Images of Life and Death in Bavarian Gentians

Images of Life and Death in Bavarian Gentians

As the last few days of summer fade away, and September's end brings promises of a cold, sad autumn, the feast of Michaelmas has come and gone, and one can not help but be reminded of D. H. Lawrence's "Bavarian Gentians," a poem that commences by reminiscing of the sad days at the end of September, when summer has finally departed along with its intoxicating and life-giving breath. Like the days that separate summer from autumn, Lawrence's poem, one of his last, is a sad and dreamy read. It seduces audiences with its slow dance with blue death. It speaks to students with its melancholic passion. It breathes life into the last days before death.

A death that comes from tuberculosis is never sudden. The disease progresses slowly until it gradually overcomes its victim, who must wait with a tragic patience for that final moment. At the end of The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann speaks parting words to his protagonist that speak for the ravages of TB and its almost inevitable force, "The wicked dance in which you are caught up will last many a sinful year yet, and we would not wager much that you will come out whole." As a longtime sufferer of TB, Lawrence too was caught up in a "wicked dance," one that must have caused him, like the speaker in the poem, to feel like he was guiding himself "...with the blue, forked torch of this flower / down the darker and darker stairs..." until he finally reached his destination, the "sightless realm where darkness is awake upon dark." The poem itself is a complex web, a trance like dream that suggests both a gravitation toward death and a transcendence beyond it. The speaker speaks of "the halls of Dis" and of travelling down where ...

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...Chapter 7: Prosperine - Glaucus and Scylla." Oct. 2001. http://www.bulfinch.org/fables/bull7.html

Ferris, T. "Bavarian Gentians by D.H. Lawrence." Oct. 2001. http://home.earthlink.net/~rudedog2/bavarianpoem.htm

Lawrence, line 16.

Lawrence lines 17-18.

Lawrence, line 14, line 2.

Lawrence, line 13.

Lawrence, line 11.

This portion of the later version, along with the second stanza, can be found at:

Ferris, T. "Bavarian Gentians by D.H. Lawrence." Oct. 2001. http://home.earthlink.net/~rudedog2/bavarianpoem.htm.

The complete poem, however, can not be found there.

Ferris, T. "Bavarian Gentians by D.H. Lawrence." Oct. 2001. http://home.earthlink.net/~rudedog2/bavarianpoem.htm.

Ferris, T. "Bavarian Gentians by D.H. Lawrence." Oct. 2001. http://home.earthlink.net/~rudedog2/bavarianpoem.htm.