To Virginia Woolf, London was a source of creative inspiration, a
setting for many of her works, and a symbol of the culture in which
she lived and wrote. In a 1928 diary entry, she observed, "London
itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a
story & a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my
legs through the streets." The city fascinated Woolf, yet her
relationship with it was problematic. In her attempts to resolve
her developmental struggles as a woman write in a patriarchal
society, Woolf shaped and reshaped the image and meaning of London.
Using psychoanalytic, feminist, and social theories, Susan Squier
explores the transformed meaning of the city in Woolf's essays,
memoirs, and novels as it functions in the creation of a mature
feminist vision. Squier shows that Woolf's earlier works depict
London as a competitive patriarchal environment that excluded her,
but her mature works portray the city as beginning to accept the
force of female energy. Squier argues that this transformation was
made possible by Woolf's creative ability to appropriate and revise
the masculine literary and cultural forms of her society. The act
of writing, or "scene making," allowed Woolf to break from her
familial and cultural heritage and recreate London in her own
literary voice and vision.
"Virginia Woolf and London" is based on analyses of Woolf's
memoirs, her little-known early and mature London essays, "Night
and Day," "Mrs. Dalloway," "Flush," and "The Years." By focusing on
Woolf's changing attitudes about the city, Squier is able to define
Woolf's evolving belief that women could "reframe" the city-scape
and use it to imagine and create a more egalitarian world. Squier's
study offers significant new insights into the interplay between
self and society as it shapes the work of a woman writer.
Originally published in 1985.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the
latest in digital technology to make available again books from our
distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These
editions are published unaltered from the original, and are
presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both
historical and cultural value.
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