Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life
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Ryan, Derek (2012) Virginia Woolf and the materiality of theory: sex, animal, life. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3408/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life Derek Ryan Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy English Literature School of Critical Studies, College of Arts University of Glasgow May 2012 Abstract This thesis explores the various ways in which Woolf’s oeuvre engages with new theories of materiality, focusing in particular on conceptualisations of sex, animal and life. This entails considering Woolf’s work in both textual and extra-textual, human and nonhuman, contexts, and placing her in dialogue with theoretical debates which have marked a shift since the mid-90s from the focus on language and discourse to questions of materiality and ontology. I read Woolf alongside well-known theorists and philosophers including Gilles Deleuze (solo and with Félix Guattari), Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, and Jacques Derrida, as well as other important contemporary thinkers such as Matthew Calarco, Karen Barad, Jane Bennett, and Eugene Thacker. The most prominent of these throughout is Deleuze who, despite being a key figure of poststructuralism and citing Woolf’s writing as exemplary of some of his most famous concepts, has only emerged in recent years (much later than the likes of Lacan, Kristeva and Derrida) as someone demanding serious consideration in dialogue with Woolf. Also prominent is Braidotti, who refers to Woolf as an important influence on her thought and yet has also been understudied by Woolf scholars. After an opening chapter which seeks to extend and complicate the theoretical import of Woolf’s own well-known figuration taken from the natural world – ‘granite and rainbow’ – by considering relevant passages across the span of her writing including Night and Day and ‘Sketch of the Past’, I go on to consider questions concerning: sexual difference in A Room of One’s Own and To the Lighthouse (chapter two); sexuality and desire in Orlando (chapter three); human-animal relations in Flush (chapter four); and quantum philosophy-physics and posthuman life in The Waves (chapter five). Whilst these texts form the basis of each chapter, I also refer throughout to Woolf’s other novels, essays, short stories, diaries, letters and autobiographical writing. Focusing on these wide-ranging but interrelated issues, this thesis attempts to open up a broader discussion on what precisely is at stake, and what new perspectives can be offered, in theorising Woolf today. By reading Woolf alongside but also in side theoretical writings (and vice versa), my aim is not only to provide a new perspective on Woolf’s writings or to demonstrate the ways in which her texts help elucidate the subversive potential (and limitations) in these current theoretical contexts; it is also to explore some of the aesthetic, political, ethical, historical and conceptual links between modernist literature and contemporary theory. More specifically then, and building on the premise reached by poststructuralist and postmodernist criticism that Woolf radically destabilises essential differences based on binary oppositions (Moi, Minow-Pinkney, Bowlby, Caughie), I ask: what precisely are the models of materiality, and indeed subjectivity, made possible by Woolf’s texts and by the complex contemporary cultures and theories her writing has so clearly affected? Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory 1 Sketching the Materiality of Theory 1 Woolf, Modernism and Theory 6 Woolf, New Materialisms and Deleuze 16 Chapter Overview 27 1. Materials for Theory: Digging Granite and Chasing Rainbows 31 1.1 Recontextualising ‘The New Biography’ 31 1.2 Digging Granite 40 1.2.1 Obduracy and Memorialisation 40 1.2.2 The Voyage Out and Night and Day 43 1.2.3 Cornwall 47 1.2.4 Granite Origins 50 1.3 Chasing Rainbows 52 1.3.1 ‘the paraphernalia of reality […] lit up’ 52 1.3.2 ‘the world tinged with all the colours of the rainbow’ 55 1.3.3 Rainbows in Mythology and Art 58 1.3.4 Woolf’s ‘double rainbow’ and the Art of Science 61 1.4 Against Totalisation: Repetition and Transposition 63 2. Sexual Difference in Becoming: A Room of One’s Own and To the Lighthouse 71 2.1 Sexual Difference in Three Concepts: Androgyny/Nomadism/Becoming-woman 71 2.1.1 Androgyny and Contradiction 71 2.1.2 Nomadism and Sexual Difference 78 2.1.3 Becoming-woman and Minoritarian Writing 89 2.2 Lines of Becoming: To the Lighthouse 96 2.2.1 Tri-s and ‘the constellation of voices’ 96 2.2.2 Mr Ramsay - Mrs Ramsay - James: Suppleness and Schizoanalysis 99 2.2.3 Mrs Ramsay - Mr Ramsay - Lily: Bending Trees and Becoming Grass 107 2.2.4 Mr Ramsay - Cam - James: Smoothing the Sea 114 2.2.5 Lily - Canvas - Line: Becoming Paint 119 3. Queering Orlando 124 3.1 Accidental Lovers 124 3.2 Queer/ring Love 135 3.3 ‘Hail! natural desire!’ 144 3.4. A History of Bedrooms 148 3.5 Multiplicity in a Motor Car and ‘Monday or Tuesday’ 156 4. The Question of the Animal in Flush: A Biography 162 4.1 After Allegory and Anthropocentrism 162 4.2 Derrida’s Cat and Woolf’s Denuded Dog 171 4.3 On Four Gazes: Face-to-Face with Companion Species 178 4.3.1. ‘For the first time Flush looked at the lady lying on the sofa’ 179 4.3.2 ‘large bright eyes shone in hers’ 181 4.3.3 ‘Miss Barrett refused even to meet his eyes’ 182 4.3.4 ‘he leapt on the sofa and thrust his face into hers’ 184 4.4 From Spaniel Club to An imalous Society 187 4.5 Conclusion: It’s a Cow’s Life 199 5. Quantum Materiality and Posthuman Life: The Waves 204 5.1 Woolf’s Philosophy-Physics 204 5.1.1 ‘This table […] about to undergo an extraordinary transformation’ 204 5.1.2 Intra-actions: the Entanglement of Agency 209 5.1.3 Naturalcultural Phenomena 213 5.2 Woolf’s Life-Assemblages 218 5.2.1 Life and The Living 218 5.2.2 Things, Assemblages and Walking Haecceities 222 5.2.3 Pure Immanence 232 Afterword: Contemporary Interceptions 239 Bibliography 243 Appendix 266 Acknowledgements My grateful acknowledgements to the AHRC and the University of Glasgow for funding this project. My first ‘thank you’ is to Dr. Jane Goldman for her generosity and encouragement not only in the supervision of this thesis, but in guiding me into the wider academic community. I have learned so much over the past three years and without her boundless energy and passion for Woolf studies, and her friendship, this thesis would not have been the same. A huge debt of gratitude also to Dr. Vassiliki Kolocotroni and Dr. John Coyle for their unwavering support from the moment I started on the M.Litt Modernities course and throughout my PhD research. Thank you to my examiners, Dr. Bryony Randall and Dr. Jessica Berman, for their careful reading of my work and their extremely helpful comments and suggestions looking towards the next stage of my academic career. My thanks also to Dr. David Shuttleton for reading and commenting on an early chapter of this thesis, and to Dr. Alex Benchimol for thinking of me when an office space became available! Many thanks to the Woolf community for the inspiring conferences and conversations. It was a privilege to co-organise the 21 st Annual International conference on Virginia Woolf in Glasgow, and I thank everyone for making that such a memorable occasion. Thank you to Dr. Judith Allen, Professor Claire Colebrook, Professor Mark Hussey, Dr. Pam Morris and Dr. Michael Whitworth for granting permission to quote from works that are not yet published. I have been privileged to be a part of the English Literature postgraduate community during my studies and benefitted greatly from working alongside my fellow researchers and friends. I would like to thank all who made our ‘Theory at Random’ reading group such a success. Those stimulating discussions broadened my intellectual curiosity, and at times proved a welcome distraction from writing. Thank you to: Tom Betteridge, Sadia Chaudhry, Tom Coles, Dr. Fabienne Collignon, Rebecca DeWald, Andrew Eadie, Erik Fuhrer, Ruth Hawthorn, Villy Karagouni, Henry King, Lil Rose, Douglas Small, Claire Strickett, Mark West, and Sam Wiseman. A very special thank you to Kevin, Laura, and Vhairi, not just for the past three years, but the many before. My deepest thanks to Stella for all her love. And to my Mum, Willie, Chris, and the memory of my beloved Gran. Their love and support has been a constant source of inspiration and I dedicate this thesis to them. Abbreviations Works by Virginia Woolf All references in full on first citation, and abbreviated version thereafter. BA Between the Acts CR1 The Common Reader Vol. I. CR2 The Common Reader Vol. II. CSF The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf D1-5 The Diary of Virginia Woolf F Flush: A Biography L1-6 The Letters of Virginia Woolf JR Jacob’s Room MB Moments of Being MD Mrs Dalloway ND Night and Day O Orlando: A Biography PA A Passionate Apprentice RO A Room of One’s Own E1-6 The Essays of Virginia Woolf TG Three Guineas TL To the Lighthouse VO The Voyage Out W The Waves WF Women and Fiction: The Manuscript Versions of A Room of One’s Own Y The Years Editorial Note: My own ellipses are in square brackets.