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Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf. Born 25th January 1882 to Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth 1895 death of her mother – first mental breakdown 1897 death of her sister Stella 1904 death of Leslie Stephen – second mental breakdown 1906 death of her brother Thoby

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Virginia Woolf

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  1. Virginia Woolf • Born 25th January 1882 to Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth • 1895 deathofhermother – first mentalbreakdown • 1897 deathofhersister Stella • 1904 deathof Leslie Stephen – secondmentalbreakdown • 1906 deathofherbrotherThoby • 1905 Bloomsbury Group including Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, John MaynardKeynes, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, LyttonStrachey, E. M. Forster, Desmond MacCarthy • 1912 marries Leonard Woolf - thirdmentalbreakdown • 1917 Hogarth Press • 28 March 1941 drownedherself in the riverOuse

  2. Novels • 1915 The Voyage Out • 1919 Night and Day • 1922 Jacob’s Room • 1925 MrsDalloway • 1927 To the Lighthouse • 1928 Orlando • 1931 The Waves • 1937 The Years • 1941 Between the Acts

  3. To the Lighthouse • A story of a marriage and a childhood • A lamentation of loss and grief for loved, dead parents. An Elegy, as Woolf called it • Less apparently it is about the English class-structure and its radical break with Victorianism after WW1. • Demonstrates the need for an art form which could adapt to and register that break.

  4. Woolf on Tothe Lighthouse • 24 May 1925 Diary: “This is going to be fairly short: to have father’s character done complete in it; & mothers; & St Ives; & childhood; & all the usual things I try to put in – life, death, etc. But the centre is father’s character, sitting in a boat, reciting We perished, each alone, while he crushes a dying mackerel”. • “I mean nothing by the Lighthouse.[ …] I saw that all sorts of feelings would accrue to this, but I refused to think them out, and trusted that people would make it the deposit for their own emotions – which they have done, one thinking it means one thing another another. I can’t manage Symbolism except in this vague, generalized way”.

  5. Momentsof being1 • Moments of being are moments in which we experience an intense sense of a reality that is normally hidden beneath the cotton wool of our ordinary, everyday experience. These are moments of special significance which have the power to survive in memory and which are normally covered over by the bustle and rush of active daily living.

  6. Momentsof being2 • The momentsofbeing, sometimeschargedwithrevelationsofastonishingintensity, are threaded in amongscenes, oftypicaldays and occasions, describing the physicalenvironment, the social forces, the family and personal attachments and passions, whichshape the outer self. The momentsofintensitymay come […] fromsomething […] apparentlytrivial. Such a moment for Virginia Woolf isoneof the recognition and the revelation – the valueofwhichisindependentof the objectthatiscatalyst – and, assuch, isverycloseto Joyce’s notionofepiphany.

  7. V. Woolf, A Writer’s Diary, 15 Oct 1923 • The doubtful point is, I think, the character of Mrs. Dalloway. It may be too stiff, too glittering and tinselly. But then I can bring innumerable other characters to her support. I wrote the 100th page today. Of course, I've only been feeling my way into it--up till last August anyhow. It took me a year's groping to discover what I call my tunnelling process, by which I tell the past by installments, as I have need of it. This is my prime discovery so far; and the fact that I've been so long finding it proves, I think, how false Percy Lubbock's doctrine is-- that you can do this sort of thing consciously. One feels about in a state of misery--indeed I made up my mind one night to abandon the book--& then one touches the hidden spring.

  8. Woolf and Characterization: Tunnelling • 30 August 1923--I have no time to describe my plans. I should say a good deal about The Hours [which became Mrs. Dalloway], and my discovery: how I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters: I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humor, depth. The idea is that the caves shall connect and each come to daylight at the present moment.

  9. Woolf and Characterization: Tunnelling • Sometimes the time stream that the narration has been following is interrupted in order to follow some connection back to an earlier episode. It is as if the stream goes underground to follow a hidden network of connections and meanings not because it is a realistic rendering of the movements of the character’s consciousness but in order for the reader to be informed of the hidden, past experiences of the character that are needed in order to understand more deeply the significance of some present experience or thought. It is as if behind the present moment of consciousness there lies a vast system of caves and the narrator follows a route through some of these so that the reader is gradually more and more able to appreciate what stands beyond the surface and the open mouths of the caves where they come to the surface at any present moment.

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