Bavarian+Gentians

Unlike most poetry wherein the speaker is supposed to be regarded in separate sphere as the actual author, "Bavarian Gentians" is so strongly worded that Lawrence's emotion is shown through the text. The gloom of the poem suggests such strong emotion that the reader can't help but see Lawrence's thoughts and feelings. The poem was one of Lawrence's last, written just a short time before his death which sheds light into the imagery spread throughout the entirety of the piece.

By D.H. Lawrence   Not every man has gentians in his house in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas. Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark darkening the daytime torchlike with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom, ribbed and torchlike, with their blaze of darkness spread blue down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto's dark-blue daze, black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue, giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off light, lead me then, lead me the way. Reach me a gentian, give me a torch! Let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of a flower down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness down the way Persephone goes, just now, in first-frosted September to the sightless realm where darkness is married to dark and Persephone herself is but a voice, as a bride a gloom invisible enfolded in the deeper dark of the arms of Pluto as he ravishes her once again and pierces her once more with his passion of the utter dark among the splendour of black-blue torches, shedding fathomless darkness on the nuptials.
 * Bavarian Gentians**

Bavarian gentians, tall and dark, but dark darkening the daytime torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom, ribbed hellish flowers erect, with their blaze of darkness spread blue, blown flat into points, by the heavy white draught of the day.

The common element Lawrence uses in his poetry, that of duality, is hard to ignore in "Bavarian Gentians". It begins with the imagery of light with the request of a torch in order to descend into a dark underworld that only becomes darker with progression. The bride, Persephone is the daughter of earth and day while her groom, Pluto represents death and night.

There is repeated imagery, particularly in the second half of the poem, where the reader becomes engulfed in "the dark" and "the blue". The underlying theme of life and death explained through light and dark becomes quite obvious towards the end. As the speaker descends into the abyss of death, "down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness", until he eventually reaches the "sightless realm where darkness is married to dark". Contrastingly, as he nears death he is using a flower, the symbol of life, as a torch. Perhaps this is Lawrence's message that there is eternal life in death itself. Lawrence alludes to Persephone, a goddess who was ravaged by Pluto who forced her to stay in his underworld after she ate pomegranate seeds, the food of the deceased. Interestingly, Lawrence refers to Persephone and Demeter from Greek mythology, but also references Pluto from Roman mythology. Why?

** Back to the D. H. Lawrence Page **