Forms of Expression in Sons and Lovers

Abstract Sons and Lovers has been considered a breakthrough from the shallow aestheticism of The White Peacock and overripe Wagnerianism of The Trespasser to a “triumph of realism “ in which Lawrence mastered his own painful experience. But to take Sons and Lovers as simply “realistic “ is to neglect much of the novel’s richness—or to expand the concept of realism beyond recognizable limits. Critics who put a high premium on realism tend to identify the completion of Lawrence’s apprenticeship with the culmination of his career and to regard subsequent departures with suspicion. Graham Holderness theorizes a full range of stylistic development between the aesthetic experiment of The White Peacock and “the triumph of realism “ in Sons and Lovers, while Nancy Kushigian condenses the entire pattern of Lawrence’s early development into this one novel.