(January 25, 1882 - March 28, 1941)
British author who made an original contribution to the form of the
novel - also distinguished feminist essayist, critic in The Times
Literary Supplement, and a central figure of Bloomsbury group.
Virginia Woolf's books were published by Hogart Press, which she
founded with her husband, the critic and writer Leonard Woolf.
Originally their printing machine was small enough to fit on a
kitchen table, but their publications later included T.S. Eliot's
Waste Land (1922), fiction by Maxim Gorky, E.M. Forster, and
Katherine Mansfield, and the complete twenty-four-volume translation
of the works of Sigmund Freud.
Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the
course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men?
Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in
the universe?
Virginia Woolf was born in London, as the daughter of Julia Jackson
Duckworth, a member of the Duckworth publishing family, and Sir
Leslie Stephen, a literary critic, a friend of Meredith, Henry
James, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and George Eliot, and the founder
of the Dictionary of National Biography. Leslie Stephen's first wife
had been the daughter of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray.
His daughter Laura from the first marriage was institutionalized
because of mental retardation. In a memoir dated 1907 she wrote of
her parents, Beautiful often, even to our eyes, were their gestures,
their glances of pure and unutterable delight in each other.
Woolf, who was educated at home by her father, grew up at the family
home at Hyde Park Gate. In middle age she described this period in a
letter to Vita Sackville-West: Think how I was brought up! No
school; mooning about alone among my father's books; never any
chance to pick up all that goes on in schools—throwing balls;
ragging; slang; vulgarities; scenes; jealousies! Woolf's youth was
shadowed by series of emotional shocks. Gerald Duckworth, her
half-brother, sexually abused her. In 'Sketch of the Past' (1939)
she wrote: I can remember the feel of his hands going under my
clothes; going firmly and steadily lower and lower, I remember how I
hoped that he would stop; how I stiffened and wriggled as his hand
approached my private parts. But he did not stop. Julia Jackson
Duckworth died when Virginia was in her early teens. Stella
Duckworth, her half sister, took her mother's place, but died a
scant two years later. Leslie Stephen suffered a slow death from
cancer. When her brother Toby died in 1906, she had a prolonged
mental breakdown. Vanessa, Virginia's sister, influenced a number of
her characters; in childhood they bathed and slept together. Later
in FLUSH (1933) Woolf parodies her own devotion to Vanessa.
Following the death of her father in 1904, Woolf moved with her
sister and two brothers to the house in Bloomsbury. Vanessa, a
painter, agreed to marry the critic of art and literature Clive
Bell. Virginia's economic situation improved when she inherited
£2,500 from an aunt. Their house become central to activities of the
Bloomsbury group. And part of the charm of those Thursday evenings
was that they were astonishingly abstract. It was not only that
Moore's book [Principia Ethica, 1903] had set us all discussing
philosophy, art, religion; it was that the atmosphere - if in spite
of Hawtrey I may use that word - was abstract in the extreme. The
young men I have named had no 'manners' in the Hyde Park Gate sense.
They criticized our arguments as severely as their own. They never
seemed to notice how we were dressed or if we were nice looking or
not. (from Moments of Being, ed. by Jeanne Schulkind, 1976)
From 1905 Woolf began to write for the Times Literary Supplement. In
1912 she married the political theorist Leonard (Sidney) Woolf
(1880-1969), who had returned from serving as an administrator in
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Leonard Woolf was born in London as the son
of a barrister. He studied at Cambridge and in 1904 he went into
civil service to Ceylon. From 1923 to 1930 he was a literary editor
on the Nation. In 1917 he set up a small hand press at Hogart House,
and worked as its director until his death. Among Leonard Woolf's
works are novels, non-fiction, and his five volume memoirs Sowing
(1960), Growing (1961), Beginning Again (1964), Downhill All the Way
(1967), and The Journey Not the Arrival Matters (1969).
THE VOYAGE OUT (1915) was Virginia Woolf's first book. In 1919
appeared NIGHT AND DAY, a realistic novel about the lifes of two
friends, Katherine and Mary. JACOB'S ROOM (1922) was based upon the
life and death of her brother Toby.
With TO THE LIGHTHOUSE (1927) and THE WAVES (1931)Woolf established
herself as one of the leading writers of modernism. On the
publication of To the Lighthouse, Lytton Strachey wrote: It is
really most unfortunate that she rules out copulation - not the
ghost of it visible - so that her presentation of things becomes
little more... than an arabesque - an exquisite arabesque, of
course. The Waves is perhaps Woolf's most difficult novel. It
follows in soliloquies the lives of six persons from childhood to
old age. Louis Kronenberger noted in The New York Times that Woolf
was not really concerned with people, but the poetic symbols, of
life--the changing seasons, day and night, bread and wine, fire and
cold, time and space, birth and death and change.
In these works Woolf developed innovative literary techniques in
order to reveal women's experience and find an alternative to the
male-dominated views of reality. In her essay 'Mr. Bennett and Mrs.
Brown' Woolf argued that John Galsworthy, H.G. Wells and other
realistic English novelist dealt in surfaces but to get underneath
these surfaces one must use less restricted presentation of life,
and such devices as stream of consciousness and interior monologue
and abandon linear narrative. Marital disappointments and
frustrations she often dealt ironically. In To the Lighthouse Woolf
wrote: So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking
at a girl throwing a ball.
MRS. DALLOWAY (1925) formed a web of thoughts of several groups of
people during the course of a single day. There is little action,
but much movement in time from present to past and back again. The
central figure, Clarissa Dalloway, married to Richard Dalloway, is a
wealthy London hostess. She spends her day in London preparing for
her evening party. She recalls her life before World War I, her
friendship with the unconventional Sally Seton, and her relationship
with Peter Walsh. At her party she never meets the shell-shocked
veteran Septimus Smith, one of the first Englishmen to enlist in the
war. Sally returns as Lady Rossetter, Peter Walsh is still enamored
with Mrs. Dalloway, the prime minister arrives, and Smith commits
suicide. To the Lighthouse had a tripartite structure: part 1
presented the Victorian family life, the second part covers a
ten-year period, and the third part is a long account of a morning
and reconciliation. The central figure, Mrs. Ramsay, was based on
Woolf's mother. Also other characters in the book were drawn from
Woolf's family memories.
During the inter-war period, Woolf was a central character of the
literary scene both in London and at her home in Rodmell, near
Lewes, Sussex. She lived in Richmond from 1915 to 1924, in
Bloomsbury from 1924 to 1939, and maintained the house in Rodmell
from 1919-41. The Bloomsbury group was initially based at the Gordon
Square residence of Virginia and her sister Vanessa (Bell). Its
other members included among others E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey,
Clive Bell, Duncan Grant, and Leonard Woolf. The consolidation of
the group's beliefs in unifying aesthetic concerns occurred under
the influence of the philosopher G.E. Moore (1873-1958). By the
early 1930s, the group ceased to exist in its original form.
In the event of a Nazi invastion, Woolf and Leonard had made
provisions to kill themselves. After the final attack of mental
illness, Woolf loaded her pockets full of stones and drowned herself
in the River Ouse near her Sussex home on March 28, 1941. On her
note to her husband she wrote: I have a feeling I shall go mad. I
cannot go on longer in these terrible times. I hear voices and
cannot concentrate on my work. I have fought against it but cannot
fight any longer. I owe all my happiness to you but cannot go on and
spoil your life. Woolf's suicide, like Sylvia Plath's, have much
colored the interpretation of both of their work.
Virginia Woolf's concern with feminist thematics are dominant in A
ROOM OF ONE'S OWN (1929). In it she made her famous statement: A
woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write
fiction. The book originated from two expanded and revised lectures
the author presented at Cambridge University's Newnham and Girton
Colleges in October 1928. Woolf examined the obstacles and
prejudices that have hindered women writers. She separated women as
objects of representation and women as authors of representation,
and argued that a change in the forms of literature was necessary
because most literature had been made by men out of their own needs
for their own uses. In the last chapter Woolf touched the
possibility of an androgynous mind. Woolf refers to Coleridge who
said that a great mind is androgynous and states that when this
fusion takes place the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its
faculties. Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create,
any more than a mind that is purely feminine... THREE GUINEAS (1938)
urged women to make a claim for their own history and literature.
ORLANDO (1928), a fantasy novel, traced the career of the
androgynous protagonist, Orlando, from a masculine identity within
the Elisabethan court to a feminine identity in 1928. Chief model
for the character was writer Vita Sackville-West, with whom Woolf
had a lesbian relationship. The book was illustrated with pictures
of Vita Sackville-West, dressed as Orlando. According to Nigel
Nicolson, the initiative to start the affair came as much on
Virginia's side as on the more experienced Vita's. Their
relationship coincided with a period of great creative productivity
in Woolf's career. In 1994 Eileen Atkins dramatized their letters in
her play Vita and Virginia, starring Atkins and Vanessa Redgrave.
As an essayist Woolf was prolific. She published some 500 essays in
periodicals and collections, beginning 1905. Characteristic for
Woolf's essays are dialogic nature of style - her reader is often
directly addressed, in a conversational tone. A number of her
writings are autobiographical. In the essay on the art of Walter
Sickert, which was inspired by her visit in his retrospective show,
Woolf asked how words can express colour, and answered that all
great writers are great colorists: Each of Shakespeare's plays has
its dominant colour. And each writers differs of course as a
colourist... (Walter Sickert: A Conversation, 1934). Woolf rejection
of an authoritative voice links her essays to the tradition of
Montaigne.
For further reading: Virginia Woolf by Quentin Bell (1972, 2 vols.);
Moments of Being, ed. by Jeanne Schulkind (1976); The Novels of
Virginia Woolf from Beninning to End by M.A. Leaska (1977); A
Marriage of True Minds by G. Spater and I.M. Parsons (1977);
Virginia Woolf: A Feminist Slant by by J. Marcus (1983); Woman of
Letters by Rose Phyllis (1978); Leonard Woolf by S.S. Myerowitz
(1982); Virginia Woolf: a Winter's Life by Lyndall Gordon (1984);
Virginia Woolf by Rachel Bowlby (1988); Virginia Woolf and the
Fictions of Psychoanalysis by Elizabeth Abel (1989); Virginia Woolf:
The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work by Louise
DeSalvo (1989); Virginia Woolf: A Literary Life by John Mepham
(1991); Virginia Woolf: A Collection of Critical Essays by M. Homans
(1993); Vita and Virginia by Suzanne Raitt (1993); Virginia Woolf by
Quentin Bell (1996); The Feminist Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf by
Jane Goldman (1998); Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee (1996); Virginia
Woolf by Nigel Nicolson (2000) - Note: Toni Morrison, who won the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, wrote her thesis at Cornell
University on Faulkner and Virginia Woolf. - See also: Katherine
Mansfield, Marcel Proust
SELECTED WORKS:
THE VOYAGE OUT, 1915
NIGHT AND DAY, 1919
MONDAY OR TUESDAY, 1921
JACOB'S ROOM, 1922
MRS. DALLOWAY, 1925 - suom. - film 1998, dir. by Marleen Gorris,
adapted by Eileen Atkins, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Michael
Kitchen, Rupert Graves, John Standing, Lena Headley. - What had
seemed at first a frivolous exercise in social decorum has turned
into a probing examination of the Big Question that haunts our
lives. As Mrs. Dalloway leaves the party to stand outside the window
at her balcony, looking down at the hard, upraised iron spikes of
the fence below - the same kind of spikes that impaled the body of
the wretched Septimus - she asks to herself, Is there a plan for our
lives? Why do we live on in the face of pain and tragedy? (from
Novels into Film by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh, 1997)
THE COMMON READER, 1925
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, 1927 - Majakka - film 1983
ORLANDO, 1928 - suom. - film 1992, written and dir. by Sally Potter,
starring Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, Lothaire Bluteau, John Wood
A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN, 1929 - Oma huone
THE WAVES, 1931 - Aallot
FLUSH, 1933 - Runoilijan koira
THE YEARS, 1937
THREE GUINEAS, 1938
ROGER FRY: A BIOGRAPHY, 1940
BETWEEN THE ACTS, 1941
THE DEATH OF THE MOTH, 1942
A HAUNTED HOUSE, 1943
THE MOMENT AND OTHER ESSAYS, 1947
THE CAPTAIN'S DEATH BED AND OTHER ESSAYS, 1950
A WRITER'S DIARY, 1953(ed. by Leonard Woolf)
VIRGINIA WOOLF AND LYTTON STRACHEY, 1956
GRANITE AND RAINBOW, 1958
THE LADY IN THE LOOKINGGLASS, 1960
CONTEMPORARY WRITERS, 1960
NURSE LUGTON'S GOLDEN THIMBLE, 1966
COLLECTED ESSAYS, 1967 (4 vols., ed. by Leonard Woolf)
MRS. DALLOWAY'S PARTY, 1973
MOMENTS OF BEING, 1976 - Elettyjä hetkiä
BOOKS AND PORTRAITS, 1977
THE LETTERS OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, 1975-80 (5 vols., ed. by Nigel
Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann)
WOMEN AND FICTION, 1979 (ed. by Michèle Barrett)
THE DIARY OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, 5 vol., 1977-84 (ed. by Anne Olivier
Bell)
THE LETTERS OF VIRGINIA WOOLF TO VITA SACKWILLE-WEST, 1984
THE COMPLETE SHORTER FICTION OF VIRGINIA WOOLF - Nainen peilissä
THE ESSAYS, 1986-94
A PASSIONATE APPRENTICE: THE EARLY JOURNALS, 1897-1909, 1990 (ed. by
Mitchell Leaska)
A WOMAN'S ESSAYS, 1992
THE CROWDED DANCE OF MODERN LIFE, 1993
－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙
(重定向自Virginia Woolf)
弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙 （Virginia Woolf，1882年 1月25日 - 1941年 3月28日）
是一位英国女作家和女权主义者。在两次世界大战期间，伍尔芙是伦敦文学界的一个象征。
生平以及著作
出生于伦敦的伍尔芙是在家中接受教育的，在结婚以前，她的名字是艾德琳·弗吉尼亚·斯蒂芬（Adeline Virginia
Stephen）。在1895年，她的母亲去世之后，她也遭遇了第一次的精神崩溃。在1904年她父亲莱斯利·斯蒂芬爵士（Sir Leslie
Stephen，一位编辑和文学批评家）去世之后，她和她的妹妹瓦内萨（Vanessa
Bell）以及两个弟弟迁居到了布卢姆斯伯里（BloomsBury）。
她在1905年开始以写作作为职业。刚开始是为《时代文学增刊》写作。在1912年她和雷纳德·伍尔芙结婚。她的第一部小说《The
Voyage Out》在1915年出版。
伍尔芙被看作是引导现代主义潮流的先锋。人们甚至认为她革新了英语本身。她在她的小说中尝试意识流的写作方法，试图去描绘在人们心底里的潜意识。有人在一篇评论里讲到她将英语“朝着光明的方向推进了一小步”。她在文学上的成就和创造性至今仍然产生很大的影响。
伍尔芙是投河自尽的。她在自己的口袋里装满了石头，投入了位于罗德麦尔（Rodmell）她家附近的一条河流（欧塞河，River
Ouse）里面。她在给她丈夫的遗书中写道：“我感觉我快要疯了。我不能让这样可怕的情况继续下去了。我恢复不了健康。我听到一些声音，这让我不能够全神贯注于自己的工作。我和它斗争过，但是却再也不能够继续了。我将我的欢乐归功于你，但是现在这些欢乐却再也不能继续了。在今后我也将不会再打扰你的生活了。”
现代研究
最近关于伍尔芙的研究大多关注于两个方向：女权主义和同性恋倾向。这方面的一个例子是1997年Eileen Barrett和Patricia
Cramer所著的一系列文学批评：Virginia Woolf:Lesbian Readings。
在2002年，出现了一部以伍尔芙在写《达洛维夫人》期间故事为题材的电影《时时刻刻》(The
Hours）。这部电影参加了奥斯卡最佳画面奖的提名但是没有获奖。但是影片的的主角尼可·基德曼（Nicole
Kidman）获得了最佳女演员奖。这部电影取材于普利策奖得主麦克尔·坎宁安（Michael
Cunningham's）1998年的同名小说。其中“The hours”是伍尔芙在创作期间为《达洛维夫人》所起的名字。
作品
小说
远航（The Voyage Out） (1915年)
时时刻刻（Night and Day） (1919年)
雅各的房间（Jacob's Room） (1920年)
达洛维夫人（Mrs. Dalloway） (1925年)
到灯塔去（To the Lighthouse） (1927年)
奥兰多（Orlando: a Biography） (1928年)
海浪（The Waves） (1931年)
岁月The Years (1937年)
幕间Between the Acts (1941年)
随笔
一间自己的房间（A Room of One's Own ）(1929)
