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English 374: Virginia Woolf Her reputation so often under attack during her lifetime, Virginia Woolf now stands as a figure of major importance and powerful influence in English letters, life, and thought. Something's up, certainly, when Harold Bloom declares that five of her novels are "very likely to be canonical." Woolf's importance derives from her role in the modernist reshaping of the novel and her position as an articulate spokeswoman for feminist thought. Though perhaps better known today than at any point since her death in 1941, Woolf has been mythologized to such an extent that she seems simultaneously to belong to everyone and to no one, to represent an infinitely rich and accessible resource for shaping the Woolf's of one's choice, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. In an effort to see Woolf as she was before she became lost in legend, this seminar will begin with a study of the life, examining the intellectual, social and cultural context of early twentieth-century Britain with special concern for the world of Bloomsbury, before proceeding to a consideration of five novels (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, The Waves, Between the Acts); two major political works, A Room of One's Own; Three Guineas; a number of essays, both personal and literary; and several short stories. Supplementary reading will be drawn from Woolf's letters, diaries, and journals as well as from the major biographies, including the definitive biography by Hermione Lee. |
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