Virginia Woolf: "Words"

I could not read "Mrs. Dalloway" without hearing the voice of the author in her work. This is my first time to read the novel, or to know anything about the author, Virginia Woolf. I have heard the name "Virginia Woolf," but had no idea about who she was, only that she was a writer and maybe a movie had been made about her. I started first reading the novel, with no background information, and I immediately began to get an impression of her. I wondered if she was young when she wrote it, I also wondered if she was sane. I felt that the book was like the proverbial fruit cake that people give as gifts during the holidays, but no one wants to get, and I had just bit into it. I thought it was too much, too thick with meaning, too rich with words. The words that lived in this mind must have been difficult to manage as they ran their stream of consciousness from the inward to the outward descriptions, so thick that it took the ringing of Old Ben with each hour to separate the layers of meaning, too saturated to distinguish a single train of thought, past to present, memory to reality. I tried to tolerate it in order to get to the good parts, but I felt left with sticky parts in between. All in all, I did not like the book. I felt I needed more information in order to be able to appreciate this writer. My ignorance is sometimes my biggest hindrance to appreciating someone's work. I think the timing also has something to do with it, too bogged down with so many things to read and do at the same time this week. My plate was already too full when I started to read, so "dessert" on such a full plate was not as welcome with no time between occasions. It also happens to be Thanksgiving, a time when the metaphor is more a reality. I hope to try it again at some other time, when I can see the book with different eyes.

I don't want to sound judgmental or harsh regarding the author. I was amazed that my impression of her was close to the truth, that she had suffered from abuse as a child and disorders that led her to take her own life eventually. She was brilliant and her writing reflects that, however, as she says in her video, words live in the mind, and they also reflect her struggle to some degree. At least that was my initial impression. I have much to learn about her writing and life, she was an intellectual and one of the most important modernist literary figures and authors of the 20th century. Her style reminds me somewhat of another author I read, Christina Garcia's "Dreaming in Cuban." I had a similarly difficult time reading her novel, but when I decided to write an essay about the use of color in her book, I worked with the text enough that it grew on me and has become one of my favorite books.

After reading the book and looking at a little more information about the life of Virginia Woolf, the author, I definitely have a high opinion of her. I especially like her description of words on the video recorded in her voice, which I included in this post.

T.S. Eliot - A second look...

T.S. Eliot said of modern drama, "A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good."

This same logic can be applied to his poem "The Waste Land." The mixed allusions to works in anthropology and literature, shifts in location, time and subject, seem fragmented and obscure like viewing the ruins of an ancient city rising randomly and remotely out of the sand. Reading through, the reader is riveted by an image that suddenly comes into focus, a recognition, like pot shards heralding ancient burials or portraits in mosaics uncovered by an excavation tool. Each one significant, while both in place and out of time. A language lost, where only the winds whisper the moaning of their memory. The references to vegetation ceremonies, comparative mythology and religion, esoteric references to games such as the tarot cards and a game of chess, and the stream-of-consciousness flow of words give the poem meaning on many levels at once, yet remain obscure and inaccessible at first look, much like a dream. The poem seems to have a language of its own.

When reading this poem, I am inspired to take a second look. The words do something on a subconscious level and I am drawn to it again and again. It would seem worthwhile to research the references in the poem and find at least what each one means;yet, the sounds of the words themselves have their own effect and the mystery its own reward.

"There is a shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust." (l. 25-30, "The Waste Land")

A look into: "In An Artist's Studio" by Christina Rossetti

The aesthetic movement during the Victorian era of England, represented by the school of William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, had a permanent influence on English decorative art. One of the tenants of the Aesthetic movement was to make an art of life.

Two of the models in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's paintings were his sister, Christina Rossetti, as the Madonna, and the female model later to become his wife, Elizabeth Siddal.



Around this same time, Oscar Wilde wrote in his work, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," "All art is quite useless." His statement was intentionally literal, as it was a reflection in keeping with the doctrine "art for art's sake," a phrase coined by the French philosopher Victor Cousin, promoted by writers such as Theophile Gautier, the French poet, and brought into prominence by James McNeill Whistler, an American-born, French-schooled and British-based artist.

Christina Rossetti's poem, "In an Artist's Studio," raises questions about the nature of art. There is much debate over the responsibility of artists to portray life in realistic terms, or by focusing on the idealization of beauty. To this, a quote of Oscar Wilde makes a good point, leaving the question to the individual:

"It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art." -Oscar Wilde

resources:
Damrosch, David, Gen. Ed. "The Longman Anthology of British Literature," Vol. B., 2nd ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004. 756-759.
Online sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

"My books! At last because the time was ripe, I chanced upon the poets." From "Aurora Leigh, Discovery of Poetry:" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Photo: Elizabeth & Robert Browning
Photo: PJ Harvey/London
I included pictures of one of my favorite musical artists, Polly Jean Harvey, with one of my favorite Victorian poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, because I've always thought they look alike to some degree. P.J. Harvey has also been included in literary comparisons with Victorian women, dead women poets, or rather, the way Victorian women poets portray dead women as a part of their identity, or loss of it. P.J. Harvey is linked to them due to her style and contemporary approach to the topic of female identity in her lyrics and musical expression. Here is a link to one essay on the topic:
http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/english/files/fred_essay_06.pdf

In the Longman Anthology (2nd ed.), British Literature, in The Victorian Age, under the heading "The Age of Self-Scrutiny," the author says that "the energy of the Victorian literature is its most striking trait, and self-exploration is its favorite theme" (p. 469).

Although Harvey's music is often along the lines of the punk genre, she explores other musical influences in the search of feminine identity through Victorian expression in literature and applies it in new ways through some of her works, such as her album "Dry." Her Victorian influenced dresses can also be seen on her album cover "White Chalk."