Four talks by Michael Black 1: Phaedra and knowledge of the self
D. H. Lawrence felt that a man and woman committed to a permanent relationship need to keep a distance between them, so that ' that which is perfectly ourselves may take place within us.' Racine's Phaedra, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Lawrence's Lady Chattcrley's Lover are stages in a developing concern with love, marriage and fidelity which always returns to a basic theme: the nature and needs of the self.
(Emma Bovary and the dream of self-fulfilment: 30 August)