Virginia Woolf This page intentionally left blank Virginia Woolf Feminism and the Reader Anne E. Fernald VIRGINIA WOOLF © Anne E. Fernald, 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–6965–1 ISBN-10: 1–4039–6965–5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fernald, Anne E. Virginia Woolf : feminism and the reader / Anne E. Fernald. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–6965–5 (alk. paper) 1.Woolf,Virginia, 1882–1941—Criticism and interpretation. 2.Woolf,Virginia, 1882–1941—Knowledge and learning. 3.Woolf,Virginia, 1882–1941—Books and reading. 4. Feminism in literature. I. Title. PR6045.O72 Z5-Z999 823Ј.912—dc22 2005057636 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: September 2006 10987654321 Printed in the United States of America. To my parents, Graham and Greta Fernald This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Introduction: Woolfian Resonances 1 Chapter 1 O Sister Swallow: Sapphic Fragments as English Literature in Virginia Woolf 17 Chapter 2 The Memory Palace and the Lumber Room: Woolf’s Renaissance Miscellany 51 Chapter 3 A Feminist Public Sphere? Virginia Woolf’s Revisions of the Eighteenth Century 85 Chapter 4 A Very Sincere Performance: Woolf, Byron, and Fame 117 Epilogue: Woolf in Africa: Lessing, El Saadawi, and Aidoo 161 Appendix 169 Notes 171 Bibliography 199 Index 217 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This book has been long—too long—in the writing and, in consequence, my debts are great. In the years since I first imagined a book on Woolf, I have taught at five different institutions. One com- munity, however, has been constant: the global one of Woolf scholars. Thus, my first and deepest debt must go to Virginia Woolf and the readers whom she has inspired. In particular, I thank Mark Hussey and Vara Neverow for turning a virtual community into an annual conference: from the very first conference at Pace University in 1991, I have been welcomed, challenged, and encouraged. These conferences have been my intellectual home, and, through them as well as through other gatherings, I have met, talked with, and befriended many great thinkers on Woolf. It is marvelous and hum- bling to remember how deeply even single conversations have enriched my work. It is wonderful to remember the many who read my work and talked to me about this project over the years. My debts are too great to count or repay. I would like to single out Jessica Berman, Julia Briggs, Beth Rigel Daugherty, Maria DiBattista, Jay Dickson, Jeanne Dubino, Jed Esty, Christine Froula, Jane Garrity, Jane Goldman, Sally Greene, Leslie Hankins, Ed Hungerford, Jeri Johnson, Andrew McNeillie, James Najarian, Beth Rosenberg, the late Lucio Ruotolo, Brenda Silver, and Alice Staveley for sharing their intellectual gifts with me. Most recently, my writing group has been a lifeline, so I thank Manya Steinkoler and Sarah Zimmerman for great conversation and for reading, reading, and reading some more. This project began in Harriet Chessman’s graduate class on Woolf and Stein at Yale and continued as a dissertation under the direction of David Bromwich. I thank them for their support as I began to shape admiration into prose. David in particular has continued to encourage my eccentric path. Friends from those years at Yale, especially Doug Mao, Jesse Matz, Jeff Bowman, Mary Bly, and Lisa Rabin, continue to challenge and inspire. Margery Sabin and the late Bob Garis have continued as mentors long beyond my days as an undergraduate at Wellesley. x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Chapter 2 has its origins in a far different essay for Sally Greene’s collection Virginia Woolf: Reading the Renaissance (Ohio University Press, 1999). Thanks to Sally for believing in that piece and to the edi- tors at Ohio University Press for permission to print a substantially revised version here. A somewhat shorter version of chapter 3 first appeared in Feminist Studies 31.1 (Spring 2005) 158–82. I thank edi- tor Sharon Groves and all the editors at Feminist Studies, especially Suzanne Raitt, for their generous hard work and for permission to reprint it here. A shorter version of the introduction appears in Blackwell’s online journal, Literature Compass © 2006. Ͻhttp:// www.literature-compass.comϾ. I thank the editors for permission to reprint it. Finally, I gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint “Papyrus” by Ezra Pound from PERSONAE © by Ezra Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. My colleagues at Harvard, Purdue, DePauw, and now Fordham have been generous with their time and advice. My students have con- tinually reconfirmed my interest in Woolf and her world. Financial support from Yale, the Purdue Research Foundation, and DePauw University provided time, travel monies, and research assistance. I further extend thanks to my assistants Angela Laflen of Purdue for her work on the Addison chapter and Kevin Rasp of DePauw for his work on Hakluyt. Their discoveries and our discussions gave those chapters depth. Throughout this long journey, my family has been my foundation. My husband, William Morgan, saw the possibilities in my ideas before I did and has continued to push me to make this book its best. My sis- ter, Sarah Fernald Fulton; my parents, Greta and Graham Fernald; and my daughters, Olivia Jane Fernald Morgan and Isabel Sophia Fernald Morgan, have, together with my husband, provided the home from which I write. Abbreviations Citations of works by Virginia Woolf are noted parenthetically throughout using the following abbreviations. Unless otherwise noted, citations are to the unannotated Harcourt editions. The date of first publication is given here. Following standard practice in Woolf studies, I have reproduced the spelling and punctuation of Woolf’s diaries and letters as transcribed and published by her editors. ARO A Room of One’s Own. 1929. B&B “Byron and Mr. Briggs.” 1979. BTA Between the Acts. 1941. CDB The Captain’s Death Bed and Other Essays. 1950. CDML The Crowded Dance of Modern Life. 1993. CR1 The Common Reader. 1925. CR2 The Second Common Reader. 1932. CSF The Complete Shorter Fiction. 1989. D Diary. 5 vols. 1977–84. DM The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. 1942. E Essays. 4 vols. 1986–94. F Flush: A Biography. 1933. GR Granite and Rainbow: Essays. 1958. JR Jacob’s Room. 1922. L Letters. 6 vols. 1975–80. LS The London Scene. 1975. M The Moment and Other Essays. 1948. MB Moments of Being: Unpublished Autobiographical Writings. 1985. MJB “Memoir of Julian Bell.” 1936. MD Mrs. Dalloway. 1925. MWG “Memories of a Working Women’s Guild.” 1931. ND Night and Day. 1919. O Orlando: A Biography. 1928. P The Pargiters: The Novel-Essay Portion of The Years. 1977. PA A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897–1909. 1990. 3G Three Guineas. 1938. xii ABBREVIATIONS TTL To the Lighthouse. 1927. VO The Voyage Out. 1915. W The Waves. 1931. WE A Woman’s Essays. 1992. WW Women and Writing. 1979. Y The Years. 1937. Introduction: Woolfian Resonances From her girlhood in her father’s library to the end of her life, Virginia Woolf read widely and with passion. She was also an unusually subtle feminist thinker. These, for me, are the two most important facts about her. This book investigates the relation between these two facts—her reading and her feminism—arguing that her revisionist reading constitutes the fundamental shaping force of her feminism. That Woolf was a great reader needs little qualification; she is one of the best-read writers in the history of English literature. The publica- tion of annotated editions of her novels, of her letters, diaries, and read- ing notebooks, of studies cataloguing her allusions, and the ongoing project of publishing a scholarly edition of her works have all made it possible to trace the appearance of the history of literature in her work.1 My other central focus, on Woolf’s feminist thought, does need further explanation in spite of the continuing stature of A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938). It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that the feminist Woolf emerged as central to critics. The work of American feminists, Carolyn Heilbrun and Jane Marcus prominent among them, challenged the stereotype of Woolf as a deli- cate aesthete. At the same time, the publication of Woolf’s complete letters and diaries made the details of her life, including her many fem- inist alliances and activities, available to all. Soon after, Alex Zwerdling’s still essential Virginia Woolf and the Real World (1986) and the essays of Gillian Beer advanced our grasp of Woolf’s engage- ment in the social and political world.2 Still, even those persuaded by the sincerity of Woolf’s feminist commitments must account for insensitive and snobbish remarks. I contend that what critics have seen as inconsistencies in Woolf can more properly be explained by our unease with her ambitions as an artist (and her consequent willingness to make less than sisterly judgments about women writers whose work she did not admire) and our imprecision about the extent and kind of contribution Woolf made to feminism.