Virginia Woolf 's Mrs. Dalloway

296 Pages·2009·1.96 MB·English

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
Invisible Presences
To the memory of my parents
Th ey were avid readers.
Sit vobis terra levis.
Th e Life and Age of Woman, a print by A. Alden (Barre, Mass., [1835]).
(Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.)
Virginia Woolf ’s Mrs. Dalloway
Invisible Presences
by Molly Hoff
CLEMSON UNIVERSITY
DIGITAL PRESS
Works produced at Clemson University by the Center for Electronic and Digital Publishing,
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Copyright 2009 by Clemson University
ISBN 978-0-9796066-7-0
CLEMSON UNIVERSITY
DIGITAL PRESS
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To order copies, contact the Center for Electronic and Digital Publishing, Strode Tower,
Box 340522, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634-0522. An order form
is available at the digital press Web site (see above).
Front and back cover images from the ruins of Pompei may be found in Roman Painting
(Cambridge UP, 1991) and Ancient Mosaics ((British Mueum Press, 1998), both books by
Roger Ling.
Title-page illustration: a drawing by Miss N. T. Talbot included as Figure 35 (“Drawing of
the fi gural frieze in the Room of the Mysteries”) in P. B. Mudie Cooke, “Th e Paintings of
the Villa Item at Pompei,” Journal for Roman Studies 3 (1913): 156-174. Cf. Molly Hoff ,
“Coming of Age in Mrs. Dalloway,” Woolf Studies Annual 3 (1997), p. 97 and passim.
iv
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments 7-9
A Note on the Text and Abbreviations 10

Introduction 1
Mrs. Dalloway: Annotations 9
Section [1] . . . . . .9
Section [2] . . . . . .42
Section [3] . . . . . .59
Section [4] . . . . . .90
Section [5] . . . . . .101
Section [6] . . . . . .104
Section [7] . . . . . .112
Section [8] . . . . . .129
Section [9] . . . . . .146
Section [10] . . . . .199
Section [11] . . . . .212
Section [12] . . . . .236
Afterword 244

Appendix 254
1. Divine Proportion . . . .254
2. Free Indirect Discourse . .254
3. Great Expectations. . . .257
4. Th e Narrow Bed . . . .258
Glossary 259
Works Consulted 263
Index 275
v
vi
Preface and Acknowledgments
Mrs. Dalloway is a popular choice for many readers and the most misunderstood as
well. Th e obscurities require a somewhat more sophisticated readership than is usually
forthcoming. Th e format of the present explication is designed as a kind of story board for
a screenplay that records “the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they
fall” no matter the disconnectedness or incoherence (Virginia Woolf, Common Reader
150). In that regard it may serve as a kind of reference manual for commentary on indi-
vidual passages that may be of interest. Th e material it aff ords for lesson plans and syllabi
will be of value for those who profess literature. It however has its own beginning, middle,
and end to guide the reader. Th us it serves as two books at once.
Literary allusions in Mrs. Dalloway abound in bookish relationships that encompass
much more than a reading list for World Lit 101. Th e signifi cances within this mosaic,
moreover, demonstrate a quasi- Darwinian phenomenon, that books descend from books
( Woolf “Th e Leaning Tower”). Obscurities here concern plots, myths, languages living
and dead to such a large degree that they exert a metaliterary infl uence. Th e principal
literary imitation is the conformity to the conventions of ancient literature. Among them
“certain paths seem to lead to fertile land, others to the dust and the desert” (Common
Reader 146). It is clearly a learned game.
Learning as a convention implies being versed in the literature of the past. Th e Dal-
loway antiquarian interest addressed to an elite audience takes in language and etymology,
history and mythology, bucolic and bookish idioms, wrapped up in imitation, analogy
and deceit. Withholding information and concealment of the true situation is typical. Re-
dundancies and repetitions are frequent. Literary ornament is featured as erudite subject-
matter, while confl icting conceits are part of the humor. Common words have specialized
senses. All it asks is that the reader be actively involved; irony is a perpetual game. It is
very obscure.
Th e major concept by means of which Mrs. Dalloway achieves its intoxicating eff ect
derives from Latin love elegy. Clive Bell would have designated it as “signifi cant form”
(Bell Art 12 et passim). Latin elegy is “founded [on] an aesthetics based upon a semiotic
fact: the independence of the literal meaning; an exercise in equilibrium and therefore
in gracefulness; a text that, far from being a mirror to reality, is equivocal to the point of
dizziness; a form of writing that is suffi cient unto itself because it does not explain any-
thing” (Paul Veyne, Roman Erotic Elegy 19). Th e centonism is manifested as a montage
of parodies and quotations. Th e poetic thrust of Latin elegy comes forth somewhat more
prosaically in Mrs. Dalloway which nevertheless maintains the charming poetic structures
that elegy features, principally the elegance of ring composition, arranged as a luminous
halo. Extreme syntactical complexity contributes to dream-like logic, or lack of it, which
in elegiac poetry is an end in itself.
Th is style, according to J. P. Sullivan (10) is not light verse “but rather a sophisticated,
self-conscious, and often wryly humorous way of writing, mannered perhaps, but no more
so than the writings of Donne or even Pope. In fact, our nearest analogy might be ‘wit’
in the 17th century sense.” Self-mocking claims such as the inability to write epic or the
preference for hunting hares and small game, not lions and boars, typify the style. Sullivan
viii Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
further characterizes its ironic playfulness as parody, verbal wit, humorous exaggeration,
and sexual suggestiveness.
Among the Roman elegists creation through eroticism is a fi gure that is always pres-
ent. Love aff airs predominate just as the Trojan War was sparked by a notorious relation-
ship. Yet Propertius claimed that in his elegies, “something greater than the Iliad is being
born” (2.34.66). His audacity was prescient. Th e haughty sense of humor, the gallery of
genre scenes (Veyne’s phrase), and the mannerist erotica thrive in Goethe’s Roman Elegies,
in Ezra Pound’s Homage to Sextus P ropertius, and even in D. H. Lawrence’s “Look, We
Have Come Th rough” to name a few. Th e love elegies on John Donne’s mistress (going
to bed) are also akin: “O my America!” Th ere is even something of Propertius’s Cynthia
strutting and fretting among Shakespeare’s sonnets, so scandalous to fastidious readers
like Richard Dalloway. Latin elegy is a vibrant presence in the not so high society (Veyne’s
phrase) of Mrs. Dalloway as well.
Like Latin elegy, Mrs. Dalloway includes sexuality, nudity, and violence, all portrayed
with irony and parody, not evident to everyone. Scatological references appear with some
frequency. Homosexuality is prominent. Th ere is evidence of drinking and smoking. Fur-
thermore, lachrimosity, false confi dences, and the narrow bed characterize loving reading
as the prevailing elegiac technique. Th e lusty narrative cleverly lays bare the elegiac devices
which it paradoxically obscures. Equivocation undermines sincerity. Structurally decep-
tive, this love story concludes as a beginning. Serious humor, the upside down world of
satire, is the operative style in Mrs. Dalloway. Th is is adult entertainment.
Th e prominent narrator, the genius loci, stealthily summarizes an ongoing raid on
the literary past which conceals and reveals less accessible levels of meaning (Gilbert and
Gubar 73). Like the elegiac poets, Propertius and his colleagues, she creates impressions
from orts and fragments, albeit written for the less popular taste yet as an outlet for fri-
volity. Reception of satire in Latin elegy must rescue its political incorrectness from utter
fatuity, and it requires a fairly cosmopolitan readership. Th us the Dalloway narrator, like
the poet, is an ironical construct conscious of the absurdity of the slavery of love. She
labors in the elegiac family business where aesthetics and allegory intersect in fantasy with
tongue fi rmly in cheek. At the same time, this raconteuse records the creation of a fi ction
of a fi ction revealing a self-portrait of the mind of the artist.
Mrs. Dalloway languishes in the shadow of and in response to James Joyce’s Ulysses, a
mock-epic version of Homer’s epic, Th e Odyssey. Latin elegy, instead, prefers to treat exclu-
sively of love, not epic. Th e love interest in elegy is Cynthia, Delia, Corinna, or life itself as
the case for each poet may be and the poems that vitalize them. For the elegiac poet, writ-
ing about love and writing about writing indicate much the same thing. Similarly, Mrs.
Dalloway, a mock-elegy, treats writing about heroic concepts satirically as a perennially
erotic matter. Virginia Woolf implies that instead of composing long Iliads, paraphrasing
the elegist ( Propertius 2.34.1), something greater than Ulysses is being born.
Th e most obvious statement of its area of concern is Mrs. Dalloway’s own interest
with life—vita in Latin. “What she liked was simply life. ‘Th at’s what I do it for,’ she said,
speaking aloud, to life.” While always equivocating between the name of the character
and the name of the book, like Propertius, Mrs. Dalloway becomes truly the longest love
letter in history.
Preface ix

Th e origins of this book lie in my eff orts as a curious reader to determine for myself as
much as possible Virginia Woolf ‘s meanings when she wrote this very beautiful and very
puzzling novel. My eff orts soon involved a survey of world literature. Over the course of
this study I have made a number of observations that seemed quite pertinent, and I have
thought that others might also fi nd them enlightening and entertaining as well.
My debts are many and include all I owe to Professor Margaret McBride who in-
troduced me to Virginia Woolf; to Professor Bates Hoff er who instructed me in decon-
struction; to Professor Alan Craven who contributed his endorsement of Classics in the
study of Modern literature, his scholarship in Shakespeare, and the London experience;
to Professor Stephen Kellman’s descriptions of the self-begetting novel; and to Professor
Paul Alessi, Classical scholar and Latinist who introduced me to elegiac poetry (my great-
est debt) and Pompeii, without whom I would have had very little Latin and much less
Greek. I am also indebted to Professor David Payne in more ways than I can enumerate,
who in fact suggested that my researches become a book, and without whose electronic ex-
pertise and friendship this volume would, in reality, have been utterly impossible. Finally
my thanks are owed to Cris Vieyra who guided me through the electronic labyrinth. My
gratitude also extends to Jack who devoured several copies of Mrs. Dalloway. His favorite
author is “Woof!”
I am indebted also to anonymous readers and to Julia Penelope who read the manu-
script in an early form. Others, too numerous to name, have been instrumental in the
production of this book. One in particular, a young colleague, is memorable—long ago
she said that Virginia Woolf was a genius. I decided to fi nd out why anyone should think
so. Now I know.
Molly Hoff
San Antonio, 2007
x Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
A Note on the Text
Quotations from Mrs. Dalloway are indicated by page and line number, thus: “42.14
/29.5”—the fi rst number unit (before the slash) refers to the Harcourt Brace edition of
1925; the second refers to the Harvest (or Harcourt) edition of 1990. Most of the allusions
herein have never been previously cited; none are arbitrary. Th e selections from American
editions have been made for the benefi t of American readers as are subject-matter involv-
ing details about London that may not be familiar to many readers. Some particulars are
mentioned by the critics listed in the Works Consulted although I have chosen to omit
those that I feel are clearly unwarranted. My reading has developed independently. Still,
according to Derrida, “no annotation is neutral.” “It consists in eff ect, of a text related to
another text that has meaning only within the relationship.” Discerning that the relation-
ship pours new life into old vessels must be the individual reader’s undertaking.
One of the structural principles of this book and hence its layout with respect to Mrs.
Dalloway is that the annotations are organized according to the novel’s “Section” breaks
(as I call them)—that is, into twelve units correspondent with the unnumbered episodes,
or intervals, set off by Woolf with vertical spacing. Th e page numbers on which these
“Sections” begin in the novel will vary from one edition to another. Take for example the
recent annotated Harcourt edition (ed. and intro. by Bonnie Kime Scott, 2005), in which
Section breaks occur in the following sequence: 1 (3), 2 (13), 3 (47), 5 (55), 6 (57), 7 (63),
8 (82), 9 (92), 10 (157), 11 (161), and 12 (182). In my book, each set of annotations is
initiated on a new page, either verso or recto.
Since my annotations are in eff ect footnotes tro Woolf’s text, further notation of the
sort, including meta-footnotes, seems superfl uous and has been rejected. Commentary is
limited to language that might justify the reference in instances that seem obscure.
Abbreviations
AROO A Room of One’s Own
CR Th e Common Reader
D Th e Diary of Virginia Woolf
L Th e Letters of Virginia Woolf
MD Mrs. Dalloway