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Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-72167-7 - The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, Second Edition Edited by Susan Sellers Frontmatter More information

the cambridge companion to virginia woolf

Second edition

Virginia Woolf’s writing has generated passion and controversy for the best part of a century. Her novels – challenging, moving, and always deeply intelligent – remain as popular with readers as they are with students and academics. This highly successful Cambridge Companion has been fully revised to take account of new departures in scholarship since it first appeared. The second edition includes new chapters on race, nation and empire, sexuality, aesthetics, visual culture and the public sphere. The remaining chapters, as well as the guide to further reading, have all been fully updated. The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf remains the first port of call for students new to Woolf’s work, with its informative, readable style, chronology and authoritative information about secondary sources.

susan sellers is Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of St Andrews. With Jane Goldman, she is General Editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Virginia Woolf; she is also the author of Vanessa and Virginia (2008), a novel about Woolf and Vanessa Bell.

A complete list of books in the series is at the back of the book.

© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-72167-7 - The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, Second Edition Edited by Susan Sellers Frontmatter More information

THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO VIRGINIA WOOLF

EDITED BY SUSAN SELLERS

Second Edition

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sa˜o Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru,UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521721677

# Cambridge University Press 2010

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2000 Second edition 2010

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Cambridge companion to Virginia Woolf / edited by Susan Sellers. – 2nd ed. p. cm. – (Cambridge companions to literature) isbn 978-0-521-89694-8 (Hardback) – isbn 978-0-521-72167-7 (pbk.) 1. Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941–Criticism and interpretation. I. Sellers, Susan. II. Title. III. Series. pr6045.o72z5655 2010 8230.912–dc22 2009047127

isbn 978-0-521-89694-8 Hardback isbn 978-0-521-72167-7 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, Cambridge University Press is not liable for direct damages or loss of any kind resulting from the use of this product or from errors or faults contained in it, and in every case Cambridge University Press’s liability shall be limited to the amount actually paid by the customer for the product.

For Julia Briggs

CONTENTS

List of contributors page ix Acknowledgements x List of abbreviations xi Chronology xii Introduction xix SUSAN SELLERS

1 Bloomsbury 1

ANDREW MC NEILLIE

2 Virginia Woolf’s early novels: Finding a voice 29 SUZANNE RAITT

3 From Mrs Dalloway to The Waves: New elegy and lyric experimentalism 49 JANE GOLDMAN

4 The novels of the 1930s and the impact of history 70 JULIA BRIGGS

5 Virginia Woolf’s essays 89 HERMIONE LEE

6 Virginia Woolf, modernism and modernity 107 MICHAEL H. WHITWORTH

7 The socio-political vision of the novels 124 DAVID BRADSHAW

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contents

8 Woolf’s feminism and feminism’s Woolf 142 LAURA MARCUS

9 Virginia Woolf and sexuality 180 PATRICIA MORGNE CRAMER

10 Virginia Woolf, Empire and race 197 HELEN CARR

11 Virginia Woolf and visual culture 214 MAGGIE HUMM

12 Virginia Woolf and the public sphere 231 MELBA CUDDY-KEANE

Guide to further reading 250 Index 263

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CONTRIBUTORS

david bradshaw, Worcester College, Oxford

julia briggs, formerly De Montfort University

helen carr, Goldsmiths College, London

patricia morgne cramer, University of Connecticut, Stamford

melba cuddy-keane, University of Toronto

jane goldman, University of Glasgow

maggie humm, University of East London

hermione lee, Wolfson College, Oxford

laura marcus, New College, Oxford

andrew mcneillie is the editor of Virginia Woolf’s essays and co-editor, with Anne Olivier Bell, of her diaries

suzanne raitt, College of William and Mary

michael whitworth, Merton College, Oxford

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editor gratefully acknowledges the following institutions and individuals in the creation of this volume: Anthea Ballam, Ian Blyth, David Bradshaw, Cambridge University Press, Helen Carr, Stuart N. Clarke, Patricia Morgne Cramer, Melba Cuddy-Keane, Maria DiBattista, Susan Dick, Jane Goldman, Joanne Hill, Maggie Humm, Hermione Lee, Laura Marcus, Andrew McNeillie, Suzanne Raitt, Sue Roe, the School of English at the University of St Andrews, Michael Whitworth, Elizabeth Wright.

ABBREVIATIONS

BA Between the Acts CE Virginia Woolf: The Collected Essays CR The Common Reader CR2 The Common Reader: Second Series CSF The Complete Shorter Fiction D The Diary of Virginia Woolf Draft TL To the Lighthouse: The Original Holograph Draft Draft W The Waves: The Two Holograph Drafts E The Essays of Virginia Woolf EJ A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals: 1897–1909 F Flush GR Granite and Rainbow JR Jacob’s Room L The Letters of Virginia Woolf MB Moments of Being Mrs D Mrs Dalloway ND Night and Day O Orlando RF Roger Fry: A Biography ROO A Room of One’s Own SSS Selected Short Stories TG Three Guineas TL To the Lighthouse VO The Voyage Out W The Waves WE A Woman’s Essays Y The Years

Unless otherwise stated in the notes to individual chapters, the above abbreviations refer to the editions listed under ‘Works by Virginia Woolf’ at the start of the ‘Guide to further reading’.

CHRONOLOGY

1878 Parents Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth (ne´e Jackson) marry (26 March).

1879 Sister Vanessa Stephen born (30 May).

1880 Brother Thoby Stephen born (8 September).

1882 Adeline Virginia Stephen born at 22 Hyde Park Gate, London (25 January). Stephen family spend the first of their summers at Talland House in St Ives, Cornwall. Leslie Stephen begins working on the Dictionary of National Biography.

1883 Brother Adrian Stephen born (27 October).

1888 First extant letter (to James Russell Lowell, 20 August).

1891 Along with Vanessa and Thoby Stephen, begins writing the family newspaper, Hyde Park Gate News (January–February). Leslie Stephen resigns from the DNB.

1892 Writes, with Thoby Stephen, ‘A Cockney’s Farming Experiences’ (22 August–26 September) and ‘The Experiences of a Paterfamilias’ (10 October–19 December) for Hyde Park Gate News.

1893 Meets Rupert Brooke (summer).

1894 Stephen family spend their last summer at Talland House.

1895 Julia Stephen dies (5 May).

1896 Keeps a diary for a short period of time. Travels to France (November).

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chronology

1897 Begins her first extant diary (3 January). Half-sister Stella Duckworth marries Jack Hills (10 April), but dies soon after- wards (19 July). Begins classes in Greek and History at King’s College, London (November).

1898 Begins studying Latin with Clara Pater (October).

1899 Thoby Stephen goes up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he meets Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Saxon Sydney-Turner and Leonard Woolf (3 October).

1901 Takes up bookbinding (October).

1902 Begins studying Greek with Janet Case (early January). Writes ‘Friendship’s Gallery’ (August–September).

1904 Leslie Stephen dies (22 February). Travels to Wales, Italy and France (27 February–9 May). Moves, with Thoby, Vanessa and Adrian Stephen, to 46 Gordon Square (autumn). First publication appears (‘The Son of Royal Langbrith’, Guardian, 14 December).

1905 Begins teaching at Morley College, London (6 January). Start of Thoby Stephen’s ‘Thursday Evenings’, with Saxon Sydney- Turner as the only guest on this first evening (16 February). Publishes first review for The Times Literary Supplement (‘Literary Geography’, 10 March). Travels to Spain and Portugal, via France (29 March–24 April). Start of Vanessa Bell’s ‘Friday Club’ (October).

1906 Writes ‘[Phyllis and Rosamund]’ (20–3 June), ‘The Mysterious Case of Miss V.’ (summer) and ‘[The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn]’ (August). Travels to Greece and Turkey, via France and Italy (8 September–29 October). Thoby Stephen dies (20 November).

1907 Vanessa Stephen marries Clive Bell (7 February). Travels to France (28 March–10 April). Moves, with Adrian Stephen, to 29 Fitzroy Square (10 April). Begins writing ‘Melymbrosia’, later published as The Voyage Out (summer). Writes ‘Reminiscences’ (August).

1908 Nephew Julian Bell born (4 February). Travels to Wales, Italy and France (18 August–30 September).

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chronology

1909 Engaged, fleetingly, to Lytton Strachey (17 February). Meets Lady Ottoline Morrell (30 March). Travels to Italy (23 April–9 May) and Germany, where she attends the Bayreuth Festival (5 August–3 September). Writes ‘Memoirs of a Novelist’ (rejected by the Cornhill Magazine, 10 November).

1910 Takes part in the ‘Dreadnought Hoax’ (10 February). First Post- Impressionist Exhibition opens (8 November). Nephew Claudian [Quentin] Bell born (19 August). Does voluntary work for the women’s suffrage campaign (January and November– December).

1911 Rents Little Talland House in Firle, Sussex. Travels to Turkey (22–9 April). Negotiates rental of Asheham House in Beddingham, Sussex (October). Moves to 38 Brunswick Square with Adrian Stephen, Duncan Grant and Maynard Keynes (20 November). Leonard Woolf moves into 38 Brunswick Square (4 December).

1912 Marries Leonard Woolf (10 August). Travels to France, Spain and Italy (18 August–3 October). Moves to 13 Clifton’s Inn, London (late October).

1913 Delivers manuscript of The Voyage Out to Duckworth (9 March), novel accepted for publication (12 April).

1914 House-hunting in London, first at 65 St Margaret’s Road, Twickenham (9 October), then 17 The Green, Richmond, Surrey (17 October).

1915 Begins first diary after marriage (January–February). Resolves to buy printing press and Hogarth House, Richmond (25 January). The Voyage Out published (26 March).

1916 Nelly Boxall and Lottie Hope begin working for the Woolfs (1 February). Begins writing Night and Day (reaches Chapter XII by October). Meets Katherine Mansfield (early November?).

1917 First printing press delivered (24 April). Hogarth Press publishes Two Stories: Virginia Woolf’s ‘The Mark on the Wall’ and Leonard Woolf’s ‘Three Jews’ (July). Begins keeping a diary again (3 August).

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chronology

1918 Hogarth Press publishes Katherine Mansfield’s Prelude (10 July). Meets T. S. Eliot (15 November). Niece Angelica Bell born (25 December).

1919 Hogarth Press publishes Kew Gardens (12 May). Buys Monks House in Rodmell (1 July), moves in (1 September). Duckworth publishes Night and Day (20 October).

1920 First meeting of the ‘Memoir Club’ (4 March). Begins writing Jacob’s Room (May).

1921 Hogarth Press publishes Monday or Tuesday (7 or 8 March) – all subsequent publications are with the Hogarth Press.

1922 Publishes Jacob’s Room (27 October). Meets Vita Sackville- West (14 December).

1923 Katherine Mansfield dies (9 January). Leonard Woolf becomes literary editor of The Nation (23 March). Travels to France and Spain (27 March–6 May). Assists S. S. Koteliansky in translations of Tolstoi’s Love Letters and Goldenveizer’s Talks with Tolstoi. Begins writing first version of Freshwater, and ‘The Hours’, later published as Mrs. Dalloway (August–September).

1924 Buys lease for 52 Tavistock Square (9 January), moves in (13–15 March). Publishes Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (30 October).

1925 Travels to France (26 March–7 April). Publishes The Common Reader (23 April) and Mrs. Dalloway (14 May). Begins working on ‘Phases of Fiction’ (December).

1926 Begins writing To the Lighthouse (8 January). Meets Thomas Hardy (23 July).

1927 Travels to France and Italy (30 March–28 April). Publishes To the Lighthouse (5 May). Begins writing Orlando (5 October).

1928 Travels to France (26 March–16 April). Awarded Prix Femina for To the Lighthouse (April). Travels to Burgundy with Vita Sackville-West (24 September–1 October). Publishes Orlando (11 October). Lectures on ‘Women and Fiction’ at Girton and Newnham colleges, Cambridge (October).

chronology

1929 Travels to Germany (16–21 January) and France (4–14 June). Publishes A Room of One’s Own (24 October). Begins writing ‘The Moths’, later published as The Waves (2 July). Leonard Woolf resigns as literary editor of The Nation (31 December).

1930 Meets Ethel Smyth (20 February).

1931 Meets John Lehmann (12 January). Travels to France (16–30 April). Begins writing Flush (August). Publishes The Waves (8 October).

1932 Lytton Strachey dies (21 January). Turns down invitation to give Clark lectures at Cambridge (February). Dora Carrington dies (11 March). Travels to Greece (15 April–12 May). Publishes A Letter to a Young Poet (1 July) and The Common Reader: Second Series (13 October). Begins writing ‘The Pargiters’, later published as The Years (October).

1933 Refuses honorary degree from Manchester University (3 March). Travels to Italy, via France (5–27 May). Turns down invitation to give Leslie Stephen Lecture at Cambridge (early September). Publishes Flush (5 October). Meets Walter Sickert (15 December).

1934 Nelly Boxall leaves (28 March). Travels to Ireland (26 April– 9 May). Roger Fry dies (9 September). Meets W. B. Yeats (25 October).

1935 First performance of Freshwater (18 January). Travels to Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy and France (1–31 May).

1936 Begins working on Roger Fry (autumn). Begins writing Three Guineas (November).

1937 Publishes The Years (15 March). Julian Bell killed in Spain (18 July).

1938 John Lehmann buys her share in Hogarth Press (1 March). Lady Ottoline Morrell dies (21 April). Travels to Scotland (16 June– 2 July). Publishes Three Guineas (2 June). Begins working on ‘Pointz Hall’, later published as Between the Acts (April).

1939 Meets Sigmund Freud (28 January). Refuses honorary degree from Liverpool University (3 March). Begins writing ‘A Sketch of the Past’ (18 April). Travels to France (5–19 June). Moves to

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chronology

37 Mecklenburgh Square (17 August), but spends most of her time at Monks House.

1940 Publishes Roger Fry (25 July). Begins writing ‘Reading at Random’ (18 September). Mecklenburgh Square is bombed (10 September). Hogarth Press moves to Letchworth, Herts (23 September).

1941 Finishes final typescript of Between the Acts (26 February). Dies (28 March). Between the Acts published posthumously (17 July).

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SUSAN SELLERS Introduction

Virginia Woolf’s writing has generated passion and controversy for the best part of a century. Her novel The Waves, often cited as her showcase of high modernism, was variously described by its contemporaries as ‘a master- piece’, ‘beautiful’, ‘bloodless’ and ‘dull’.1 Ruth Gruber enrolled for the first PhD on Woolf in 1931 (the year The Waves was published); nowadays, university courses and postgraduate dissertations on her work abound.2 It is not only within the academy that Woolf’s writing is influential. Recalling her insistence on the importance of the ‘common reader’ (the title Woolf chose for her two volumes of collected essays), her fiction is currently available in a plethora of affordable paperback editions, and has been the inspiration for recent novelists, playwrights, film-makers, composers – even rock bands.3 This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, like its predecessor, is directed towards those wishing to augment their reading through an introduction to the interrogations and discoveries of Woolf scholars today. For – as Michael Whitworth explains in chapter 6 below – attempts to keep Woolf out of the newly formed discipline of English in the 1950s and 1960s were abortive: it is now difficult to conceive of the terrain of English Literature without some reference to Woolf’s work, and Woolf studies has evolved into a vibrant and burgeoning arena in its own right. Laura Marcus, in chapter 8, reveals how Woolf’s engagement with gender led to increased interest in her work in the wake of 1970s feminist cam- paigns, while more recent awareness of Woolf’s attentiveness to the wider social, political and cultural contexts within which she wrote has led to significant shifts not only in the way her writing is read, but in our understanding of modernism more generally. This revised edition of The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf delineates these transformations and presents the current debates within Woolf studies by some of the leading proponents in the field. Like its predecessor, this volume begins with an overview by Andrew McNeillie of the thinkers and artists whose work and ideas Woolf engaged

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susan sellers

with. The next three chapters provide detailed readings of Woolf’s fiction, divided according to period: Suzanne Raitt on the early novels up to and including Jacob’s Room; Jane Goldman on the middle novels with a new focus on Woolf’s aesthetic and formal concerns; and Julia Briggs on the later novels. Recent recognition of Woolf not only as a writer of fiction and biography, but also as a prolific writer of non-fiction, is the source for the following chapter, Hermione Lee’s study of Woolf’s essays. The next three chapters cover areas that remain at the forefront of Woolf studies: Michael Whitworth on Woolf’s relation to modernism and modernity; David Bradshaw on the socio-political vision of the novels; and Laura Marcus on Woolf and feminism. The final essays in the collection encom- pass some of the new interests and departures in Woolf scholarship: Patricia Morgne Cramer on Woolf and sexuality; Helen Carr on Woolf, empire and race; Maggie Humm on Woolf and visual culture; and Melba Cuddy-Keane on Woolf and the public sphere. Choosing what to keep in and what to leave out of this revised edition involved difficult decisions, only partially miti- gated by the knowledge that any material from the first Companion not included here will remain available in libraries. All the chapters retained from the 2000 edition have been fully revised and updated, as has the ‘Guide to further reading’. Given the abundance and diversity of available versions of Woolf’s novels, this new Woolf Companion, like its predecessor, has opted not to privilege a particular edition but instead has allowed individual scholars to choose the one that seems best suited to their purposes. The only standardisation occurs with Woolf’s non-fiction, where competing editions are rare and consequently there is a greater degree of consensus.4 These standard editions are referred to as CE1–4 (Collected Essays, 4 volumes), D1–5 (Diaries, 5 volumes), E1–6 (Essays, 6 volumes) and L1–6 (Letters, 6 volumes). It is hoped that the accessibility of on-line versions of the novels will make it straightforward for any reader using a different text to locate specific references. Julia Briggs sadly died before she was able to revise her chapter for this volume. Early email correspondence with her indicated that though she would have updated her contribution, she would not have rewritten it substantially; accordingly, I have taken the decision to alter it only in the sense of including references to more recent writing on the topic.5 This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf is dedi- cated to Julia: to her superb scholarship and writing, to her dedication and passion as a teacher, and above all to her desire that Virginia Woolf should be enjoyed by as wide a range of ‘common readers’ as possible.

Susan Sellers, University of St Andrews

introduction

Notes

1 These adjectives refer, respectively, to a phone coversation with Harold Nicolson noted in Woolf’s diary (D4,p.47); to Winifred Holtby’s Virginia Woolf (London: Wishart, 1932,p.195); Frank Swinnerton’s review of the novel in the Evening News (9 October 1931); and H. C. Harwood’s in The Saturday Review (10 October 1931). 2 Gruber’s PhD, ‘Virginia Woolf: A Study’, was awarded by the University of Cologne and published in 1935 by Tauchnitz Press. See Ruth Gruber, Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005). 3 Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hours (1998) is perhaps the best-known novel to have been directly influenced by Woolf’s work. Its adaptation by award-winning playwright David Hare into Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film of the same name starred Hollywood actresses Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. Musicians inspired by Woolf include Ludovico Einaudi, Regina Spektor and the British rock band The Smiths. The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain records wider cultural references to Virginia Woolf and her work in its quarterly Bulletin; these have included quotations in British broadsheets, allusions in the highly popular American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and the use of Woolf’s image and words to market a range of products from greeting cards to drinking mugs. 4 At the time of going to press, the available editions of Woolf’s novels adopt varying approaches, for instance in deciding between the differently corrected first British or first American publication as a base text, and in the degree of transparency adopted when introducing editorial changes. It is hoped that the forthcoming Cambridge University Press edition of Woolf’s writing will go some way towards rectifying this confusing situation. 5 In an email dated 12 April 2007, Julia indicated that although she felt there were limitations to her chapter, she thought it ‘fit for purpose’. However, she did suggest that she might add a new paragraph on the following lines: ‘what I would want to add is the way that the seeds of both 3 Guineas and of Between the Acts are actually to be found in The Years notebooks, and to emphasise the way that all the major work of the thirties is a development rather than a departure’ (personal email to the editor).

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