( 1 8 ) V i r g i n i a W o o l f a n d K a t h e r i n e M a n s f i e l d
T h e 2 0 th C e n t u r y
[See Topic 13]
T h e 2 0 th C e n t u r y F i c t i o n
[See Topic 15]
‘ B l o o m sb u r y G r o u p ’
-named for the unfashionable London district of Bloomsbury
-= an informal group of the Woolfs’ lit. and artistic friends gathering in their house
-incl. Lytton Strachey (1880 – 1932, a biographer), John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946, an economist), Roger Fry (1866 – 1934, an art critic), Duncan Grant (1885 – 1978, a painter), E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell (1879 – 1961, V. Woolf’s sister and a painter), and Clive Bell (1881 – 1964, Vanessa’s husband and an art critic)
-shared ‘a taste for discussion in pursuit of truth and a contempt for conventional ways of thinking and feeling, contempt for conventional morals’
-the prime ‘Bloomsbury’ texts:
(a)L. Strachey’s Eminent Victorians (1918): a coll. of succinct biographies of Cardinal Manning (1808 – 92, an E Cath. Cardinal), Florence Nightingale (1820 – 1910, a pioneering nurse), T. Arnold, and General Charles Gordon (1833 – 85, a Br. army officer)
(b)R. Fry’s Vision and Design (1920)
-their intelligence in conversation equalled their frankness, notably on sexual topics (the sexual life of Bloomsbury provided ample material for discussion)
Vi r g i n i a W o o l f ( 1 8 8 2 – 1 9 4 1 )
L i f e :
-b. in a respectable, educated, and cultured London family
-got acquainted with many eminent Victorians in her childhood
-married Leonard Woolf (1880 – 1969, a journalist and essayist), together founded the Hogarth Press (1917 – 46), publ:
(a)T. S. Eliot’s Poems (1919) and his Homage to John Dryden (1924)
(b)S. Freud’s work
(c)her own work, & oth.
-lived in an extraordinarily happy marriage x but: fell passionately in love with ‘Vita’ = Victoria Sackville-West (1892 – 1962, a lesbian poet married to a bisexual man)
-her marriage withstood this and oth. strains
-suffered periods of nervous depression, dreaded WW II, feared she would lose her mind and become a burden on her husband committed suicide
W o r k :
-conc.: the problems of personal identity and personal relationships, the significance of time, change, and memory for human personality
-preocc. with time: her narratives punctuated by clock-readings and clock-soundings, measurement of tides, ageing and dying, etc.
-= related to her interest in a dissipation of distinctions within a pattern of change and decay in nature as well as in human psyche
-preocc. with women characters, esp. women artists: tends to introd. characters standing for herself
-handles the stream of consciousness so that she brings into prose fiction sth of the rhythms and imagery of lyric poetry
E ssa y s :
Modern Fiction (1919):
-= an essay rejecting the ‘materialism’ of Arnold Bennett (1867 – 1931), H. G. Wells, and J. Galsworthy in favour of a more delicate rendering of those aspects of consciousness telling about the real truth of human experience
-a lit. work should be based upon the novelist’s feelings x not upon convention, and incl. no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe ‘in the accepted style’
-the task of the future novelist: to convey an impression of life
-the new aesthetic of realism: not necessarily new subjects x but: new forms
-a new fictional form out of a repres. of the ‘myriad impressions’ daily imposing themselves on the human consciousness
A Room of One’s Own (1929):
-= a study on the necessity of a private space and private income for the development of a woman writer’s creativity
-a tribute to the E novelists who have establ. the tradition of women’s writing: G. Eliot, & oth.
Three Guineas (1938):
-= a coll. of essays on the position of women, esp. professional women
The Common Reader (1925) and The Second Common Reader (1932):
-coll. of reviews and critical essays
-informal and personal in tone
F i c t i o n :
The Voyage Out (1915):
-= a relatively conventional early novel
Monday or Tuesday (1921):
-= a coll. of sketches of technical experiments
-moves btw action and contemplation, btw external events in time and delicate tracings of the internal flow of consciousness, btw retrospect and anticipation, etc.
-fully develops her characteristic method in her novels
Jacob’s Room (1922)
Mrs Dalloway (1925):
-= her 1st completely successful novel in the ‘new’ style
-her most complete repres. of the life of a woman character’s mind and her most thorough experiment with the technique of interior monologue
-conc.: the problem of identity
-contrasts the mutual dependence and opposition of:
(a)the perceptions of Clarissa Dalloway, the party giver
(b)the shell-shocked ramblings of Septimus Warren Smith, the victim of the war
To the Lighthouse (1927):
-conc.: the contemp. discontinuities, fragmentations, and disintegrations in both the external / the spiritual world
-the idea of characters ‘dissipated into shreds’:
(a)aims both to ‘dissipate’ character x to reintegrate human experience within an aesthetic form
(b)both to repres. the nature of conscious and unconscious mental activity x to relate it to a more universal awareness of pattern
-the protagonist (Mrs Ramsay) identifies this pattern in her visionary moment of peace as ‘a stability’, sth ‘immune from change’
Orlando (1928):
-= her most light-hearted novel
-on her relationship with Vita S.-W.
-an extraordinary tribute to the E aristocracy = a sentimental tribute to the aristocratic V.
-an exploration of a ‘masculine’ freedom traditionally denied to women
The Waves (1931):
-complements her insights into the identities of characters by a temporary larger symbol of moving water
-the permanent larger symbol of a flickering lighthouse in her To the Lighthouse
The Years (1937):
-= her longest novel
-on the consequences and processes of waiting, learning, and ageing
Between the Acts (1941):
-= her most stylised novel
-the protagonist: an amateur woman writer
-women’s sensibility (and sensitivity) x the factual ‘materialism’ of a world dominated by men
-the amateur woman painter in her To the Lighthouse
-the women’s ‘epiphanies’ x the men left content with a limited grasp, and presumed control, of the physical world
Ka t h e r i n e M a n sf i e l d ( 1 8 8 8 – 1 9 2 3 )
L i f e :
-b. Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in New Zealand
-received higher education in London, went back to NZ x but: 2 y. later left again for London and never returned
-involved in a number of love affairs, married suddenly, and left the man the same evening
-got pregnant by another man, went to Ger. to await the birth x but: miscarried [see her In a German Pension]
-involved with both John Middleton Murry (1889 – 1957, a critic) and the magazine Rhythm he ed., divorced, and married him
-temporary befriended with D. H. Lawrence and his wife x but: came to be hated by him
-died of tuberculosis
W o r k :
-= successful
-stimulated V. Woolf’s jealousy rather than critical generosity x but: both developed the post-impressionist principle of suggestiveness and rhythm from a distinctively feminine POV
-proceeded through a variety of lit. styles x but: at her best in the last y. of her life
-worked determinedly on a small scale, wrote carefully pointed and delicately elusive short stories
-combined incident, image, symbol, and structure
-comparable with x yet: interestingly different from J. Joyce’s method in his Dubliners
-suggested a pervasive atmosphere through establ. a series of evanescent sensations: creaks, yawns, cries, bird-calls, etc.
early period:
-experimented with different pen names before eventually adopted that of Katherine Mansfield
-wrote poems, sketches, and short stories
-criticised the narrowness of middle-class life in NZ (at that time a country in the shadow of the Br. Empire)
middle period:
-experimented with technique
-refined her art to perfect the short story of insights into certain kinds of experience achieved through precision of style and imagery, and a symbolic patterning of incidents
In a German Pension (1911):
-= her 1st publ. book
-< her own experience of Ger.
-incl. carefully observed sketches full of ironic detail expressing her dislike of Teutonic manners and mannerisms
late period:
-< the death of her much-loved younger brother in WW I sent her imagination back to their childhood day in NZ
-recalled the landscapes and flora of NZ and reworked her NZ experiences: “The Aloe”
-aimed to explore the mysterious ‘diversity of life…Death included.’
Bliss, and Other Stories (1920)
The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922):
-> the succinct narratives ensured her the place of a master of the modern short story
“The Garden Party”:
-< her own experience of NZ: a fatal street accident of a neighbour from a poor quarter nearby almost spoilt the festive atmosphere of her mother’s party in their house
-x but: endows the girl protagonist’s with a sensibility subtler and finer than anything she appears to have felt herself at the time
“The Daughters of the Late Colonel”:
-= a restrained comedy on the surface x but: a potential tragedy with its sense of wasted lives
-uses the technique of suggestion x rather than explicit development
-achieves the meaning through the atmosphere, the accumulation of small strokes, each of them seemingly but a piece of realistic detail
-manipulates time by the effective use of unobtrusive flashbacks
“Miss Brill”, “Prelude”, “At the Bay”, “The Doll’s House”, “Something Childish but Very Natural”