Lawrence and the Sea in Cornwall

Abstract

By the time Lawrence travelled to Cornwall at the end of 1915 he had visited the sea for holidays and had lived in a house close to the beach in Fiascherino where, being an admittedly poor swimmer, he enjoyed splashing around in the sea close to the shore. But his reaction to the sea in Cornwall was very different. In both Porthcothan and Zennor he lived within sight of the sea, but his attitudes to it in these two places are markedly different.Therefore, this paper will explore how Lawrence’s thinking about the sea shifted between these two places, and will consider what might have prompted the changes in his perspective. It will also look at Lawrence’s conceptualisation of the sea in Zennor as a pathway between people bringing, in ancient times, the Phoenicians to Cornwall. We will see how this well-known, local legend impacted on Lawrence’s response to Zennor, is reflected in his work and, although often denied, was verified in 2019.