Concetti Chiave
- Virginia Woolf grew up in a literary environment that influenced her perception of water as both harmonious and a symbol of conflict resolution through death.
- She was a key member of the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of intellectuals and artists in early 20th-century London.
- Woolf's notable works include "Mrs Dalloway" (1925), "To the Lighthouse" (1927), and "Orlando" (1928).
- Her modernist approach focused on the inner emotional world, using a stream of consciousness narrative to convey subjective reality.
- Woolf's writing features poetic language and structured thought processes, distinguishing her from contemporaries like James Joyce.
Indice
- Virginia Woolf - General presentation
- Virginia Woolf - A modernist novelist
- Free indirect and direct thought
Virginia Woolf - General presentation
Virginia Woolf, nèe Stephen, was born in 1882 in England and killed herself in the river Ouse in Sussex in 1941. As a matter of fact, after the First World War, her anxiety came to the surface, so she became haunted by the terror of losing her mind and to deal with atrocious feelings that would have come from herself and the context of WW2.
She grew up in a literary and intellectual atmosphere, that contributed to the creation of her personal writing skills and the development of her very peculiar symbolism.
For example, water represented two things: one the one hand what is harmonious and feminine, on the other hand the possibility of the resolution of intolerable conflicts in death. All of this can be seen especially in "To the lighthouse" which was published in 1927.
She became a member of the Bloomsbury Group, that included the avant-garde of early 20th-century London. She wrote the novel “Mrs Dalloway” in 1925, “Orlando” in 1928 and "A Room of One's Own" in 1929.
Virginia Woolf - A modernist novelist
Virginia Woolf was interested in giving voice to the interior world of feelings, so the events that traditionally made up a story were no longer so important, and she emphasizes the impression that those events make on the characters.
Her novels haven’t got the omniscient narrator and the point of view shifted inside the protagonists’ mind, because she thought that the mind received a myriad of impression “with the sharpness of steel”.
As for Joyce, also for Virginia Woolf subjective reality came to be identified with the “stream of consciousness”. Virginia’s characters don’t rattle off their thoughts, and there is a logical and grammatical organization. Her “moments of being” are similar to Joyce’s epiphanies, but he was more interested in language experimentation, while she used a poetic and allusive lexicon.
Free indirect and direct thought
In Mrs. Dalloway can be found some examples of what it was explained in the paragraph above that can be useful to learn to distinguish the different typologies of speech and writing techniques.
As a matter of fact, the free indirect thought express something that is in a character’s mind but there is a distance between them: the character is not aware of his or her thought, which is read by the reader, or it is not particularly felt.
For instance: “Jane turned and stared. Were these the flowers she had seen here yesterday”.
It can be noticed that Jane seems not to ask herself the question.
On the other hand, the free direct thought express the same things as the indirect one but the narrator is not present.
For instance: “Jane turned and stared. Are these the flowers I saw here yesterday?”
In both cases, anyway, the reporting verbs are not used because the aim is to underline the pure thought that the narrator can not fully express: only the characters’ interiority and introspection can because they have the power to break the measured time and let the time of the conscience enter in their world.
This concept came from a long tradition that started with Jane Austen and continued with Gustave Flaubert, George Eliot and Henry James.
Domande da interrogazione
- Chi era Virginia Woolf e quale fu il suo contributo alla letteratura?
- Quali sono alcuni dei romanzi più noti di Virginia Woolf?
- Come Virginia Woolf rappresenta i pensieri dei suoi personaggi nei suoi romanzi?
- Qual è il significato simbolico dell'acqua nei lavori di Virginia Woolf?
- Quali influenze letterarie hanno contribuito allo sviluppo delle tecniche narrative di Virginia Woolf?
Virginia Woolf, nata Stephen nel 1882 in Inghilterra, fu una scrittrice modernista che esplorò il mondo interiore dei sentimenti nei suoi romanzi, contribuendo con una simbolica peculiare e tecniche narrative innovative come il "flusso di coscienza".
Tra i romanzi più noti di Virginia Woolf ci sono "Mrs Dalloway" (1925), "To the Lighthouse" (1927), "Orlando" (1928) e "A Room of One's Own" (1929).
Virginia Woolf utilizza il pensiero indiretto libero e diretto libero per rappresentare i pensieri dei suoi personaggi, permettendo al lettore di accedere alla loro interiorità senza l'intervento di un narratore onnisciente.
Nei lavori di Virginia Woolf, l'acqua simboleggia sia l'armonia e la femminilità, sia la possibilità di risolvere conflitti intollerabili attraverso la morte, come evidenziato in "To the Lighthouse".
Le tecniche narrative di Virginia Woolf sono state influenzate da una lunga tradizione che include autori come Jane Austen, Gustave Flaubert, George Eliot e Henry James, che hanno esplorato l'interiorità e l'introspezione dei personaggi.
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