Drama and the Dramatic

Lawrence was a prolific writer of plays, and this chapter reviews what he was interested in when he wrote them, giving attention to all eight full-length plays, but concentrating on his mining trilogy, A Collier’s Friday Night, The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd and The Daughter in Law. It examines what is meant by ‘the dramatic’ (as opposed to the ‘theatrical’) and situates Lawrence’s plays within his theoretical interests, for example in ritual, and play, and asks about the differences between novel and drama, as Lawrence saw these, and how the theoretical distinctions work out in practice.