That E.M. Forster gave only two cheers for democracy, but three for D.H. Lawrence, on the occasion of Lawrence's death, is well-known. Forster was upset that the lowbrows Lawrence scandalised had joined forces with the highbrows he bored to denigrate 'the greatest imaginative novelist' of his generation. A bored highbrow, T.S. Eliot, at once protested that he didn't know what was meant by 'greatest', 'imaginative' or 'novelist'. Twenty years later, F.R. Leavis was still having to contend with Eliot's insistence that Lawrence had been severely handicapped by his lack of 'intellectual and social training'. Lawrence probably scandalises more highbrows than lowbrows these days, but not as many as he bores.

LRB 14 September 1989 | PDF Download