I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past. ― Virginia Woolf
I just came across the above quote by Woolf and thought of how appropriate it is at this time of year. The overly busy holiday season is here, a time during which we develop new traditions and follow old ones, take lots of photographs and talk about the past — all while creating new pasts that we will “expand later,” as Woolf says.
Carol Anshaw has created paintings based on interpretations of Vita’s life in this exhibition, “Walking Through Leaves,” Nov. 15 – Dec. 13 at Rockford University in Rockford, Ill.
The literature of the 1930s, commonly characterized as anti-modernist because of the prevalence of documentary realism, political purpose, and autobiographically-inflected fiction, bears witness to Woolf’s most daring — The Waves (1931) — and most commercially successful — The Years (1937) –– novels.
This issue of the Virginia Woolf Miscellany seeks contributions that explore Woolf’s relationship to the canonical literature of the 1930s, such as but not limited to: Auden’s poetry, Isherwood’s Berlin fiction, Auden’s and Isherwood’s plays, Spender’s commentary, and Waugh’s comedic novels.
In addition, this issue encourages responses to the following questions:
How does Woolf scholarship, if at all, engage with the critical study of 1930s literature?
How does Woolf’s modernism disrupt or complement the critical understanding of 1930s literature?
What can Woolf’s late fiction and essays reveal about the 1930s and its literature that the common scholarly narrative conceals or overlooks?
A note on submissions: We think, read, and work intertextually. With that in mind, I encourage potential contributors to engage with their previous publications if they are, in fact, related to their submission. Footnote or reference in text any previous life a paper may have had; that will only enrich our conversation, not detract from it. We are all involved in the ongoing and evolving conversation about Woolf; let’s celebrate that intertextual evolution.
Maria Paroussi, a self-described “big fan of Virginia” who lives in Greece, has created a mixcloud dedicated to Woolf.
It includes tracks inspired by her, along with music that inspired her — two tracks from Beethoven and Schubert. Give it a listen. You’ll hear some familiar tunes.
Included in this collection are links to coverage of the infamous David Gilmour and his misguided views about women writers (9-11). Balancing that is this lovely quote from Andrew Solomon in the New York Times:
Andrew Solomon (screenshot from NYT website)
Virginia Woolf is my other favorite. I feel as if she is writing not simply about the mind, but about my mind. Her books are as visceral to me as music. I find that Woolf, like chocolate, requires rationing; I could easily become emotionally obese if I let myself consume her work too often. – Andrew Solomon (14) in this week’s Woolf Sightings
Book of Ages: Franklin’s sis no footnote, Columbus Dispatch
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf speculated about what life would have been like for an imaginary sister of Shakespeare. Not good, she concludes: Her …
READING & WRITING : The idea of secrets, E Kantipur
The first time a publisher approached Hermione Lee with the idea of writing a biography of Virginia Woolf, she said no. Then a second publisher suggested the …
Book Review: ‘The Letters of C. Vann Woodward’, Wall Street Journal
For those whom the novelist Virginia Woolf called common readers, intending no condescension, history is often problematic, seeming to offer a choice between …
Searching for supermen, Daily Californian Virginia Woolf tells me not to be angry all the time because no one wants to listen to angry people. So this week, I’m taking a break from lamenting the sad state …
‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ Adapts Woolf and DurasNew York Times
Who can say whether one of Shakespeare’s sisters was a frustrated writer, as Virginia Woolfimagined in “A Room of One’s Own”? But Peter Brook’s daughter, …
Horley’s Archway Theatre turns to tale of a Tudor queen, This is Local London
Horley’s Archway Theatre is currently presenting Eileen Atkins’ play, Vita and Virginia, depicting the love affair between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, …
The Journal Is The Destination (A Hat Tip To Dan Eldon), NPR (blog)
Habitual journaling has given society insight into the minds of great writers, from Franz Kafka to Virginia Woolf. But how does a photographer keep a journal?
Julian Barnes’ ‘grief memoir’ is really a love story, Wicked Local (blog)
Great writers can make just about anything work. Virginia Woolf made us believe Orlando went to sleep a man and awoke a woman. We never think twice about …
David Gilmour’s Refusal To Teach Women Writers Sparks Rage …Huffington Post Canada Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one of her short stories,” Gilmour said. “When I was given this job I said I would …
Sage Is Culver City’s Best New Vegan Restaurant, Huffington Post Virginia Woolf once wrote, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” If Virginia Woolf had traveled down Sepulveda Boulevard in …
The one-man show features Jade Esteban portraying Plato, Virginia Woolf, Freddy Mercury and others. The event is part of The Centerpiece, a queer arts and …
Andrew Solomon: By the Book, New York Times
The author of “Far From the Tree” loves reading Virginia Woolf, but in small portions. “I could easily become emotionally obese if I let myself consume her work …
On or about September 19th, 2013, the world changed, to paraphraseVirginiaWoolf. I’ve been waiting for the definitive character of the Era change that’s been …
Fascinating fact:, Hollywood.com
Actress Christina Carty has been cast as writer Virginia Woolf in the upcoming season of hit period drama Downton Abbey. Hugh Jackman’s wife pens op-ed …
On this day in 1922, Virginia Woolf took to her diary to pan what she had read of James Joyce’s Ulysses. “An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me,” she wrote …
That’s as true for Sarah Ruhl’s lovingly crafted adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s time-bending, gender-shifting novel as it is for Woolf’s mesmerizing prose.
Who’s Afraid?, New York Times
Adam Kirsch mentions, by way of contrast, the example of Virginia Woolf’s work for The Times Literary Supplement, where, as he puts it, “she specialized in …
Literary Figures and Their Wild Pets, Huffington Post
We love images of famous writers with their pets: Edith Wharton with her lapdogs, Virginia Woolf with her spaniel, gloomy Ernest Hemingway cuddling one of his …
In 1917 Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard unpacked a small printing press in the front room of their home. They set up the Hogarth Press to enable them …
Conrad, Woolf to visit Iran with two novellas, Iran Book News Agency ‘Jacob’s Room’ is the third novel by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1922. The novel centres, in a very ambiguous way, around the life story of the protagonist …
Virginia Woolf and the “Melymbrosia” manuscriptThe Sunday Times Sri Lanka
It wasn’t until 2007 when I bought the late Paul Evans’ 4000 Bloomsbury book collection and started building the Literary Museum at Glenthorne that I …
… suggesting bold new possibilities for literature. They were André Breton’s surrealist masterwork Nadja, and Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending farce Orlando.
Though Virginia Woolf is known for her introspective meditations on femininity and the self, she and her husband Leonard were also founders of a publishing …
Her name may not mean much to readers, except for those who are familiar with the five volumes ofVirginia Woolf’s diary, which she edited meticulously, …
The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vols. 1–5 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $139). One of the greatest travelers of the mind, Virginia Woolf was always asking questions of …
Along with her husband, Leonard Woolf, Virginia founded publishing house Hogarth Press. The pair published Russian translations, psychoanalytic works, and …
She went on to receive a master’s degree in literature at the Sorbonne, where she wrote dissertations on the works of Zelda Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf.
