Abstract

As a controversial writer, D. H. Lawrence has long occupied a contested yet significant place in the history of British literature. Englishness is one of the recurring themes in his fiction, and in “England, My England” it is dramatized through the troubled marriage between Winifred and Egbert. Focusing on their conflict, this article examines the multiple dimensions of Englishness in the story, and argues that Lawrence refuses to romanticize either rural England or traditional Englishness. He presents Englishness through the tension between practical responsibility and aesthetic sensitivity, between rural tradition and urban civilization, and between war and freedom. These tensions show that Englishness in the tale is a complex cultural formation marked by vitality, contradiction, and loss. In this sense, Lawrence’s contribution lies in recasting Englishness as an unstable, internally conflicted inheritance rather than an idealized national tradition.

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