Virginia Woolf London 1882 1941 1882 born in

Virginia Woolf London 1882 - 1941

• • • • 1882 – born in London; grew up in a literary and intellectual atmosphere: her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was a celebrated literary critic and a friend of many influential writers of the day including Henry James; had a happy and carefree childhood: her parents encouraged her to read, study and to express her ideas; educated at home: she had free access to her father’s rich library; spent her summers at St Ives in Cornwall and. . . the sea remained central to her art, as a symbol. It represented two things : on the one end, it represented what is harmonious and feminine; on the other, it was also a destructive, menacing symbol of death. 1895 – at the age of 13, she suffered from her first nervous breakdown caused by her mother’s death, which she defined “the greatest tragedy that could have happened”. The situation deteriorated even further when her half-brothers started to show sexual interests in her. As a consequence, Virginia changed from an outgoing and happy girl into a shy one. She began to be in revolt against her father’s aggressive and tyrannical character and his idealisation of the domesticated woman ( i. e. a woman who enjoys spending time at home doing domestic things).

• 1904 : after her father’s death , she moved to a house in the Bloomsbury area of London with the sister Vanessa and her brothers Thoby and Adrian. • The house became a meeting place of a circle of intellectuals , including. . . • the writer and social reformer Leonard Woolf, who would become Virginia’s husband. • The group, which became known as “THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP”, was made up of writers, painters and literary and art critics. • Their aim was : • to rid (= to free) people of the constraints , the bounds and taboos of Victorian society, oppressed by the ideals of morality and respectability. • This group shared a common set of values : – subjectivity. – aesthetic enjoyment. – personal ties of affection. – intellectual honesty.

• 1912 – married Leonard Woolf. • 1915 – wrote her first novel “The voyage out”, a rather conventional novel, where she still followed the traditional pattern. • At this time she had another nervous breakdown and attempted suicide by taking drugs. • 1917 – the Woolfs bought “Hoggart Press”, a small printing company and converted this business from printing into publishing. • NOVELS • 1925 : “Mrs Dalloway” • 1927 : “To the lighthouse” • 1928 : “Orlando” • 1931 “The Waves”

• FEMINIST WORKS • She was also involved in feminist movement and • in October 1929 she gave two lectures at Cambridge which were later published with the title “A room of one’s own”. • This work had a great influence on the feminist movements of the 1960 s and 1970 s. • In it she insisted on the inseparable link between. . • economic independence and artistic independence, • criticised the male domination of society and. . . • urged women to gain their economic independence if they wanted to reach their goals. • World War II increased her terror of losing her mind. • In the end, she could not bear it any longer and chose the only possible death for her: • in 1941 – she drowned herself in the river Ouse near her London house. She was fifty –nine years old.

• • • HER CONTRIBUTION TO MODERNIST NOVEL Like Joyce, she was interested in. . . exploring the complex inner world of feelings and memories. She saw human personality as a continuous shift of impressions and emotions. For her the most important thing was not the external reality, what human beings do, but. . . the manifestations of the “MOMENTS OF BEING” (called by Joyce “epiphanies”): i. e. , the sudden spiritual manifestations of self-realization. Those rare moments of clear, deep and sudden understanding during the characters’ daily lives when they can see reality as it really is, behind appearances. The result is that the perspective, from which the writer looks at the world, at the people, is now different: it is no longer from the outside , but from inside the character and therefore it becomes subjective

• • • REJECTION OF TRADITION She rejects the traditional form of the novel with. . . a plot, a development in time, a definite setting. The events that traditionally form a story are no longer important. What matters now is the impression they make on the characters who experience them. In her novels, therefore, . . . the omniscient narrator disappears, the point of view is inside the character’s mind through. . . flashbacks, associations of ideas and momentary impressions presented as a continuous flux.

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE • • • To convey the characters emotions and feelings, she uses the interior monologue, but. . . unlike Joyce, who makes also use of the extreme interior monologue, where the characters’ flow of thoughts is presented in an incoherent and syntactically unorthodox way, she never lets her characters thoughts flow freely , out of control and maintains a logical and grammatical organization. Her fiction is often characterised by two levels of narration: the level of external events arranged in chronological order and the level of the flux of thoughts arranged according to the association of ideas. External objects and events are often the counterparts of the internal feelings or emotions and therefore they take on a symbolic meaning.

• • For example in “To the lighthouse” the journey to the lighthouse is the counterpart of the internal journey of self-awareness of the characters. The lighthouse itself , which can be considered the central symbol of the novel, represents the contradictory aspects of life through its alternation of light and darkness. The focus is no more on external events but on how events and characters are experienced. Characters are presented through the way they are seen by other characters. So, for example, Mrs Ramsay appears a different person according to the different people she meets , to some she appears a loveable and attractive character, to others she is a tyrannical character. The same event can be perceived in different ways and doesn’t have a single objective reality.