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Notions of Friendship in the Bloomsbury Group: G. E. Moore, D NOTIONS OF FRIENDSHIP IN THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP: G. E. MOORE, D. H. LAWRENCE, E. M. FORSTER, AND VIRGINIA WOOLF by Llana Carroll B.A. in Literature, Purchase College, SUNY, 2003 M.A. in English, University of Pittsburgh, 2008 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in English: Cultural and Critical Studies University of Pittsburgh 2009 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Llana Carroll It was defended on September 25, 2009 and approved by Troy Boone, Ph.D., Associate Professor Colin MacCabe, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor Kieran Setiya, Ph.D., Associate Professor Phillip E. Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor Dissertation Director: Colin MacCabe, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor ii Copyright © by Llana Carroll 2009 iii NOTIONS OF FRIENDSHIP IN THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP: G. E. MOORE, D. H. LAWRENCE, E. M. FORSTER, AND VIRGINIA WOOLF Llana Carroll, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2009 In this study I argue that the Bloomsbury Group’s notion of friendship was influenced by G. E. Moore’s philosophy of friendship, developed in “Achilles or Patroclus?” (1894) and Principia Ethica (1903), and the Great War. I posit that these dual influences were central to Lawrence, Forster, and Woolf’s representations of frustrated and melancholic friendship in their post-war novels: Women in Love (1920), A Passage to India (1924), and The Waves (1931). Lawrence rejected Moore’s notion of friendship, suggesting that after the Great War desexualized friendship was impossible. On the other hand, Forster and Woolf continued to believe in Moore’s concept that friendship and the “pleasure of human intercourse” are among “the most valuable things, which we can know or imagine” (Principia Ethica 188–89). In A Passage to India and The Waves Forster and Woolf, respectively, generatively expand and extend Moore’s philosophy of friendship to meet the complex demands of the modern world. Thus I suggest that Moore strongly influenced the Bloomsbury Group during every stage of its development, thereby complicating Leonard Woolf’s notion that Moore only influenced the group before the war. Finally, I refute allegations that the post-war modern novel is devoid of satisfying personal relationships by demonstrating that for Forster and Woolf, satisfying relationships remain a possibility. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................VIII 1.0 INTRODUCING THE CATEGORY OF FRIENDSHIP......................................... 1 1.1 FRIENDSHIP IN MID- AND LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND ............................................................................................................................ 5 1.2 THE IMPACT OF THE GREAT WAR ON FRIENDSHIP........................... 8 1.3 D. H. LAWRENCE AND FRIENDSHIP ........................................................ 13 1.4 E. M. FORSTER AND VIRGINIA WOOLF ON FRIENDSHIP................. 16 1.5 CRITICAL STUDIES OF THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP AND FRIENDSHIP ..................................................................................................................... 20 1.6 CRITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS ...................................................................... 29 2.0 LATE VICTORIAN NOTIONS OF FRIENDSHIP............................................... 33 2.1 THE DEATH OF GOD..................................................................................... 33 2.2 LESLIE STEPHEN AND AGNOSTICISM.................................................... 35 2.3 THE RISE OF INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL GROUPS........................ 37 2.4 RUSSELL AND MOORE’S PHILOSOPHICAL AGNOTICISM............... 43 2.5 RUSSELL AND MOORE’S APOSTLE PAPERS ......................................... 46 2.6 PRINCIPIA ETHICA AND THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP....................... 56 3.0 THE GREAT WAR AND MELANCHOLIA ......................................................... 62 v 3.1 THE EARLY BLOOMSBURY GROUP......................................................... 62 3.2 THE GREAT WAR AND MELANCHOLIC FRIENDSHIP ....................... 66 3.3 MOURNING AND MELANCHOLIA ............................................................ 70 3.4 REBECCA WEST AND VIRGINIA WOOLF’S WAR TRAUMA AND NONCOMBATANT MELANCHOLIA........................................................................... 75 3.5 IDENTIFICATION, PROHIBITION, AND SUBJECT FORMATION...... 82 4.0 D. H. LAWRENCE AND FRIENDSHIP................................................................. 92 4.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 92 4.2 LAWRENCE’S IDEAL OF FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE .............................. 94 4.3 LAWRENCE AND BERTRAND RUSSELL ................................................. 99 4.4 LAWRENCE, RUSSELL, AND CAMBRIDGE........................................... 114 4.5 LAWRENCE AND RUSSELL’S FALLING-OUT ...................................... 119 5.0 D. H. LAWRENCE’S WOMEN IN LOVE ........................................................... 127 5.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 127 5.2 WOMEN IN LOVE AS A WAR NOVEL ..................................................... 128 5.3 THE NEW WOMAN OF WOMEN IN LOVE............................................. 135 5.4 BIRKIN’S SEARCH FOR “WHOLE CIRCUIT” SEX .............................. 140 5.5 TWO KINDS OF LOVE................................................................................. 147 5.6 KEYNES’S REVALUATION OF LAWRENCE ......................................... 156 6.0 COLONIALISM, HOMOSEXUALITY, AND FRIENDSHIP IN FORSTER’S A PASSAGE TO INDIA............................................................................................................... 166 6.1 BRITISH IMPERIALISM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY . 168 6.2 BRITISH IMPERIALISM AND PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS ........... 173 vi 6.3 THE POSSIBILITY OF FRIENDSHIP IN A PASSAGE TO INDIA........ 179 6.3.1 The Problem of Marabar Caves .............................................................. 185 6.3.2 The Impossibility of Friendship in A Passage to India.......................... 195 6.4 FORSTER’S “WHAT I BELIEVE”.............................................................. 202 6.5 FREUD’S NOTION OF CIVILIZATION .................................................... 206 7.0 “IN SOME VAGUE WAY WE ARE ALL THE SAME PERSON”: FRIENDSHIP IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S THE WAVES ..................................................... 213 7.1 MOORE’S INFLUENCE ON WOOLF ........................................................ 213 7.2 VIRGINIA WOOLF ON FRIENDSHIP....................................................... 217 7.3 VIRGINIA WOOLF AND THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP ....................... 224 7.4 FRIENDSHIP AND IDENTITY .................................................................... 231 7.5 FRIENDSHIP AND MELANCHOLIC PEOPLE........................................ 239 7.6 A WORLD WITHOUT A SELF.................................................................... 245 8.0 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................... 251 APPENDIX A............................................................................................................................ 257 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................ 259 APPENDIX C............................................................................................................................ 264 APPENDIX D............................................................................................................................ 267 WORKS CITED........................................................................................................................ 270 NOTES....................................................................................................................................... 285 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Above all I would like to thank Professor Colin MacCabe, my dissertation director and mentor. Dr. MacCabe’s passion for teaching and writing, as well as his zest for a full and rich life, is simply infectious. Colin has kept me grounded and focused on the task of writing this manuscript, while simultaneously inviting me to think broadly about the possibilities for my career and life beyond graduate school. After I expressed an interest in friendship and the Bloomsbury Group, Professor MacCabe pointed me to G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica and sent me packing for Cambridge to read Moore’s papers. And it was there, at the Cambridge University Library Modern Manuscripts Reading Room, not far from Grantchester Meadows where the Cambridge Apostles and members of the Bloomsbury Group spent many a Saturday afternoon philosophizing and sowing the seeds for future literary projects, that the foundation of this dissertation was built. I acknowledge the support of the University of Pittsburgh Center for International Studies, as well as the Department of English, for partially funding my research trip to Cambridge. At Cambridge I had the privilege of working with several outstanding archivists and librarians who helped facilitate my research. I am especially indebted to Godfrey Waller, whose knowledge of the archive and Moore’s papers streamlined my work process. Godfrey’s warm camaraderie and interest in my project provided
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