Virginia Woolf

1. Virginia Woolf London 1882 - 1941

2. 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).

3. 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.

4. 1912 – married Leonard Woolf. • 1915 – wrote her first novel “The voyage out”, a rather conventional novel, where she still followed the traditionalpattern. • At this time she had another nervous breakdownand 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”

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

6. HER CONTRIBUTION TO MODERNIST NOVEL • Like Joyce, she was interested in ... • exploring the complex inner world of feelings and memories. • She sawhuman personalityas a continuous shift of impressions and emotions. • For her the most important thingwas 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 understandingduring the characters’ daily lives when they can see reality as it reallyis, behind appearances. • The result is thatthe 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 characterand therefore it becomes subjective

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.