A SEARCH FOR LITERARINESS BASED ON THE CRITICAL RECEPTION OF VIRGINIA WOOLF’S MRS DALLOWAY By BIANCA LINDI NIENABER Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS (ENGLISH) in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg. Supervisor: Professor Rory Ryan Date: January 2012 i Contents Affidavit iii Abstract iv Acknowledgments v Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Formalist Search for Literariness 13 Chapter 2: Defamiliarization in Mrs Dalloway 47 Chapter 3: Critics on Woolf: Questions of Form, Language and Defamiliarization 82 Conclusion 113 Works Cited 130 ii AFFIDAVIT: MASTER AND DOCTORAL STUDENTS TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN This serves to confirm that I______________________________________________________ Full Name(s) and Surname ID Number/ Passport_____________________________________________________________________ Student number____________________ enrolled for the Qualification ____________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ in the Faculty of Humanities Herewith declare that my academic work is in line with the Plagiarism Policy of the University of Johannesburg with which I am familiar. I further declare that the work presented in the ___________________________________(minor dissertation/dissertation/thesis) is authentic and original unless clearly indicated otherwise and in such instances full reference to the source is acknowledged and I do not pretend to receive any credit for such acknowledged quotations, and that there is no copyright infringement in my work. I declare that no unethical research practices were used or material gained through dishonesty. I understand that plagiarism is a serious offence and that should I contravene the Plagiarism Policy notwithstanding signing this affidavit, I may be found guilty of a serious criminal offence (perjury) that would amongst other consequences compel the University of Johannesburg to inform all other tertiary institutions of the offence and to issue a corresponding certificate of reprehensible academic conduct to whomever requests such a certificate from the institution. Signed at Johannesburg ________________ on this _______ of ____________________2013 Signature __________________________________ Print name _________________________ STAMP: COMMISSIONER OF OATHS Affidavit certified by a Commissioner of Oaths This affidavit conforms with the requirements of the JUSTICES OF THE PEACE AND COMMISSIONERS OF OATHS ACT 16 OF 1963 and the applicable Regulations published in the GG GNR 1258 of 21 July 1972; GN 903 of 10 July 1998; GN 109 of 2 February 2001 as amended. iii Abstract This dissertation begins by examining the central tenets of Russian Formalism and American New Criticism. Although it is a term coined by the Russian Formalists, both these schools of thought, in their own ways, are concerned with literariness – that is, that which distinguishes the literary work from other forms of writing. This study traces the ways in which these two critical movements account for the specifically literary language that they claim characterises literary works. Based on the principles derived from these two schools I analyse aspects of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and demonstrate that defamiliarization is at work on various levels of this novel. Thereafter, I examine criticism pertaining to Woolf and illustrate that there are numerous illuminating parallels that can be drawn between recent critics’ studies on Woolf and the principles of the formalists. In particular, I attempt to show that the principle of estranged form continues to inform our critical thought about Woolf’s works. I focus primarily on the arguments posited in two critical studies: Edward Bishop’s Virginia Woolf (1991) and Oddvar Holmesland’s Form as Compensation for Life: Fictive Patterns in Virginia Woolf’s Novels (1998). These studies were selected because they centre on questions of language and form and, as such, coincide in a number of interesting ways with the tenets of formalism. Keywords: literariness; Russian formalism; New Criticism; defamiliarization; form; Shklovsky; Brooks; Woolf iv Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Rory Ryan, who asked me when I was fresh out of Honours – “What is literature? What is it that we study?” – I still don’t have an answer to your question, but the search for an answer has added many intriguing questions to this one. Thank you for encouraging me to explore these ideas and for your patience throughout this dissertation. I would also like to thank the members of the English Department at the University of Johannesburg. In particular, Professor Karen Scherzinger, who was always willing to read over my work and discuss ideas with me; your comments have helped make me a better writer. I also want to thank Dalene Labuschagne and Bridget Grogan for proofreading some of my chapters and cheering me on. Lastly, I would like to thank Professor Craig MacKenzie, who never tires from trying to explain to me the proper use of the semi-colon. I must also express my gratitude to the University of Johannesburg for granting me a New Generation Scholarship. Last, but most importantly, I want to thank my family and friends for never wavering in their support throughout this trying time. I would like to thank my parents for their constant encouragement and my brother, for supporting me and forcing me to have fun occasionally, despite my reluctance. To Rustin, thank you for listening to me rant (and joining in), for assuring me that I am capable, and for positive reinforcement in the form of Kinder Joy eggs. To my dear friend Karen, I am sure I would have abandoned this project if it weren’t for your constant cheerful camaraderie. To Mila, Colleen and Minesh, thank you so much for your continuous cheerleading and timely proofreading. I also have to express my thanks to my friend Werner, who so often watched movies late into the night, so I wouldn’t have to stay up alone. v Introduction In his book How to Read a Poem (2007), Terry Eagleton remarks that “Literary critics live in a permanent state of dread – a fear that one day some minor clerk in a government office, idly turning over a document, will stumble upon the embarrassing truth that we are actually paid for reading poems and novels” (2007: 22). Eagleton’s humorous remark reveals deeper concerns about the public’s perception regarding the relevance and value of a discipline such as literary studies. In recent years, a number of countries have decreased funding for the humanities substantially (Perloff 2011: 153). These cutbacks reflect the growing perception that disciplines within the humanities, particularly disciplines such as English, are less valuable than other areas of knowledge, such as science and economics (155). This perception is compounded by the lack of agreement between members of English departments concerning the basic axioms of the discipline: what our object of study is and how we attend to it. This issue was addressed at the nineteenth annual Alabama Symposium on English and American literature, where critics such as Gerald Graff, Stanley Fish and George Garrett, to name a few, debated the disciplinary status of English. James Raymond, editor of English as a Discipline: Or, is there a Plot in this Play? (1996), the collection of papers given at this symposium, asserts that English as a discipline “is a collection of disparate activities with multiple objects of inquiry, vaguely articulated methodologies, and diverse notions of proof” (1996: 1). The symposium highlighted the debate about whether the boundaries that define English as a discipline should be narrowed, and whether the use of certain critical approaches that stray into related disciplines within the humanities should be curtailed. Many critics welcomed the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries and argued that to limit “English to the study of aesthetic effects, to deprive it of attention to social and political consequences, is to make it, tautologically, less consequential” (Raymond 1996: 6). Yet for some, like Fish, this view represents the “English department’s death wish” (6). Fish maintains that without the necessary exclusions that define a discipline as such, “it is hard to see what you are doing and why you should consider doing it” (1996: 172). Gerald Graff adopts a divergent perspective in his paper “Is there a Conversation in this Curriculum? Or, Coherence without Disciplinarity” (1996). He observes that this debate 1 concerning the disciplinary margins of English is unlikely ever to be resolved; indeed, he claims he is not troubled in the least by the fact that literary studies is not a coherently defined discipline (1996: 11). His concern is, rather, “whether English studies is conceptually coherent” (11) from students’ perspectives. Graff fears that the diverse methods of inquiry and the multiple theoretical approaches applied within literary studies leave the student in the position of having to draw his/her own connections between these disparate modes of analysis (20). He proposes that, instead of trying to narrow the scholarly purview of literary studies, students should be exposed to these debates and encouraged to reflect on the implications of the different critical approaches that can be applied to the study of literature. According to Graff “potential coherence lies precisely in the conversations between different and conflicting languages of justification and practices” (12). He has elsewhere described this position