ABSTRACT
Like Byron, and for the same reasons, Lawrence has become a legendary and controversial figure. Lawrence cannot be better introduced than by noting his many resemblances to Byron.2 Both had aristocratic fathers and were brought up by their mothers. Both were regularly called impish or Puckish, loving practical jokes, and yet the anger of both could be terrifying. Unlike Byron's, Lawrence's destiny involved him in actual bloodshed, and though both show a balance of sensibility and soldiership, Lawrence was certainly the more attuned to warring. Lawrence writes his Seven Pillars from this total recognition, which is also behind his deliberate guiding of his own life into ways of humility and degradation accompanied by the birchings less perhaps for remorse than for celebration – or for both entwined – near the anniversary of Deraa. Lawrence's technique of avoiding direct engagement has a fascinating analogy in certain aspects of Cassius Clay's technique in boxing.
