University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 2000 Reading for *class: Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, and Sylvia Townsend Warner Laurie Ann Quinn University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Quinn, Laurie Ann, "Reading for *class: Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, and Sylvia Townsend Warner" (2000). Doctoral Dissertations. 2127. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2127 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. 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Higher quality 6" x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. READING FOR CLASS: VIRGINIA WOOLF, REBECCA WEST, AND SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER BY LAURIE QUINN BA, Boston College, 1992 MA, Boston College, 1994 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature May, 2000 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number 9969212 Copyright 2000 by Quinn, Laurie Ann All rights reserved. __ ____ __® UMI UMI Microform9969212 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED c 2000 Laurie A. Quinn Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation has been examined and approved. Dissertation Director, Romana C. Huk, Associate Professor of English ________g ^ Jean E. Kennard, Professor of English (3<X til d V c - f t . y z u v - / Patricia A. Sullivan, Associate Professor of English John R. Ernest, Associate Professor of English Aline M. Kuntz Associate Professorssor oFPo ofPolitical Science f f . -S c Date Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my mother, Marie Theresa English Quinn, my first and most loving teacher. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements I thank the Graduate School at University of New Hampshire for awarding me a Dissertation Year Fellowship for the 1999-2000 academic year. Thanks also to the English Department at the University of New Hampshire for supporting my attendance at conferences where my academic work could be fostered and enhanced. My dissertation director and mentor, Professor Romana Huk, has been an unwavering friend to this project and to me. For her brilliance, her spirit, and her wisdom, I am more thankful than I can express. The other members of my dissertation committee have influenced the work represented here in various and significant ways. Professor John Ernest, whose intellect and dedication regularly inspire awe in his students, myself included, discussed issues of race and power with me in ways that proved vital to my thinking about this project as it developed. Professor Jean Kennard, who helped me become a scholar of Virginia Woolf's w riting, has generously shared the fruits of her experience in the profession. Professor Patricia Sullivan has by her own example shown me the power of inspired teaching and courageous writing; her steadfast support of my academic interests, particularly in the field of class studies, has meant a great deal to me. Professor Aline Kuntz's expertise in political science and encouragement of my dissertation work have been of genuine benefit. I also w'ant to acknowledge Professor Susan Schibanoff, devoted faculty sponsor of the English Department's doctoral dissertation workshop, and my brilliant fellow* graduate students in that group, for their insightful readings of drafts of these chapters, and especially for their cherished friendship. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION.......................................................................................................................................iv ACKNOWLEGEMENTS....................................................................................................................v ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................1 I. Triangulating Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, and Sylvia Townsend Warner............ 1 II. W(h)ither(ed) Marxism? Contexts for and Methods of Reading for Class............... 37 EH. Classed Juxtpositions of Genre.............................................................................................57 IV. Situating My Reading for C lass............................................................................................60 1. COMPLEXITIES OF PRIVILEGE: CLASS CONSTRUCTIONS IN AND AROUND VIRGINIA WOOLF............................66 I. Classing Virginia Woolf; Two Biographical-Literary M oments.................................... 66 II. Mrs. Dalloway: Form as Political Content, or, Ways of (Re)reading for Class.... 112 III. A Woolf With Political Teeth: Constructing the Twenty-First Century Woolf ... 149 2. 'ISSUES AS GRAVE AS THIS ARE RAISED BY FEMINISM': CLASS-IFYING REBECCA W EST ........................................................................................................................154 I. Daring to Trespass: Rebecca West's Political and Literary Troublemaking............ 154 H. Class-ifications of and Contexts forThe Return of the Soldier........................................ 183 HI. The Return of the Soldier: The Costs of Complicity and the Sins of Sacrifice............ 188 3. BREAKING THE PLOT: SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER'S VARIATIONS O N/ AS CLASS-CONSCIOUS LITERATURE.................................................................. 239 I. Discursive Travels: From the Kitchen to the Palace..........................................................239 H. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Breaking and Remaking Our Critical Plots.................. 261 ni. The True Heart: Warner's Rewriting of the Deserving Orphan Narrative...............288 CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................................322 WORKS CITED...................................................................................................................................328 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT READING FOR CLASS: VIRGINIA WOOLF, REBECCA WEST, AND SYLVIA TOWSEND WARNER by Laurie A. Quinn University of New Hampshire, May, 2000 Reading far Class is a feminist materialist study of three twentieth-century British writers: Virginia W oolf (1882-1941), Rebecca West (1892-1983), and Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978). In triangulation, Woolf, West, and Warner provide the specific grounding for the project's more general exploration of the intersections between class issues and literature. The Introduction forges the eclectic critical method defined as reading for class, and articulates the historical-political purposes of the method and of the study itself. In Chapter One, analyses of two of Woolf's lesser-known texts, the "Introductory Letter" to the collectionLife