Virginia Woolf's Common reader PDF
Preview Virginia Woolf's Common reader
Virginia Woolf’s Common Reader Katerina Koutsantoni Virginia Woolf’s Common ReadeR Virginia Woolf’s Common Reader Katerina Koutsantoni © Katerina Koutsantoni 2009 all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Katerina Koutsantoni has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court east suite 420 union road 101 Cherry street farnham Burlington surrey, gu9 7Pt Vt 05401-4405 england usa www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Koutsantoni, Katerina. Virginia Woolf’s Common reader. 1. Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941. Common reader. i. title 828.9’1209–dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Koutsantoni, Katerina. Virginia Woolf’s Common reader / Katerina Koutsantoni. p. cm. includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7546-6264-8 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7546-9456-4 (ebook) 1. Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941— Knowledge—Literature. 3. Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941. Common reader. 4. Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941. essays i. title. Pr6045.o72Z758 2009 823’.912—dc22 2009003418 isBn 978-0-7546-6264-8 (HBk) eisBn 978-0-7546-9456-4 (EBk.V) Contents acknowledgements vii introduction – Conversing with the reader 1 1 Why go on with these essays? 19 2 We must remain readers 47 3 i do not love to be led by the nose … by authority 75 4 to forget one’s own sharp absurd little personality … & practise anonymity 101 5 in all writing, it’s the person’s own edge that counts 123 6 society is a nest of glass boxes one separate from another 147 Conclusion – With this odd mix up of public & private i left off 175 Bibliography 197 Index 217 This page has been left blank intentionally Acknowledgements I wrote this book during a rather difficult year and I want to thank my sister, Dimitra, for always being there for me, offering advice, a perfect eye for detail and sharp editing skills, helping me to bring this project, amongst many others over the years, to completion. My parents, adamantia and leonidas Koutsantonis, are right next to her, always serving as a pillar of warm love. this past year i feel i have got to know you so much better in a way I cannot explain, so, although you cannot hear me, i want to say how proud i am you are my parents. i also wish to thank my close friends, old and new, both in the UK and back in Greece, for their priceless support. I would like to extend my thanks to Ashgate Publishers for pushing my proposal forward, offering me an incredibly positive initial review, and consistent academic and technical support throughout the process. Lastly, I want to thank Virginia Woolf for offering her life and work, a source of ceaseless interest and mystery which has inspired me for years now. Both for her and for me, and in the words of Montaigne, I’d like to think that it was the journey that mattered, not the arrival. This page has been left blank intentionally introduction Conversing with the reader ‘all i desire is fame’, wrote Virginia Woolf in 1925 quoting Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of newcastle.1 and fame is exactly what she earned during her thirty- seven year-long career in writing. Woolf has been the focus of intense attention and the target of continuous criticism ever since 1904 when she started producing published work of varied nature and in different genres. Success in the writing of essays, novels, short stories and biographies testifies to a unique versatility, rendering Woolf’s writing, according to anna snaith, responsible for ‘generating divergent readings, turning her work into a site of contestation with varying agendas’.2 For just over a century now, Woolf has aroused admiration, interest, scrutiny and even contempt by critics, while the amount and quality of the work she offered to her audiences explain her characterisation as an outstanding figure in twentieth-century literature. Her stature, of universal acclaim for decades now, has surely been justified by now and her work is worth examining further. This book focuses exclusively on Virginia Woolf’s essays, and more specifically those included in her 1925 Common Reader: First Series and 1932 Second Common Reader; the examination of essays from posthumous collections is also, however, incorporated in the analysis. even though recent years have seen a gradually increasing interest in Woolf’s essayistic writing and the abandonment of the idea that her novels play a primary role in relation to her criticism, research in this area still remains limited; this book comes to add to the existing literature on the essays by attempting a more focused view. studies conducted in this area have tended to look either at individual pieces or at a random selection of essays, to exemplify one or another of a variety of incommensurate positions. What is missing is a comprehensive study of the two volumes of The Common Reader with regard to their thematic pattern, which plays a vital role in discerning Woolf’s beliefs regarding the processes of writing, reading and criticism. such thematic sequence is charged with additional significance in that Woolf herself was responsible for the formulation of the volumes, as opposed to posthumous collections in which the order of the essays included did not adhere to a particular thematic order but 1 Virginia Woolf, ‘the Duchess of newcastle’, The Common Reader: First Series, 1925, 5th edn (London: Hogarth Press, 1942), p. 98. 2 anna snaith, Virginia Woolf: Public and Private negotiations (Basingstoke: Macmillan and New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 116.
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