SOURCE: "After Not So Strange Gods in The Rainbow," in English Studies, London, Vol. 63, 1982, pp. 220-30.

In the following essay, Kennedy explores Lawrence's use of religious language and the attitude he displays toward Christianity in The Rainbow.

I

The Rainbow can be seen as a mythic/religious novel, yet it does not seem to have a clear shaping myth at its centre; and the exploration of a changing Christian spirituality is only one of the novel's many aspects. Even so, all the central characters use a certain kind of religious language to express a variety of experiences that are profoundly important to them. We know that this novel owes a good deal to the Bible (especially to the Book of Genesis) and, remembering that Lawrence called the Bible a 'great confused novel', we may at times ask whether The Rainbow, with its biblical analogues, has not taken a...