Bio
Victorian family, artistic family, brothers were educated but she hated that she wasn’t. Family was behind the times about 50 years. Close to her sister Vanessa, a painter. Virginia decided to be a writer. Self educated. Picked up a pencil early and was always writing. Mother died at age 13, mental illness followed soon after. Close to a half-sister Stella, much older, who died soon after. Father died a few years after that. Sexually abused by a half-brother. Parents died before any literary career. She was 3rd of 4 siblings of her parents, older parents than usual, both with previous marriages.
First published in 1900, an article in Times Literary Supplement. Spent her life trying to prove herself as a writer. As an adult, was involved in the Bloomsbury Group, a progressive group of thinkers and writers. They were all about what was good. Sexually liberal. Discussed philosophy. Big influence on her and her writing.
1912 married Leonard Wolf, part of the Bloomsbury Group. He was a writer, pro-feminist. First novel published 1915, spent several years in hospitals for mental illness. The book shows her compassion for people with mental illness.
She had an affair with Vita, a woman who later became a friend for the rest of her life. Vita was a big supporter. With Leonard, Virginia started their own press, so they published their own books. In 1941 committed suicide by drowning herself, filling her clothing with rocks and going into the river. Her most recent book, a biography of Roger Fry, wasn’t well received.
Mrs. Dalloway, written in 1925, set in 1922, post WWI, which figures a lot into the book. After the Edwardian period, a golden age.
The Novel and Mrs. Dalloway’s Place
Early novels, like Don Quixote, explored reality in the way things happened: plot. Early 1700s Robinson Curuso and others use literary realism, authors creating their own characters that interact in the real world, taking you inside their minds. Represent the lives of people who could really exist. The novel was becoming more accessible, certainly than poetry.
Novels read by servants and women. they can see their own issues expressed in literature. The role of the narrators develops. In Jane Eyre we have an omniscient narrator, who knows not only all of the characters, but also their inner lives and thoughts.
Henry James used point of view narration: limiting the narrative to a single character’s knowledge and perspective. This goes deeper into a single character.
1900s novelists go even further inward, such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, pushing the whole story through their perspective, their thoughts, their history.
Stream of consciousness is a new: James Joyce, Wolf, and William Faulkner are the pioneers of this technique. Virginia wants to go deep inside the characters and what makes them tick.
We also see early relativism in respect to truth, as well as existentialism.
Pat: Poetic language, rich vocabulary.
Ken on audio version: written one first hard to get into. Blast those many semi-colons! But the audio version better fits the stream-of-consciousness technique.
John: finding it hard to suspend disbelief when Clarissa “just knows” without any words, what Peter is thinking and feeling.
I Thessalonians 5, praying without ceasing, taking thoughts captive. Presenting thoughts to God to know what to make of one’s thoughts.