Voli Me Tangere

My aim in this paper is to explore the role that touch plays in D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)'s idea of human regeneration-what he calls resurrection of the body." "Voli me tangere" (touch me) is Lawrence's recasting of Jesus' "noli me tangere" (do not touch me) spoken to Magdalene after his resurrection. The theme of resurrection is one of the most important in Lawrence's writings. For Lawrence, resurrection of the body means the revitalization of human sensuality. It appears as the dominant theme in many of his fiction works, most prominently in The Rainbow (1915), "The Thimble" (1917), "The Horse-dealer's Daughter" (1922), "The Ladybird" (1923), Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), and The Man Who Died (1929). Touch, for Lawrence, is a matter concerned with true human relatedness, the unconscious or spontaneous exchange of inner life between individuals. Lawrence came to believe that touch plays an important role in human regeneration, and it appears prominently in his fiction as a healing power for individuals who have the courage to undergo the death of their old mental self, which will enable them to restore the inner life and achieve their individual organic wholeness.

Because Lawrence's concept of touch and resurrection is mainly psychological in nature, in exploring these areas of his thought, this paper will draw heavily on his writings on psychology, especially Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious (1921) and Fantasia of the Unconscious (1922). Even now, when most of Lawrence's works have been annotated or commented upon numerous times, little research has been devoted on these two works. This is no doubt because of the difficulty of their style and exposition. The two books may be called Lawrence's attempt to adapt his thought to the newly evolving ideas of psychological theory current at the time. Drawing on sources in theosophy, yoga, and contemporary psychology, his expositions seem to be an attempt at a grand synthesis derived from the disparate