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Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf. a nd To The Lighthouse. What do you think of when you hear the words “Victorian” and “modern”?. Second half of 19 th century: Darwin: theory of evolution Freud: theory of the unconscious Immensely influential in changing human thought

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Virginia Woolf

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  1. Virginia Woolf and To The Lighthouse

  2. What do you think of when you hear the words “Victorian” and “modern”?

  3. Second half of 19th century: • Darwin: theory of evolution • Freud: theory of the unconscious • Immensely influential in changing human thought • Call into question the idea that religion is to be relied upon for all answers and that humans are in control of themselves • “In or about December, 1910, human character changed.” • Virginia Woolf

  4. 1882-1941 • Life spans two World Wars and the collapse of the English empire • Movie “The Hours” explores her life

  5. Family • Father, Leslie Stephen: an eminent Victorian literary critic and an agnostic(Woolf herself was anti-religious). Educated Virginia at home. • Mother, Julia Stephen: a noted Victorian beauty. Echoes of her in Mrs. Ramsay • Sister Vanessa: painter and leader of the English avant-garde

  6. Later Life • Suffered a series of nervous breakdowns beginning in 1904, the year her father died • Died of suicide by drowning • May have suffered from bipolar disorder

  7. Clive Bell (April 1941, shortly after Woolf's final disappearance.):"I'm not sure whether the Times will by now have announced that Virginia is missing. I'm afraid there is not the slightest doubt that she drowned herself about noon last Friday. She had left letters... Her stick and footprints were found by the edge of the river. For some days, of course, we hoped against hope that she had wandered crazily away and might be discovered in a barn or a village shop. But by now all hope is abandoned; only, as the body has not been found, she cannot be considered dead legally.” • Bell wrote that it had become evident some weeks earlier that Woolf "was in for another of those long and agonising breakdowns of which she had had several already". "The prospect of two years' insanity, then to wake up to the sort of world which another two years of war will have made, was such that I can't feel sure that she was unwise," he added.

  8. Important Places to Woolf • St. Ives in Cornwall • London

  9. The Bloomsbury Group • Bohemian lifestyle • Defying convention • Virginia married a member, Leonard Woolf, in 1912

  10. The Bloomsbury Group • Bohemian lifestyle • Defying convention • Virginia married a member, Leonard Woolf, in 1912

  11. Partnership with Leonard • She and Leonard founded Hogarth Press, which became a successful business • Female writer, publisher, literary critic • Like most women of her generation, greatly impacted by WW I • Many of her friends were killed or wounded

  12. Inter-War Period (1914-1933) • She did her major creative and critical work • During this time major fascist and socialist dictatorships arise on the Continent: far away echoes of this and the war in TTL (weather imagery)

  13. Kew Gardens Questions • If this is an experiment, what is Woolf experimenting with? What is she trying to represent? • What stands out to you in the story? • What is the point of view? • What happens in this story? • What themes or ideas can you find in it?

  14. Kew Gardens

  15. Woolf’s Style • You will HATE this book….if you expect it to be like any novel you’ve ever read • Woolf didn’t care about writing something like what had been written over the last 100 years • Wanted to include what those novels had left out • Aiming at something NEW…and she achieved it

  16. What if a novel were a painting? • Experiment Question: • Can linear sentences in a linear work, such as a novel, do what a photo, movie, or painting does more easily: convey the sense of a multitude of thoughts, feelings, and actions taking place all at the same time?

  17. Renoir’sDancing at the Moulin de Galette

  18. Woolf uses stream-of-consciousness • Interior monologue: “Stream of consciousness” • Term comes from William James, philosopher and psychologist • James argued that consciousness is not a chain of ideas, but a river or stream, where components are seamlessly merged • Best known example: Final 50 pages of James Joyce’s Ulysses…unpunctuated, because we don’t think in sentences

  19. Woolf uses stream-of-consciousness • She is emulating a painter trying to reproduce an exact moment in time fully, but doing it in novel form • Woolf said that s-o-c enabled her to: • show what our interior life is really like • give the reader a deeper intimacy with her characters • To The Lighthouse: collective stream-of-consciousness. • One voice flows into another! (Because while I am thinking thoughts you are thinking thoughts, right? So how do you represent that?)

  20. Woolf’s Theory of the Novel • She is a woman applying herself to a genre dominated by men • Believed a woman novelist had to create her own form • Felt Jane Austen was one woman who had done that • Believed the conventional commercial novel had become a cliché.

  21. Woolf’s goal… • Convey consciousness, particularly feminine consciousness, which she felt had been left out of earlier novels: • Emotion • Thought • Insight

  22. Woolf’s Concerns in TTL (1927) • Time: moving away from being bound to a strict sequence of events (so…no more plot line). • Structure of the Novel • Section 1 (“The Window”; 122 pgs.): takes place on one evening, between 6:00 PM and dinner. In that time, we meet an entire family and their guests, but spend most of our time in their minds. • Section 2 (“Time Passes”; 20 pgs.): 10 years pass. Primary characters: the house itself and time. • Section 3 (“The Lighthouse”; 65 pgs.): Influence of memory on our lives; how the present can be displaced by the past. One day.

  23. A novel of ideas • How much tolerance do humans have for truth? Who faces reality and who avoids it? • How are men and women alike and different? • What is the role of the artist in society? • Is marriage essential for a full life? • How do we balance our need for solitude with our need for society? • How does nature influence us? • What is love?

  24. Modernism is interested in • The poetic nature of the sub-conscious life: • Importance of symbols, images • The psychological • How our sub-conscious challenges our rational, real-world expectations

  25. Modernist Novel • Modernists argued that the novel needed to be more than popular entertainment • Examples of modernists you have read: • F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) • Robert Frost • T.S. Eliot (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”)

  26. Künstlerroman • Similar to a Bildungsroman (novel of education or coming of age) • Translated as “artist’s novel” • Novel about an artist’s growth to maturity

  27. To the Lighthouse Pre-Reading • Bring post-its tomorrow if you have a library copy • Read “The Window,” sections 1-3. • Resist the temptation to use Spark Notes. It’s OK if you’re confused. As an experiment, read it as she meant it to be read just to see what you notice/understand. You will understand more than you think you are! • When finished, write 2 paragraphs in your comp book. • Paragraph 1: Describe the Ramsay family. • Paragraph 2: Describe your experience of reading this text.

  28. One of Monet’s Lilypads

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