by Pericles Lewis In Virginia Woolf‘s novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925), the trauma of the war plays an even more explicit role than in Jacob’s Room (1922), as one of its two protagonists, Septimus Smith, is a veteran suffering severe bouts of mental illness (which Woolf modeled on her own experiences). He has visions of his… Continue Reading Mrs. Dalloway
Category: Virginia Woolf
Jacob’s Room
by Pericles Lewis Virginia Woolf‘s novel Jacob’s Room (1922) concerns the difficulty, especially for his mother, of making posthumous sense of the life of Jacob Flanders, a young man who dies in the first world war. (Flanders was a region of Belgium where the British sustained many of their heaviest casualties). The novel follows Jacob’s… Continue Reading Jacob’s Room
Monday or Tuesday
By Lauren Holmes Monday or Tuesday, published in 1921, is the only collection of Virginia Woolf’s short stories that appeared during her lifetime, though she wrote stories and sketches throughout her life. It contains eight short stories: A Haunted House A Society Monday or Tuesday An Unwritten Novel (first published in 1920) The String Quartet… Continue Reading Monday or Tuesday
Night and Day
Although Virginia Woolf‘s first novel, The Voyage Out (1915) had tentatively embraced modernist techniques, her second, Night and Day (1919), returned to many Victorian conventions. The young modernist writer Katherine Mansfield thought that Night and Day contained “a lie in the soul” because it failed to refer to the war or recognize what it had… Continue Reading Night and Day
The Voyage Out
by Anthony Domestico Virginia Woolf began her first novel sometime during the summer of 1906 or the fall of 1907, and did not finish it until nearly nine years later in the first year of World War I on March 26, 1915.[1] Originally entitled “Melymbrosia,” the work underwent a number of technical and thematic changes… Continue Reading The Voyage Out
Virginia Woolf
Biography by Jessica Svendsen and Pericles Lewis Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English novelist, essayist, biographer, and feminist. Woolf was a prolific writer, whose modernist style changed with each new novel.[1] Her letters and memoirs reveal glimpses of Woolf at the center of English literary culture during the Bloomsbury era. Woolf represents a historical moment… Continue Reading Virginia Woolf
Woolf’s Reading of Joyce’s Ulysses, 1922-1941
by James Heffernan, Dartmouth College This page is a continuation of Woolf’s Reading of Joyce’s Ulysses, 1918-1920 In February of 1922, just after James Joyce‘s Ulysses appeared, Virginia Woolf wrote to her sister Vanessa, who was then in Paris: “for Gods sake make friends with Joyce. I particularly want to know what he’s like.”[1] So… Continue Reading Woolf’s Reading of Joyce’s Ulysses, 1922-1941
Woolf’s Reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses, 1918-1920
by James Heffernan, Dartmouth College More than twenty years ago, Suzette Henke challenged what was then the reigning view of Virginia Woolf’s response to James Joyce’s Ulysses. To judge this response by Woolf’s most damning comments on the book and its author, Henke argued, is to overlook what she said about it in her reading… Continue Reading Woolf’s Reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses, 1918-1920