248- ] English Literature , Virginia Woolf

248- ] English Literature

Virginia Woolf 

 Historical feminism

According to the 2007 book Feminism: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan by Bhaskar A. Shukla, "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer." In 1928, Woolf took a grassroots approach to informing and inspiring feminism. She addressed undergraduate women at the ODTAA Society at Girton College, Cambridge, and the Arts Society at Newnham College, with two papers that eventually became A Room of One's Own (1929).

Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because men held disproportionate legal and economic power, as well as the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield— have explored "the given".

Views

In her lifetime, Woolf was outspoken on many topics that were considered controversial, some of which are now considered progressive, others regressive. She was an ardent feminist at a time when women's rights were barely recognised, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and a pacifist when chauvinism was popular. On the other hand, she has been criticised for her views on class and race in her private writings and published works. Like many of her contemporaries, some of her writing is now considered offensive. As a result, she is considered polarising, a revolutionary feminist and socialist hero or a purveyor of hate speech.

Works such as A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) are frequently taught as icons of feminist literature in courses that would be very critical of some of her views expressed elsewhere. She has also been the recipient of considerable homophobic and misogynist criticism.

Humanist views

Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with fellow members of the Bloomsbury group E. M. Forster and G. E. Moore, as a humanist. Both her parents were prominent agnostic atheists although a significant influence was her aunt Caroline Stephen. Caroline Stephen was a convert to Quakerism, the Religious Society of Friends, and was a strong English exponent for its peace testimony in 1890. Her father, Leslie Stephen, had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion and abhorred military service. Stephen was also President of the West London Ethical Society, an early humanist organisation, and helped to found the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896. Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, wrote the book Agnostic Women (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.

Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to Ethel Smyth, she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair". Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.

She thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.

— Woolf characterises Clarissa Dalloway, the title character of Mrs Dalloway

Controversies

Hermione Lee cites a number of extracts from Woolf's writings that many, including Lee, would consider offensive, and these criticisms can be traced back as far as those of Wyndham Lewis and Q. D. Leavis in the 1920s and 1930s. Other authors provide more nuanced contextual interpretations and stress the complexity of her character and the apparent inherent contradictions in analysing her apparent flaws. She could certainly be off-hand, rude and even cruel in her dealings with other authors, translators and biographers, such as her treatment of Ruth Gruber.[citation needed] Some authors, including David Daiches, Brenda Silver, Alison Light and other postcolonial feminists, dismiss her (and modernist authors in general) as privileged, elitist, classist, racist, and antisemitic.

Woolf's tendentious expressions, including prejudicial feelings against disabled people, have often been the topic of academic criticism:

The first quotation is from a diary entry of September 1920 and runs: "The fact is the lower classes are detestable." The remainder follow the first in reproducing stereotypes standard to upper-class and upper-middle class life in the early 20th century: "imbeciles should certainly be killed"; "Jews" are greasy; a "crowd" is both an ontological "mass" and is, again, "detestable"; "Germans" are akin to vermin; some "baboon faced intellectuals" mix with "sad green dressed negroes and negresses, looking like chimpanzees" at a peace conference; Kensington High St. revolts one's stomach with its innumerable "women of incredible mediocrity, drab as dishwater".

Antisemitism

Often accused of antisemitism, the treatment of Judaism and Jews by Woolf is far from straightforward. She was happily married to an irreligious Jewish man (Leonard Woolf) who had no connection with or knowledge of his people while she generally characterised Jewish characters with negative stereotypes. For instance, she described some of the Jewish characters in her work in terms that suggested they were physically repulsive or dirty. On the other hand, she could criticise her own views: "How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewellery, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all" (Letter to Ethel Smyth 1930). These attitudes have been construed to reflect, not so much antisemitism, but social status; she married outside her social class. Leonard, "a penniless Jew from Putney", lacked the material status of the Stephens and their circle.

While travelling on a cruise to Portugal, she protested at finding "a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them". Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." Her 1938 short story, written during Hitler's rule, "The Duchess and the Jeweller" (originally titled "The Duchess and the Jew") has been considered antisemitic.

Some believe that Woolf and her husband Leonard came to despise and fear the 1930s' fascism and antisemitism. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism and what Woolf described as a recurring propensity among patriarchal societies to enforce repressive societal mores by violence. And yet, her 1938 story "The Duchess and the Jeweller" was so deeply hateful in its depiction of Jews that Harper's Bazaar asked her to modify it before publication; she reluctantly complied.

Legacy

Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Gabriel García Márquez,[h] and Toni Morrison.[i] Her iconic image is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see Fry (1913)) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see Ray (1937)) at 55. More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than of any other person. Her image is ubiquitous and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.

Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations devoted to her, such as the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour.

In January 2025 Sophie Oliver, a lecturer of modernism at the University of Liverpool, discovered two previously unknown poems by Woolf, at the Harry Ransom Center, at the University of Texas at Austin. Oliver estimated the date of the poems, which reveal "a different shade" to Woolf, as sometime after March 1927.

Monuments and memorials

In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, together with an exhibit depicting her accompanied by the quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary. The University of Kent also named a college after her—Woolf College, which was built in 2008.

Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London, where she lived between 1924 and 1939. She is also honored at Tavistock Square by the Woolf & Whistle, a bar which is located near where her house once stood.

In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".

A campaign was launched in 2018 to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond-upon-Thames, where she lived for 10 years. In November 2022 the statue, created by sculptor Laury Dizengremel, was unveiled. It depicts Woolf on a bench overlooking the River Thames and is the first full-size statue of Woolf.

Portrayals

Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf. Kidman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

Susan Sellers's novel Vanessa and Virginia (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.

Priya Parmar's 2014 novel Vanessa and Her Sister also examined the Stephen sisters' relationship during the early years of their association with what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.

In the 2014 novel The House at the End of Hope Street, Woolf is featured as one of the women who has lived in the titular house.

Virginia is portrayed by both Lydia Leonard and Catherine McCormack in the BBC's three-part drama series Life in Squares (2015).

The 2018 film Vita and Virginia depicts the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Woolf, portrayed by Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki respectively.

In 2022, an opera of The Hours by composer Kevin Puts and librettist Greg Pierce premiered at the Metropolitan Opera to acclaim.

Adaptations

Sally Potter adapted Orlando (1928) for the screen in 1992, starring Tilda Swinton.

Woolf's play Freshwater (1935) is the basis for a 1994 chamber opera, Freshwater, by Andy Vores.

Woolf Works, a contemporary ballet inspired by Woolf's novels, letters, essays and diaries, premiered in May 2015.

The final segment of the 2018 London Unplugged is adapted from the short story Kew Gardens.

Septimus and Clarissa, a stage adaptation of Mrs Dalloway, was created and produced by the New York-based ensemble Ripe Time in 2011. It was adapted by Ellen McLaughlin.

Selected works

Woolf's most notable works include the following.

Novels

The Voyage Out (1915)

Jacob's Room (1922)

Mrs Dalloway (1925)

To the Lighthouse (1927)

Orlando: A Biography (1928)

The Waves (1931)

The Years (1937)

Between the Acts (1941)

Essays and essay collections

"Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (1924)

"Modern Fiction" (1925)

The Common Reader (1925)

"The Art of Fiction" (1927)

"The New Biography" (1927)

A Room of One's Own (1929)

The Common Reader: Second Series (1932)

Three Guineas (1938)

Other

"Kew Gardens" (1919)

Flush: A Biography (1933)

Freshwater (1935)