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This blog has been made for the readers who are keenly interested in knowing every single information about Virginia Woolf.

The aim of this blog is to understand her critical writing style through the lens of Woolf’s novels and essays.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if is to write fiction’.

These were the famous dictum of English writer Virginia Woolf from her book length essay A Room of One’s Own (1929). She was born on 25 January 1882, brought up in a remarkable English household. One of the foremost modernist literary figures of twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury group.

HER PARENTS AND SIBLINGS

Her parents were Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) and Julia Princep Duckworth Stephen (Nee Jackson) (1846-1895). Leslie Stephen was an author, notable historian, critic and mountaineer. Whereas Julia Princep Stephen, had been born in India and later served as a model for several Pre-Raphaelite painters. She was also a nurse and wrote a book on the profession. She was a niece of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and first cousin of the temperance leader Lady Henry Somerset, moved to England with her mother, where she served as model for pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edwards Burne- Jones.

Woolf had three full siblings and four half siblings; both of her parent had been married and widowed before marrying each other, the eight children lived under one roof at Hyde Park Gate, Kensington. Consequently Julia had three children by her first husband Herbert Duckworth; George, Stella and Gerald Duckworth. Lisle Stephen first married a lady named Harriet Marian with a nick name Minny Thackeray (1840-1875), who was the daughter of William Thackeray, and they had a daughter, Laura Makepeace Stephen, who was declared mentally disabled and lived with the family until she was institutionalized in 1891.

Leslie and Julia had four children together: Vanessa Stephen (1879), Thoby Stephen (1880), Virginia (1882), and Adrian Stephen (1883).

Sir Leslie Stephen eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer his links and relations to William Thackeray, meant that his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of Victorian literary society. Two of Woolf’s brothers named Adrian and Julian (Thoby) were formally educated and sent to Cambridge, but all the girls were taught at home and utilized the splendid confines of the family Lush Victorian library.

HER WORKS

“Sometimes authors' lives are almost as interesting as the work they produce, and Virginia Woolf's life is a tremendous example of this.”

(Erickson)

Virginia has written total nine novels that is The Voyage Out , Night and Day, Jacob's Room, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, The Waves, The Years, Between the Acts. Six short stories collection. Three books of biographies. Fourteen nonfiction books and one drama. Stream of consciousness, interior monologue and androgyny are her favourite themes to write.

HER MARRIAGE

Virginia Stephen and Leonard Woolf first met while Virginia was visiting her brother Thoby at Trinity College in the year 1900. Leonard fell in love with her at first sight. Few years later one of their mutual friends named Lytton Strachey wrote to him to propose Virginia. Leonard was not at all confident about Virginia’s response. He had a fear of rejection due to which he was unable to collect the courage to propose her for marriage but on Leonard’s third proposal she accepted and the couple got engaged and later got married in the year 1912, August 10.

HER ILLICIT LOVE AFFAIR WITH VITA

Virginia Woolf met Vita sackville West in the year 1922. Their relationship blossomed with friendship and later turned to illicit love affair. Virginia dedicated her whole novel called Orlando on her relationship with Vita Sackville West

SUICIDE

The death of her father Sir Leslie Stephen in the year 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse and due to that she was briefly institutionalized. Throughout her life, Woolf was plagued by periodic mood swings and associate illness. Though this instability often affected social life, her literary productivity continued with few breaks throughout her life. Eventually, she drowned herself into the river Ouse near her house and committed suicide on 28 March, 1941.

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VIRGINIA WOOLF AND STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN MRS DALLOWAY

INTRODUCTION The stream of consciousness is a narrative technique on which so many writers have given their views whether they are essayist, novelists etc, but the most well known is Virginia Woolf who is considered as the forerunner of this style of writing. "Influenced by the works of French writer Marcel Proust and Irish writer James Joyce, among others, Woolf strove to create a literary form that would convey inner life. To this end, she elaborated a technique known as stream of consciousness" (Bouzid) Richardson is the pioneer of the stream of consciousness technique. He is the first 20th century British author to publish a full length stream of consciousness novel Pointed Roofs. On one side was the little grey river, on the other long wet grass repelling and depressing. Not far ahead was the roadway which led, she supposed to the farm where they were to drink new milk. She would have to walk with someone when they came on the road, and talk. She wond...

VIRGINIA WOOLF AND STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

INTRODUCTION "stream of consciousness"(CC BY-SA 2.0) by planeta To the Lighthouse is not an easy novel to read. Its style of writing is quite critical. Readers can get confused because there are none of the standard novelistic signposts telling the readers what is the location, where the action is being done. who is speaking, when this takes place. For example the novel begins with the answer to a question that has not been asked, and that question is answered by the person who has not been described, and addressed to a child who seems to be sitting on the floor in an unspecified location. Every single thing is ambiguous. Nor is there much respect for the standard novelistic conventions of clock time or consecutive action. Woolf seems to delight in confusing the readers by using and inserting a recollection or anticipating a reaction, consequently past and present and future seem to flow into one another in an unbroken stream of consciousness. STREAM OF CONSCI...

VIRGINIA WOOLF AND INTERIOR MONOLOGUE IN HER NOVELS

"Blah Blah Blah (CC BY-NC 2.0) by id.-iom INTRODUCTION "A monologue is presented by a single character, most often to express their mental thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience." (Hargrave) Virginia Woolf beautifully uses both the techniques whether its stream of consciousness or interior monologue she continued to use the same technique in her subsequent novels as well. It is already mentioned that Woolf was not at all satisfied with the traditional method of writing novels. In an essay Modern Fiction she had criticized novelist like Arnold Bennet and John Galsworthy for the 'Naturalistic' manner in which they had written their novels. James Joyce probed the same inner consciousness in Ulysses which Woolf probed in Mrs. Dalloway. Although there is an incessant flow of thoughts which has been given the technical name of 'the stream of consc...

WHY DID VIRGINIA WOOLF COMMIT SUICIDE ?

This was the question hitting everybody's mind when it was declared publicly, that Woolf is no more, she drowned herself into the river Ouse near her house and committed suicide on 28 March, 1941. The above is the news in The New York Times regarding Virginia, who was missing from her house. Sources were saying that she already planned to kill herself because she did not find any charm in her life. Still she neither informed anybody nor she shared it with her husband. Eventually people of her area found her clothes in the river then everyone came to know about the sad demise of her. WHY SHE CHOSE RIVER ONLY ? "Virginia Woolf"(CC BY -SA 2.0) by Wolf Gang Now the question is again unanswered that if she was enjoying her life with her husband, everything seems to be happy and gay then why she took this decision? Even if she decided to kill herself then why she chose river to be the option ? Why not any other ways to do it? Does she not like her existence...

VIRGINIA WOOLF AND OEDIPUS COMPLEX

INTRODUCTION In Freudian Theory: "The complex of emotions aroused in a young child, typically around the age of four, by an unconscious sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex and wishes to exclude the parent of the same sex. The term was originally applied to boys, the equivalent in girls being called the Electra complex." (Schuller) Freud's theory of Oedipus complex has become a major theme for various renowned English novelists like example: - D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms, Sophocles’s Oedipus the King and last but not the least Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Orlando etc. Another thing apart from all the literary techniques, which caught attention while reading To the Lighthouse is the language that Virginia uses to describe James and her mother Mrs. Ramsay’s relationship. One can easily forget that James is Mrs. Ramsay's six year old son and think ...

VIRGINIA WOOLF - A BRIEF GLANCE ON HER LIFE, WORKS AND STYLE.

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