An Analysis on the Characteristics of Virginia Woolf's Essays

zwwh@overseaen.comISSN 1009-5039htp:/:/www.overseaen.comOverseas Engish 海死莫谎Tel:+86- -551- -5690811 5690812An Analysis on the Characteristics of Virginia Woolf's Essays杨东霞,李云(大理学院外国语学院.云南大理671003)Abstract: This paper made comprehensive analysis and interpretation of Virginia Woolf's essay characteristics, mainly manifested in the fol-lowing aspects: first, focuses on analyzing how Woolf deals with the relationship between readers and herself; second, makes a detailed anal-ysis of Woolf's literary criticism essays; third part is about the feminist thoughts in her essays. And it is expected that it can ofer the readersa new angle and help them achieve a better undertanding in appreciaing Woolf's esays, even her novels.Key words: Woolf reader; literary citicism; femninism中图分类号:1106文献标识码:A文章编号:1009- -5039(2010)11- 0214-031 Introductionary crticism, political manifestos, leamed arguments, ohserva-tions of daily life, recolletions, and rflections of the author.'Virginia Woolf was one of the most prominent literary fg-The source of English essay can be traced back to the six-ures of the twentieth century, a famous novelist, critie, and ee-teenth century, namely, Francis Bacon's Essays. In eigheenthsayist. She was a prolifc writer, having published 15 books incentury, essayists paid more attention to newspapers and periodi-her lifetime, as well as numerous book reviews and essays for thecals to public their essays. Steel and Addison were important ee-popular pres. Along with James Joyce and Marecel Prousl, Woolfsayists in that age who published The Tatler and The Spectator.was one of the great innovalors of the modem novel. "A killdThere is no more than one sense the nineteenth century was anexponent of the 'stream of consciousness' technique, she directsage of the essay. Charles Lamb, William Halit, Robert Steven-the reader's attention away from a sequence of outward actionsson and De. Quincey were famous essayists in this period. Ofand towards the complex inner livers of charactern."" Her majorthese four men, Lamb remains the most beloved. "The style of allnovels are Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), andhis essays is gentle, old -fashioned, and iresistibly attractive."The Waves (1931). Although she atained great renown as a nov-The ressional period of essay begin at the twentieth century,elist, she continued to write and publish essays throughout herUnder this kind of circumstances, Virginia Woolf opened a newcareer. Virginia Woolf began writing essays for the Times Literaryhistory page of English essay by her special female temperamentSupplement when she was young, and over the years these andother essays were collected in three volumes called The Commonand pasychological interests.Reader (1925), A Room of One's Own (1929)and The Common3 Discussion on Essay Style of Virginia WoolfReader: Second Series (1932). After her death, her husbandWith the publication of The Waves in 1931, her reputationpublished a number of others, including The Death of the Moth,as a major innovative novelist was established. She had also con-and Other Essays (1942) ,The Moment (1947), The Caplain'stinued to write essays on literary criticism, which were cllectedDeath Bed (1950), Hours in a Libraray (1957), and Granite andin two volumes, The Common Reader and The Second CommonRainbow( 1958 ), as well as a four- volume edition, Colledcted EsReader. Modem feminists have popularized her lecture A Roomsays( 1966 -67). Besides these, Wool's five diries and four vol-of One's Own (1931) and its sequel, Theee Guineas (1929). De-umes of ltters also belong to her essay works. Her esays havespite recurring bouts of mental ilness, Woolf continued to writebeen gaining the highest apreciation by dfferent researchersessays. The discussion on her essay style will be divided intoand scholars. "Virginia Wool's essays can be read as the autobi-three aspeets:ography of a reader, full of personal emotion and inimacy."23.1 The Readership in Woolr's EssaysIn this thesis, the author focuses on Virginia Woolf's essaysand her eay writing charateristics, aims to find Woolf's uniqueIn her essays Woolf made the reader felt like a part of thestyle. Meanwhile, it can help the readers to improve the under-cereation of the essay. Aiming to identify closely with her audi-standing of her essays, even her novels.ence, Woolf adopted a persona she termed "the common reader":an intelligent, educated person with the will and inclination to be2 Essay in England Literaturechallenged by what he or she reads. In her literary essays, par-An esey is usually a short piece of writing It is ofen wri-ticularly, W oolf established a communal activity. Besides stress-ten from an author's personal point of view. Essays can be liter-ing the first -person plural pronoun, she occasionally referred to .中国煤化工收稿日期:2010-07-05修回日期:2010-08-06YHCNMHG作者简介:杨东霞(1983-),女,云南大理人,大理学院外国语学院讲师,云南师范大学在读研究生,主要从事英美文学研究;李云(1982-),女,大理学院外国语学院助教。214中外文学文化研究(中:街1.本栏目责任编辑:禁书2010年11月Overseas English 落外英语the reader. In The Reader, she has expressed her confidence intheir experiments in writing a more modem kind of fiction. Shethe reader. " .*how the reader is completely in being*. He canbelieved that "the proper stuff of fiction" was to represent theread what is on the page, or drawing aside read what is not writ-mind as it received impression "from all sides" and responds toten."" Woolf often portrayed the reader as an attentive, well-readthose impressions. More than a manifesto to the Stream-of- Con-member of a literary community. This kind of description is asciousness schoo, Modem Fiction was al9o a declaration of herfundamental part of Woolf's atempt to nurture her reader's indi-literary creation. Another essay frequently was studied, namedviduality and sense of cooperation with the essayist. Thus WoolfMr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown, written in 1924, in which Virginiacreated a literary partnership with the "attentive reader," whoWoolf described the manner in which the older-generation novel-discovered, at the same time Woolf pointed it out in her essay,ist Amold Benett would have portrayed Mrs. Brown, a lady ca-certain relevant ideas about her subject.* In How Should Onesually met in a railway carriage, by giving her a house and furmi-Read a Book?, she enlisted all those who read for the love ofture and a position in the world. She then contrasts his methodreading in the work of maintaining freedom for the author. Shewith another: one that exhibits a new interest in the subjectiveadvised that "reader as friend to the writer". enerally, in herMrs. Brown, the mysteries of her person, her consciousness, andessays w oolf reformulated the positivist conception of authorshipthe consciousness of the observer responding to her.and readership.Woolf also eicied the contemporary writers, and rerised3.2 Literary Criticism Essaysher opinion. For example, D.H. Lawrence was severely criticaland has been assessed a unperceptive. However, Woolf's note-Virginia Woolf grew up as a member of large ,and talented.books revealed that she eventually revised her opinion 。family, educating herself in. her father's magnificent library,Lawrence, expressing appreciation of his literary achievement.meeting in childhood many eminent Victorians, leaming GreekWe can conclude that W ol' literary eritical essay reflect an in-rom Walter Pater's sister. Under this literary atmosphere, shedependent mind, confident of its judgment and lasles.had strong interests in literary criticism, especially dared to cniti-ceize classical works and famous writers. The majority of Wol's3.3 Feminism in Woolf's Essaysessays were devoted to literary mattes, which were sharp, objec-tive and comprehensive.pecially professional women, and the constrictions they sufferedIn The Common Reader, Wool's themes ranged fromunder. She wrote several cogent essays on the subjeet, notably inChaucer to Conrad, from George Eliot to the Duchess of Newcas-A Room of One's Own and Three Guines. These works embodytle, and in them all she shows the ielligence and practicality ofher unique female consciousness and advanced feminist idea.temper of the eritic.' "informal and personal in tone, her criticismHence, she was regarded as the important precursor of modem.is suggestive rather than authoritative and had an engaging air offeminist literary criticism.spontaneity."In A Room of One's 0wn, Virginia Woolf put forward her ownIn Modem Fiction, Woolf inaugurated her sharp criticismpoint of view as fllowing; frstly, Woolf observed that having aabout distinguished fiction writers in her times and tried to ex-private room in which to think and write is a basic requirement forpress her sense of what the moderm novelist should be writingproducing lterature, a requirement that, along with economic in-lbout. Against the modem she posited the writers of a formerdependence, few women in history had ever enjoyed. Raising theage- a Scoot, Wordsworth, or Jane Austen:question of why women had not produced much first -rate fiction,"They have their judgment of conduct. They know the rela-Woolf deseribed the poverty, social pressures, family demands,tions of human beings toward each other and the univere. foeand lack of education that tended to prevent women from writing.certainty of that kind is the condition which makes it possible to"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is towrite. To believe that your impressions hold good for others is towrite fiction. " This phrase was perhaps the most famous line frombe released from the cramp and confinement of personality.-. Itthis essay. In other words, women must strive for financial, socialis also the first step in that mysterious process in which Janeand psychological independence. She used the room as a symbolAusten was 80 great and adept. The litle grain of experencefor many larger isues, 8uch 88 privacy, leisure time, and financialonce selected, believed in, and set outside herself, could be putindependence, each of which was an essential component of theprecisely in its place, and she was then free to make ofit by acountless inequalities between men and women."process which never yields its secrets to the analysl, into thatSecondly, Woolf paid more atention to evaluate the formercomplete statement which is lteratur.1women writer and their literary history. She thought that all of theOppositely, Woolf rebelled against Victorian realim andgreat women novelists were based on the numerous forerunners'criticized the "materialism" in the novels of Amold Bennet, H.G.unremitting endeavors. As Woolf indicated in A Room of One'sWells and John Galsworthy, whom were singled out for atack:Own:"If we fasten, then, one label on all these books, on which is"Without those forerunners, Jane Austen and the Brontesone word materialists, we mean by it that they write of unimpor-and George Eliot could no more have witten than Shakespearetant things; that they spend immense skill and immense industry? without those forgottenmaking the trivjal and the transitory appear the true and endur-poetl |中国煤化工。natural savagery of theng,"tong IYHCNMH G and sliay binths theyShe believed that realism was superficial because it failed toare the UUIUUle u ualy yca1d Ul Lng inng in cmmon, of hink.get to the centre of the mind's experience. Woolf eited Thomasing by the body of the people, so that the experience of the massHardy and Joseph Conrad as novelists who deserved gratitude foris behind the single voice. Jane Austen should have laid a wreath本栏目責任鳊辑:巢书长省袋中外文学文化研究 215Overseas Engish海外其语2010年11月upon the grave of Fanny Burney, and George Eliot done homageNew York:The Viking Press,Inc.1926:82.to the robust shade of Elize Carter-the valiant old woman who8 George J,Mcleod LThe Norton Anthology of English Literaturetied a bell to her bedstead in order that she might wake early and[M].Vol 2.New York: ww .Norton & Company.Inc. 1979:2014.leam Greek. All women together ought to let lowers fall upon the9杨恺深,孙铄英国文学选读[M].上海:上海译文出版社,1983:tomb of Aphra Behn, which is, most scandalously but rather a-380.propriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earmned10弗吉尼亚.伍尔夫书和画像一伍 尔夫散文精选[M,刘炳them the right to speak their minds."B善,译.南京:译林出版社2008:86.Thirdly, Woolf discussed the relationship between men and11弗吉尼亚●伍尔夫.自已的一间屋[M]贾辉半,译.北京:人民women. She argued that they should be equal in society, and en-文学出版社2000:57.deavored to search for equality between them. From her descrip-12 Retrieved from h:t/:/wparko.to.ooioroofonesowor/otion, we come to realize that women must obey the will of theirquoleshtml on 2009-1-18.parents; otherwise, they would be punished severely. And theI3弗吉尼亚.伍尔夫.自已的一间屋[M]贾辉丰,泽北京:人民sum of money is very important for her, and has changed her life文学出版社200:85. -86.completely. The author held view that the reltionship between14 Oliver Dictionary .of Literary Biography [M],vol.36.Cale Inc,men and women changed greatly after women had money. Wom-2005:100.en were not secondary to men, and they are equal at least. They15 Pacey Desmond,Vinginia Woolf as a Literary Crtic [M].Vol.need objective social environment for writing. She pondered overXVII.Toronto: University of Toronto Quarterly Pres,1948:the inner state of women's writing. On the basis of this point,234 -244.Woolf posed the famous theory of "androgynous vision".References:4 Conclusion[1] Ferebee Steve.Vinginia Woolf and the Nature of CommunionThers is no doubt that Virginia Woolf is remembered pri-[M1.Vol 5,New Haven Yale University Press,1987.marily as an innovative novelist, in particular for her contribution[2] George JMcleod L.The Norton Anthology of English Literaturto the development of stream-of- consciousness, but she also is a(M].Vol 2.New York:WW. Norton & Company. Inc,1979.great essayist in English literature history. Woolf maintained that[3] Muir Edwin,Transition: Esays on Contemporary Literature[M].the purpose of writing an esay was to give pleasure to the read-New York:The Viking Pes,Inc.1926.er, and she endeavored to do this with wity, supply prose, apt[4] Oliver.Dictionary of Literary Biographyv [M],vol 36.Gale Inc,literary and culture references, and a wide range of subjects." In2005.her essays Woolf reformulated the positivist conception of author-[5] Pacey Desmond.Virginia Woolf as a Literary Crtie[M].Vol.ship and readership. In her literary criticism essays, she had aX11.Toronto: University of Toronto Quarterly Press,1948.strong sense of the past, a great respect for tradition. She dared[6] Sellers Susan and Roe Sue.The Cambridge Companion to Vir~to criticize the writers who have attained great reputation. Heginia Woolf[M]上海:上海外语教育出版社,2005.critical approach is modest and unassuming. At last, Virginial7] Silver Brenda."Anon" and "The Reader": Virginia Wool'sWoolf's female consciousness has very important significance forLast EssaysM].Twentieth Century Literature,1979.feminism. Virginia Woolf's theory of "androgynous vision" is a[8]陈炎.伍尔夫研究[M].上海:上海文艺出版社,1998.new writing method, especially for women writers.[9]傅德岷.中外散文纵横论[M],重庆:西南师范大学出版社,In conclusion, as an essayist Woolf is always perectly lucid2002.but not prolix. 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