Life as Legacy: Truth, Fiction, and Fidelity of Representation in Biographical Novels Featuring Virginia Woolf

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Cernat
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Fold System ◽  
The Hours

This article builds on a reading of four novels which fictionalise various aspects of Virginia Woolf’s life: Michael Cunningham’s The Hours (1999), Susan Sellers’s Vanessa and Virginia (2008), and Priya Parmar’s Vanessa and Her Sister (2014), and Norah Vincent’s Adeline (2015). Using scenes or techniques from these novels as examples, I develop the binary opposition between authenticity (fidelity to facts) and what Ina Schabert called ‘poetic essentiality’ (fidelity to character) into a four-fold system of oppositions, trying to prove that the accurate use of facts and the loyal representation of personality are neither always in conjunction nor always opposed. Thus, I propose four categories instead of two: creative inaccuracy (slightly straying from the facts in order to better convey character), delusive inaccuracy (straying from the facts in such a way that what we know of Woolf’s character is altered in the fictional representation), delusive accuracy (invoking the facts without error, but assembling them in such a way as to convey the character misleadingly), and creative accuracy (inventing, but within the limits of the facts, especially applied to fantasizing dialogues, fleshing out scenes that were only schematic in the documents). Although examples from one of the four novels are used for each of the four categories, I argue that none of the strategies is employed exclusively by any novelist, which is why I conclude with a second table, depicting the connection between the four features as a continuum rather than a set of oppositions.

scholarly journals IHAB HASSAN POSTMODERNISM’S INDETERMINACY AND IRONY:LAURA BROWN’S INNER CONFLICT IN THE HOURS

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-182
Author(s):  
Rina Wahyu Setyaningrum
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
Narrative Design ◽  
Michael Cunningham ◽  
The Hours ◽  
Good Wife

Virginia Woolf is one of the modernist writers who write Mrs. Dalloway for which Michael Cunningham has taken Virginia’s life story into his novel, The Hours that characterized Laura Brown who reads Mrs. Dalloway. Cunningham’s literary work which foregrounds the uncertainty of sexual orientation, confusion, and difficulty of identity is suitable with postmodernism’s conventions and is valid in both Woolf's and Cunningham's novels. There have been studies conducted by the scholars in terms of various technical aspects, such as narrative, design, and structure. The other topics comprise the equivalence of characters, the parallelism of scenes, and the borrowing of themes and symbolism, in order to demonstrate the effects of the adaptation process. This paper focuses on Laura Brown’s inner conflicts which are connected to postmodernism features. From the quotations in the novel, this paper showcases the novel’s analysis based on Ihab Hassan’s theory of postmodernism’s indeterminacy and irony. It is found that Laura Brown’s inner conflicts are shown from her efforts of being a good wife for Dan. She is trying hard to answer her own question whether or not she loves her husband. Ironically, the perfect status of being a wife of a soldier who takes part in winning the World War II, a woman with a perfect family, as well as a woman living a good life, do not make her happy. Mrs. Dalloway has inspired her to find her true happiness, her former self that has disappeared.

Virginia Woolf’s Enduring Presence in Uruguay

2020 ◽  
pp. 225-245
Author(s):  
Lindsey Cordery
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
Cristina Peri Rossi ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
The Hours ◽  
Armonia Somers

This chapter traces nearly ninety years of reading and writing on Virginia Woolf in Uruguay, focusing first on her early critical reception and then on distinguished Uruguayan writers who either explicitly or implicitly dialogue with her life and works. The study begins with Victoria Ocampo’s early engagements with Woolf’s works, which spurred translations initially on Orlando and A Writer’s Diary in the journals Sur, Marcha and Número. It then discusses the cultural context and early critical reception of Woolf in Uruguay, followed by the ways Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film The Hours kindled major interest in Woolf studies, leading many to re-read Mrs Dalloway and her other works. The chapter then moves on to consider Woolf’s influence on two major Uruguayan writers: Armonía Somers and Antonio Larreta. The final section looks at contemporary women writers who explicitly cite or ‘reverberate’ with Woolf: Cristina Peri Rossi, Alicia Migdal, Fernanda Trías and María Sánchez.

Réflexivité et énonciation dans le film The Hours

Semiotica ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (219) ◽  
pp. 397-416
Author(s):  
Taís de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
The Hours

RésuméLe film The Hours (Stephen Daldry 2002) est basé sur la vie et l’œuvre de Virginia Woolf. L’intertextualité qui le constitue met en cause le concept même d’intertextualité, ce qui institue un caractère méta intrinsèque au texte. A partir de la distinction proposée par Dondero entre réflexivité et métalangage, et celle proposée par Klinkenberg (2000) entre métasémiotique homosémiotique et métasémiotique hétérosémiotique, nous analysons le film The Hours avec l’objectif de montrer les mécanismes à travers lesquels il se constitue comme ‘méta’ et les effets de sens produits par cette caractéristique. Les concepts susmentionnés nous ont permis de comprendre comment l’œuvre réfléchit sur elle-même et sur le roman Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf 1925), sur lequel elle est basée. De plus, elle réfléchit aussi sur le processus créatif de Woolf. La notion d’énonciation énoncée nous sera aussi utile : elle nous permettra de déceler les processus de dédoublement de l’œuvre, qui imite, à l’intérieur de l’énoncé, aussi bien son acte de production que celui de sa réception en représentant les acteurs de l’énonciation à travers les acteurs de l’énoncé.

scholarly journals Translating and Transcending Censors: Modernist Appropriation and Thematisation of Censorship in the Works of Virginia Woolf, Allen Ginsberg, Czesław Miłosz and Bohumil Hrabal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verita Sriratana ◽  
Milada Polišenská
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Allen Ginsberg ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Czeslaw Milosz ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The Past

Censorship has often been regarded as the archenemy of artists, thinkers and writers. But has this always been the case? This research paper proposes that censorship is not a total evil or adversarial force which thwarts and hinders twentieth-century writers, particularly those who were part of the artistic, aesthetic, philosophical and intellectual movement known as Modernism. Though the word “censor” originally means a Roman official who, in the past, had a duty to monitor access to writing, the agents of censorship – particularly those in the modern times – are not in every case overt and easy to identify. Though Modernist writers openly condemn censorship, many of them nevertheless take on the role of censors who not only condone but also undergo self--censorship or censorship of others. In many cases in Modernist literature, readership and literary production, the binary opposition of victim and victimiser, as well as of censored and censor, is questioned and challenged. This research paper offers an analysis of the ways in which Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) and Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997) lived and wrote by negotiating with many forms of censorship ranging from state censorship, social censorship, political censorship, moral censorship to self-censorship. It is a study of the ways in which these writers problematise and render ambiguity to the seemingly clear-cut and mutually exclusive division between the oppressive censor and the oppressed writer. The selected writers not only criticise and compromise with censorship, but also thematise and translate it into their works.

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