of the old days in Fontana Vecchia, as is subtlety suggested
    by the Sicilian peasant of the story, who seems to recall the Sicilian mule-driver who – as leg-

                                                                                                                41
                                                        endary reported – caused the betrayal of D.H. Lawrence’s wife, Frieda; see: S. Di Giacomo 2001,
                                                        The Long Standing “British” Tradition on Monte Tauro, Taorminafilmfest, 121.
                                                   3    See: D.H. Lawrence 1981 (1916), Twilight in Italy, in A. Burgess (ed.) D.H. Lawrence And Italy,
                                                        Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 45, 59, 60, 61.
                                                   4    See: K. Sagar 1999, The Genesis of “Snake”, Etudes Lawrenciennes, From Primitivism to Post-
                                                        Modernism, 20, 32.
                                                   5    On Fig symbolism and vegetative symbols, which are strictly linked to the Goddess, see: R.
                                                        Graves 1997 (1948), The White Goddess, The Noonday Press, New York, 253, 257.
                                                   6    “The evening star” and “Sirius” as the dog-star, are connected to the Goddess: see: R. Graves
                                                        1997 (1948), The White Goddess, The Noonday Press, New York, 53, 58.
                                                   7    The opening lines of “Snake” seem to testify that D.H. Lawrence’s experience was real: “A snake
                                                        came to my water-trough/On a hot, hot day,/ and I in pyjamas for the heat,/ To drink there.”
                                                        Although it is not proved if the event was true or fictional, certainly “Snake” can be compared with
                                                        “a little myth which draws on ancient myths, psychological archetypes, years of intensive reading,
                                                        and at least two earlier but quite different encounters with snakes. Lawrence did not need [...] a
                                                        snake in order to write “Snake” any more than Coleridge needed [...] an albatross to write “The
                                                        Ancient Mariner” (K. Sagar 1999, The Genesis of “Snake”, Etudes Lawrenciennes, From
                                                        Primitivism to Post-Modernism, 20, 37).
                                                   8    On Myth and Sicily, K. Sagar writes: “Lawrence would have known the version of the birth of
                                                        Dionysus in which Zeus in the form of a snake fertilized the virgin Persephone. She gave birth to
                                                        Zagreus, the horned god. But Zagreus is Zeus in his underworld aspect, continually giving birth to
                                                        himself, as snakes were believed to do. This primal rape, from which came all birds, beasts and
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                        flowers, took place in Sicily” (The Genesis of “Snake”, Etudes Lawrenciennes, From Primitivism
                                                        to Post-Modernism, 20, 32.
                                                   9    On the topic, see: K. Sagar 1992, Lawrence and the Resurrection of Pan, in P. Preston (ed.), D.H.
                                                        Lawrence: The Centre and the Circles, University of Nottingham Press, Nottingham, 36.
                                                   10 See:     G. Katz-Roi 1997, Lawrence and Italian Art, Etudes Lawrenciennes 14-15, 1997, 149-160.
                                                   11   D.H. Lawrence’s works, published by P. Orioli in Florence, are: Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928);
                                                        The Story of Doctor Manente, Being the Tenth and the Last Story from the Suppers of A.F.
                                                        Grazzini Called “il Lasca” (1929); The Vergin and the Gipsy (1930); Apocalypse (1931); Last
                                                        Poems (1932).
                                                   12 G.J.     Zytaruk. and J.T. Bolton (eds) 1981, The Letters of D.H.Lawrence, 2, June 1913-October
                                                        1916, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 180-182.
                                                   13 S.   Di Giacomo 2001, The Long Standing ‘British’ Tradition on Monte Tauro, Taorminafilmfest, 119-
                                                        122.

                                  42
Bibliography
[1] COMELLINI C. 1995, D.H.Lawrence, A Study on Mutual and Cross References and
    Interferences, Bologna, Clueb.
[2] CAMPBELL J. 1978 (1964), The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology,
    Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 78-79.
[3] LAWRENCE D.H. 1981 (1916), Twilight in Italy, in A. BURGESS (ed.), D.H.
    Lawrence And Italy, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 40, 72.
[4] LAWRENCE D.H. 1981(1921), Sea and Sardinia, in A. BURGESS (ed.),
    D.H.Lawrence and Italy, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 123.
[5] LAWRENCE D.H. 1981(1921), Sea and Sardinia, in A. BURGESS (ed.),
    D.H.Lawrence and Italy, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 123.
[6] COMELLINI C. 1990, La Luna: mito e simbolo in D.H.Lawrence, in N. MINERVA
    (ed.), La Luna allo Specchio, Patron, Bologna, 123-141.
[7] LAWRENCE D.H. 1981 (1916), Twilight in Italy, in A. BURGESS (ed.), D.H.
    Lawrence and Italy, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 31.
[8] LAWRENCE D.H. 1981 (1916), Twilight in Italy, in A. BURGESS (ed.), D.H.
    Lawrence and Italy, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 141, 77-78.
[9] LAWRENCE D.H. 1981 (1916), Sea and Sardinia, in A. BURGESS (ed.), D.H.
    Lawrence and Italy, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 7.
[10] LAWRENCE D.H. 1992, Man is a Hunter, in S. De Filippis, (ed.), D.H. Lawrence’s
     Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays, Cambridge, Cambridge
     University Press, 219.
[11] COMELLINI C. 1989, Bologna etrusca: una città ‘negletta’ da D.H.
     Lawrence/Etruscan Bologna: D.H. Lawrence’s Neglected Town , Alma Mater
     Studiorum, II, 2, 169-190.
[12] LAWRENCE D.H. 1971(1932), Etruscan Places, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books,
     116.
[13] LAWRENCE D.H. 1971(1927), Mornings in Mexico, Harmondsworth, Penguin                  Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
     Books, 90-92.
[14] LAWRENCE D.H. 1971(1927), Mornings in Mexico, Harmondsworth, Penguin
     Books, 93.
[15] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Grapes, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in PIERO
     NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols., Milano,
     Mondadori, 640.
[16] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Pomegranate, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in
     PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols.,
     Milano, Mondadori, 625.
[17] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Medlars and Sorb-Apples, in Birds, Beasts and
     Flowers in PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete
     Poems, 2 vols., Milano, Mondadori, 628.

                                                                                          43
                                                   [18] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Hibiscus and Salvia Flowers, in Birds, Beasts and
                                                        Flowers in PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete
                                                        Poems, 2 vols., Milano, Mondadori, 699.
                                                   [19] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Bare Almond Trees, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in
                                                        PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols.,
                                                        Mondadori, Milano, 672.
                                                   [20] GRAVES R. 1997 (1948), The White Goddess, New York, The Noonday Press, 340.
                                                   [21] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Peace, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in PIERO
                                                        NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols.,
                                                        Mondadori, Milano, 658.
                                                   [22] LAWRENCE D.H. 1995, Sun (1926) in N. CERAMELLA (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Sun
                                                        and Other Stories, Loffredo Editore, Napoli, pp. 287.
                                                   [23] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Sicilian Cyclamens, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in
                                                        PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols.,
                                                        Mondadori, Milano, 694, 696.
                                                   [24] COMELLINI C. 1997, Italy and the Mediterranean Myth in D.H.Lawrence’s Quest,
                                                        Etudes Lawrenciennes, 14-15, 1997, 161-176.
                                                   [25] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Bare Fig-Trees, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in
                                                        PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols.,
                                                        Milano, Mondadori, 668.
                                                   [26] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Almond Blossom, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in
                                                        PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols.,
                                                        Milano, Mondadori, 680, 684.
                                                   [27] GRAVES R. 1997 (1948), The White Goddess, The Noonday Press, New York, 338, 386.
                                                   [28] CAMPBELL J. 1978 (1964), The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology, Penguin
                                                        Books, Harmondsworth, 149.
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                   [29] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Almond Blossom, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in
                                                        PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols.,
                                                        Milano, Mondadori, 682.
                                                   [30] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Purple Anemones, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in
                                                        PIERO NARDI (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols.,
                                                        Milano, Mondadori, 688.
                                                   [31] SAGAR K. 1999, The Genesis of “Snake”, Etudes Lawrenciennes, From Primitivism
                                                        to Post-Modernism, 20, 23.
                                                   [32] SAGAR K. 1999, The Genesis of “Snake”, Etudes Lawrenciennes, From Primitivism
                                                        to Post-Modernism, 20, 36, 34.
                                                   [33] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Snake in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in PIERO NARDI
                                                        (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols., Milano,
                                                        Mondadori, 772-774.
                                                   [34] LAWRENCE D.H. 1959 (1923), Snake in Birds, Beasts and Flowers in PIERO NARDI
                                                        (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Tutte le Poesie / The Complete Poems, 2 vols., Milano,
                                                        Mondadori, 776.

                                44
[35] LAWRENCE D.H. 1995, Sun (1926) in N. CERAMELLA (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Sun
     and Other Stories, Napoli, Loffredo Editore, 278.
[36] LAWRENCE D.H. 1995, Sun (1926) in N. CERAMELLA (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Sun
     and Other Stories, Napoli, Loffredo Editore, 286.
[37] LAWRENCE D.H. 1995, Sun (1926) in N. CERAMELLA (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Sun
     and Other Stories, Napoli, Loffredo Editore, 280.
[38] LAWRENCE D.H. 1995, Sun (1926) in N. CERAMELLA (ed.), D.H. Lawrence, Sun
     and Other Stories, Napoli, Loffredo Editore, 285.

Summary
D.H. Lawrence, who spent two years in Sicily, precisely in Fontana Vecchia, near Taormina and
Aetna (where the God Vulcan used to live), has always been fascinated by Italy and Sicily in partic-
ular, the places where, in his opinion, most myths are rooted. His fascination for Sicily is due both to
the sculpture of The Seated Demeter or Core, that he saw in the archaeological Museum in
Syracuse, and to the Sicilians, described “as handsome as Adonis”, and who seem to manifest and
share the sexual energy usually connected to Pan and Dionysus. The image of Sicily recurs in D.H.
Lawrence’s entire production, often indirectly suggested by images such as: the volcanoes, the
mythical Sicilian monsters “Scylla and Charybdis”, and the references to the Myth of Pluto and
Persephone, which took place in Enna, as told in his poem "Purple Anemones" (in Birds, Beasts and
Flowers). Moreover, his novella Sun deals with the flourishing Mediterranean landscape of Sicily,
with Aetna in the distance, and the memory of the Sicules, the archaic inhabitants of the island. It is
also worth mentioning that D.H. Lawrence translated several works by the Sicilian Giovanni Verga:
from Mastro-Don Gesualdo (1923) to Cavalleria Rusticana and Other Stories (1928).


Riassunto
D.H. Lawrence, che ha trascorso due anni in Sicilia, precisamente a Fontana Vecchia, vicino a
Taormina e all’Etna (dove si narra che vivesse il Dio Vulcano), è stato sempre affascinato dall’Italia
e dalla Sicilia in particolare, ovvero i luoghi che sono, a suo dire, più impregnati del mito. La sua
attrazione per la Sicilia è dovuta alla scultura di Demetra seduta o Core che aveva visto nel Museo
Archeologico di Siracusa e agli stessi Siciliani, descritti “belli e possenti come Adone”, e che sem-
brano possedere e sprigionare quella carnalità, o energia sessuale di solito connessa a Pan e a
Dioniso. L’immagine della Sicilia, che pervade l’intera produzione lawrenciana, è spesso indiretta-
                                                                                                                Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
mente evocata da allusioni simboliche tanto ai vulcani e ai mitici mostri siciliani “Scilla and Cariddi”,
quanto al mito di Plutone e Persefone, che ebbe luogo a Enna, come è narrato nella lirica “Purple
Anemones” (in Birds, Beasts and Flowers). In più, la sua novella Sun si sofferma sul paesaggio rigo-
glioso della Sicilia Mediterranea, con l’Etna all’orizzonte e le tracce degli antichi abitanti dell’isola, i
Siculi. Va, infine, ricordato che D.H. Lawrence ha tradotto parecchie opere dello scrittore siciliano
Giovanni Verga: da Mastro-Don Gesualdo (1923) a Cavalleria Rusticana and Other Stories (1928).


Résumé
D.H. Lawrence, qui a passé deux ans en Sicile, précisément à Fontana Vecchia, près de Taormina
et de l’Etna (où l’on raconte que vivait le Dieu Vulcain), a toujours été fasciné par l’Italie et par la
Sicile en particulier, autrement dit, les lieux qui sont, selon lui, plus imprégnés du mythe. Son attrac-
tion pour la Sicile est due à la sculpture de Déméter assise ou Coré qu’il avait vue dans le Musée
Archéologique de Syracuse et aux Siciliens mêmes, décrits “beaux et puissants comme Adonis”, et
qui semblent posséder et dégager cette luxure, ou énergie sexuelle, normalement reliée à Pan et à
Dyonisos. L’image de la Sicile, qui se répand dans toute la production lawrencienne, est souvent
indirectement évoquée par des allusions symboliques tant aux volcans et aux mythiques monstres

                                                                                                               45
                                                   siciliens “Scilla and Cariddi”, qu’au mythe de Pluton et Perséphone, qui eut lieu à Enna, comme c’est
                                                   narré dans la lyrique “Purple Anemones” (in Birds, Beasts and Flowers). En plus, sa nouvelle Sun
                                                   s’arrête sur le paysage luxuriant de la Sicile Méditerranéenne, avec l’Etna à l’horizon et les traces
                                                   des antiques habitants de l’île, les Sicules. Il faut, finalement, rappeler que D.H. Lawrence a traduit
                                                   de nombreuses oeuvres de l’écrivain sicilien Giovanni Verga: de Mastro-Don Gesualdo (1923) à
                                                   Cavalleria Rusticana and Other Stories (1928).


                                                   Zusammenfassung
                                                   D.H. Lawrence verbrachte zwei Jahre in Sizilien, und zwar in Fontana Vecchia, in der Nähe von
                                                   Taormina und des Ätnas (wo der Gott Vulkan nach den Legenden wohnte), und er war von Italien
                                                   und insbesondere von Sizilien bezaubert, die Orte, die nach seinen Worten, am meisten mit dem
                                                   Mythos erfüllt waren. Die Anziehung, die Sizilien auf ihn ausübt, kommt aus der Skulptur der sitzen-
                                                   den Demetra oder von Kore, die er im Archäologischen Museum in Syrakus gesehen hatte, sie hat
                                                   aber auch mit dem Aussehen der Sizilianer zu tun, die er “schön und mächtig wie Adonis” beschreibt
                                                   und die seiner Meinung nach die Sinnlichkeit und die sexuelle Energie ausstrahlen, die man nor-
                                                   malerweise mit Pan und Dionysos verbindet. In der ganzen Produktion von Lawrence wird oft auf
                                                   Sizilien durch Symbole angedeutet, durch Hinweise auf die Vulkane, auf die mythischen siziliani-
                                                   schen Ungeheuer Szylla und Charybdis und auf den Mythos von Pluto und Persephone, der sich
                                                   nach der Legende in Enna abspielte, wie die Lyrik “Purple Anemones” erzählt (in Birds, Beasts and
                                                   Flowers). Außerdem verweilt seine Novelle Sun bei der üppigen Landschaft der mediterranen
                                                   Sizilien, mit dem Ätna am Horizont und mit den Spuren der antiken Bewohner der Insel, die Sikuler.
                                                   Schließlich darf man nicht vergessen, dass D.H. Lawrence viele Werke vom sizilianischen
                                                   Schriftsteller Giovanni Verga übersetzte: von Mastro-Don Gesualdo (1923) bis hin zu Cavalleria
                                                   Rusticana and Other Stories (1928).


                                                   Resumen
                                                   D.H. Lawrence vivió dos años en Sicilia, concretamente en Fontana Vecchia, cerca de Taormina y
                                                   del Etna (donde se cuenta que vivía el Dios Vulcano). Siempre demostró una gran atracción por
                                                   Italia y, en particular, por Sicilia, los lugares que, en sus propias palabras, están más impregnados
                                                   del mito. Su atracción por Sicilia se debe a la escultura de Demetra sentada o Core que había visto
                                                   en el Museo Arqueológico de Siracusa y a los mismos sicilianos, a quienes describe “hermosos y
                                                   potentes como Adonis”, y que parecen poseer y emanar la carnalidad, la energía sexual, que gene-
C. Comellini - Sicily in D.H. Lawrence’s Imagery




                                                   ralmente se relaciona con Pan y Dionisos. La imagen de Sicilia, que recorre toda la producción de
                                                   Lawrence, a menudo se evoca indirectamente con alusiones simbólicas tanto a los volcanes y los
                                                   míticos monstruos sicilianos “Escila y Caribdis”, como al mito de Plutón y Perséfona, que tuvo lugar
                                                   en Enna, como se narra en la lírica “Purple Anemones” (en Bird, Beast and Flowers). Además, su
                                                   novela Sun se recrea en el paisaje exuberante de la Sicilia Mediterránea, con el Etna en el horizonte
                                                   y el rastro de los antiguos habitantes de la isla, los Sículos. Por último, hay que recordar que D.H.
                                                   Lawrence tradujo muchas obras del escritor siciliano Giovanni Verga: de Mastro-Don Gesualdo
                                                   (1923) a Cavalleria Rusticana and Other Stories (1928).




                                46
47
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