SOURCE: "A Defense of the Second Half of The Rainbow: Its Structure and Characterization," in The D. H. Lawrence Review, Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer, 1980, pp. 150-60.

In the following essay, Rosenzweig contends that the second half of The Rainbow is not aesthetically inferior to the first, but merely reflects developments in the novel's theme through changes in style and characterization.

Both the pioneering sense of character in The Rainbow and its intricacy of form organic to such characterization are now largely appreciated. The second half of the novel, depicting the development of Ursula Brangwen, has often been singled out for criticism as inferior because it seems to depart from the unique form and vision of the first half. For instance, Marvin Mudrick writes [in Spectrum 3, Winter 1959] that "much of the last half of The Rainbow seems to have been written with a slackening of Lawrence's attention to proportion and...