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THE MICHIGAN QUARTERLY REVIEW
Man's Fate and The Royal Way echo this existential conception of Lawrence as does the
principal character of Terrence Rattigan's play,
Ross. Like Robert Bolt's screen-play of Lawrence of Arabia, Ross is based on the events of
Lawrence's life but the episodes show a violent
alteration of history to suit artistic ends. In
Rattigan's play, as in Bolt's film, Lawrence's
external heroism is set in the context of agonizing self-doubt and dry-eyed seriousness. The
defenses in playfulness that Lawrence so carefully raised are stripped away and forgotten.
For the audience fifty years after, the great adventure has been turned into a mock-Shakespearean allegory of man in a lonely universe.
It is hard to recapture the sense of Lawrence's achievement that caused his contemporaries to regard him with such awe. B. H. Liddell Hart thought Lawrence more interesting
and gifted than Churchill, and he knew both
men well. Churchill himself called Lawrence
"one of the greatest beings alive in our time."
Even the publication of an abusive "biographical enquiry" designed to expose Lawrence as a
fraud and poseur did little to diminish the flow
of admiration. "People persist in romancing
about him," Bernard Shaw wrote. "They will
keep on at it until the end of history." Between
the wars, he provided the stuff for a soothing
myth about the world war; his contemporaries
could see in him an embodiment of individual
valor that had been obscured in the carnage of
the trenches. Shortly after his death, he was
memorialized in an epic poem praising the humane virtues in a way reminiscent of the elegies of an earlier day:
All who know him now
Attest his goodness: never have they known,
They say, such goodness in one man,
Such selfless serving, generosity,
Such dearth of every mean or petty vice,
Such lack of pride except in common worth.
Today, we denigrate his real achievements but
elevate him to the role of soldier on the battleground of the soul.
To make sense of the kaleidoscope of conflicting views presented to us by history and literature, we must clarify the events in which
Lawrence took part, a difficult task and one
that sometimes leads to a confusing haggling
over details. In T. E. Lawrence: An Arab
View, Suleiman Mousa gathers a great variety
of such details in an attempt to destroy the
Lawrence myth. He is offended by Lawrence's
egotism and has worked hard to restore the historical record to its proper proportions. Seven
Pillars of Wisdom, a sympathetic reader has re
cently written, is of extraordinary value as a
biographical document: "As a source for the
history of the Arab revolt, on the other hand,
the book must be used with caution; one runs
the risk of encountering a view that is poetic
rather than historical." As an Arab patriot, Mr.
Mousa fails to appreciate this distinction between history and poetry. He is angered by
Lawrence's "poetic" view and rightly claims
that the achievement of the Arab Revolt has
been smothered in misplaced admiration for
Lawrence's minor military exploits.
To those acquainted with recent literary and
biographical treatments of Lawrence, such
phrases as "uncrowned King of Arabia" merely
reflect the early adulation of the man. To such
readers, Mr. Mousa's strong reaction against
them comes as something of a surprise. But a
closer look at the current popular conception
of the man seems to justify his anger. In an
otherwise well-informed essay in Esquire, for
example, we find the astonishing claim that
Sherif Feisal, the commander of the Arab
Northern Army, was Lawrence's "great friend
and ally"! Lawrence himself is described as "a
mysterious British agent, operating alone in the
most exotic corner of World War I, who,
dressed as an Arab, inspired the desert tribes to
revolt, led them in a brilliant guerilla campaign
that drove the Turks out of Arabia, and took
Damascus in triumph at the head of his devoted Bedouin army." Such preposterous
claims suggest that Lawrence was alone in an
effort that was in fact supported by many European advisors and more than three hundred
thousand British troops. Most outrageous, from
Mr. Mousa's point of view, is the assumption
that Lawrence was the commander of the Arab
armies instead of the active subordinate to
Feisal that he really was. Perhaps he can take
some consolation in the fact that Sir Edmund
Allenby, the commander of the entire theatre
of war, is the subject of a recent biography
subtitled Lawrence's General. In such works,
perspective disappears and Lawrence bids fair
to dwarf the memory of all other participants
in the First World War.
If Mr. Mousa had reflected a little longer an
Lawrence's exotic personality, he might be less
angry. Surely the proper perspective is achieved
in Lawrence's early letters about his experience: "I act as a sort of advisor to Sherif
Feisal, and as we are on the best of terms, the
job is a wide and pleasant one." That Feisal
knew little of warfare at the beginning of the
Revolt must be admitted, and there can be no
question of Lawrence's importance in coordi
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