The Developing Reception of D.H. Lawrence’s Sketches of Etruscan Places – a Text for Ecocriticism

Ecocriticism is very wide in its scope and this paper will focus on the branch of ecocriticism that analyses imaginative texts and argues that such texts can provide a regenerative and revitalising message for the world. Ecocriticism did not take off as a coherent movement until the 1990s but critics found valuable messages in Sketches of Etruscan Places from the early years following its publication in 1932. This paper will examine the developing reception of the book from the outset with particular reference to its ecological value, not what Lawrence saw as its value purely as another of his travel books.