3500
user345
VirginiaWoolfandARoomofOnesOwn.pptxVirginia Woolf and A Room of One’s Own
“What one wants, I thought--and why does not some brilliant student at Newnham or Girton supply it?--is a mass of information; at what age did she marry; how many children had she as a rule; what was her house like, had she a room to herself; did she do the cooking; would she be likely to have a servant? All these facts lie somewhere, presumably, in parish registers and account books; the life of the average Elizabethan woman must be scattered about somewhere, could one collect it and make a book of it. It would be ambitious beyond my daring, I thought, looking about the shelves for books that were not there, to suggest to the students of those famous colleges that they should rewrite history” (Woolf 45).
Just a Few of the Forgotten Women Poets
“Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping. If not, you will of course throw the whole of it into the wastepaper basket and forget all about it” (Woolf 4-5).
Virginia Woolf and Modernism
Raoul Hausmann The Art Critic 1919–20
Salvador Dalí
Metamorphosis of Narcissus 1937
Modernist Traits
Unconventional
Disillusioned
Preoccupied with loss
Expects readers to grapple with the text
No “easy answers”
Relies on symbols and symbolism
Borrows from the absurd
Often uses stream-of-consciousness narration, in which things are told as if someone was thinking them, something Woolf does in her novels
Pushes back against the Victorian era (Jane Eyre as a modernist text would have ended a lot differently than it does!)
Charles Lamb (1775-1834). English essay and poet; he would have been well-known for his children’s version of Shakespeare stories. If you’ve seen the Netflix film The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (or read the book!) then you’ll remember Charles Lamb.
Max Beerbohm (1872-1956). An English essayist, humorist, and caricaturist.
William Makepeace Thackery (1811-1863). An English novelist, most well known for Vanity Fair. You might remember him from Jane Eyre—Charlotte Bronte admired him so much that she dedicated her first novel to him.
John Milton (1608-1674). English poet, most famous for Paradise Lost and for losing his eyesight later in life. He was also a revolutionary for a time, with a place in Cromwell’s government.
Anthony Vandyck (1599-1641). A Flemish Baroque painter who eventually became a court painter in England. Woolf’s quip about all of us going to heaven with Van Dyck being one of the company is actually her paraphrasing Thomas Gainsborough’s last words: “We are all going to Heaven and Van Dyck is of the company.” The idea here is that Van Dyck painted so well that it was as if he painted heaven. (Gainsborough was another famous painter, b. 1727 d. 1788).
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Mill was a fascinating essayist. Growing up, he was firmly under his father’s (James Mill) thumb. Mill Sr. wanted his son to be a philosopher, and so educated Mill himself, to the point that Mill had what we might call a mental breakdown, or a severe depressive episode. Mill eventually made it to the other side, and created his own type of philosophy focused on joy and happiness. Mill is being quoted by Woolf because he wrote a nonfiction piece, The Subjection of Women (1869) that argues for equality of the sexes. As a male writer, Mill received more attention for his views than the many women who had already said the same thing.
Oscar Browning (1837-1923). A writer and college professor.
If You Enjoyed A Room of One’s Own…
…you may enjoy the following!
Woolf’s other works
There are too many to list here—Woolf was a prolific author—but you can start at your local library!
The recent movie Vita and Virginia (2018) currently on Hulu premium
