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Ensaios Seletos
Umas das maiores ficcionistas do século XX, Virginia Woolf foi também ensaísta prolífica e inovadora, tendo escrito profissionalmente resenhas e artigos para periódicos, como o Times Literary Supplement , durante toda sua vida. Tal como na prosa de ficção, também nos ensaios ela ultrapassa os limites dos gêneros literários, propondo uma forma de pensar e de escrever mais aberta e menos categórica, que não se conformava aos padrões vigentes, de tradição fortemente masculina: “um livro de mulher não é escrito como seria se o autor fosse homem”.
Os ensaios reunidos neste volume ― com seleção, tradução, apresentação e notas de Leonardo Fróes ― foram escritos entre 1905 a 1940 e cobrem os principais temas de sua vasta produção, com destaque para os ensaios literários e os biográficos, ambos majoritariamente dedicados a figuras femininas, como Jane Austen, as irmãs Brontë, Christina Rossetti e Mary Wollstonecraft, cujas vidas e obras Virginia resgata e homenageia.
No âmbito da teoria, “Ficção moderna”, “Carta a um jovem poeta” ou “Poesia, ficção e o futuro” revelam uma escritora com enorme integridade crítica e capacidade analítica. “Mulheres e ficção”, de 1929 (protótipo do famoso ensaio Um quarto todo seu ), permanece até hoje um estudo inspirador sobre as condições materiais e simbólicas da literatura escrita por mulheres. Já em “A morte da mariposa”, Virginia Woolf conjuga reflexão filosófica e alta carga dramática ao tratar de um acontecimento tão singelo quanto a morte de um inseto.
No conjunto, estes Ensaios seletos franqueiam ao leitor o acesso a uma das mentes mais brilhantes da história da literatura, em textos de uma lucidez e atualidade impressionantes.
Os ensaios reunidos neste volume ― com seleção, tradução, apresentação e notas de Leonardo Fróes ― foram escritos entre 1905 a 1940 e cobrem os principais temas de sua vasta produção, com destaque para os ensaios literários e os biográficos, ambos majoritariamente dedicados a figuras femininas, como Jane Austen, as irmãs Brontë, Christina Rossetti e Mary Wollstonecraft, cujas vidas e obras Virginia resgata e homenageia.
No âmbito da teoria, “Ficção moderna”, “Carta a um jovem poeta” ou “Poesia, ficção e o futuro” revelam uma escritora com enorme integridade crítica e capacidade analítica. “Mulheres e ficção”, de 1929 (protótipo do famoso ensaio Um quarto todo seu ), permanece até hoje um estudo inspirador sobre as condições materiais e simbólicas da literatura escrita por mulheres. Já em “A morte da mariposa”, Virginia Woolf conjuga reflexão filosófica e alta carga dramática ao tratar de um acontecimento tão singelo quanto a morte de um inseto.
No conjunto, estes Ensaios seletos franqueiam ao leitor o acesso a uma das mentes mais brilhantes da história da literatura, em textos de uma lucidez e atualidade impressionantes.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
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About the author
Virginia Woolf
1,830 books28.7k followers(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
October 16, 2018
The first time I read a Woolf novel (Mrs Dalloway) I screamed. I hated it. I hated every word and I hated the inaccessible nature of her style. I wanted no more to do with her, ever again.
Though somehow I found myself reading a book of her short stories and I was amazed at the sharp imagery she conjured up out of the mundane nature of every day. I was in awe. I couldn’t believe this was the same writer. I had to read more of her work, so from there on I decided I must read each and every one of her novels until I eventually returned to Mrs Dalloway. I’m around half way through that process.
I’ve learnt quite a lot from reading Woolf’s fiction, and even more from reading these essays. Together they form her manifesto on what she thinks fiction and criticism should be. The most important point I took away from it is in regard to obscurity. Woolf argues that just because something is naturally hard to read, it doesn’t give us a right to criticise it based on this single point. Such a thing is naïve and ignores the genius that has gone into the writing. I can’t argue with this. By all means dislike something because of its difficulty, but we don’t necessarily have the right to objectify its quality because of it.
In a way, she is also clearly talking about her own work. The Waves is difficult, Mrs Dalloway is confusing and To the Lighthouse jumps around all over. Woolf is not accessible. She’s not easy reading and at times I find myself having to read most of her stuff twice before I actually know what’s happening. Such is the nature of her form of modernism. She had to break narrative custom to create her idea of fiction or the proper stuff of fiction as she would call it. But that doesn’t make her bad, only problematic for the reader.
And these essays help to explain exactly what she is doing. Woolf is a fantastic essayist. She’s even written an essay in here on the importance of writing essays and how to make them thoughtful, intelligent and even creative. It's hard not to be swayed by her words an ideas.
So I urge other readers who, like me, may have been put of by Woolf initially to give her another go.
Though somehow I found myself reading a book of her short stories and I was amazed at the sharp imagery she conjured up out of the mundane nature of every day. I was in awe. I couldn’t believe this was the same writer. I had to read more of her work, so from there on I decided I must read each and every one of her novels until I eventually returned to Mrs Dalloway. I’m around half way through that process.
I’ve learnt quite a lot from reading Woolf’s fiction, and even more from reading these essays. Together they form her manifesto on what she thinks fiction and criticism should be. The most important point I took away from it is in regard to obscurity. Woolf argues that just because something is naturally hard to read, it doesn’t give us a right to criticise it based on this single point. Such a thing is naïve and ignores the genius that has gone into the writing. I can’t argue with this. By all means dislike something because of its difficulty, but we don’t necessarily have the right to objectify its quality because of it.
In a way, she is also clearly talking about her own work. The Waves is difficult, Mrs Dalloway is confusing and To the Lighthouse jumps around all over. Woolf is not accessible. She’s not easy reading and at times I find myself having to read most of her stuff twice before I actually know what’s happening. Such is the nature of her form of modernism. She had to break narrative custom to create her idea of fiction or the proper stuff of fiction as she would call it. But that doesn’t make her bad, only problematic for the reader.
And these essays help to explain exactly what she is doing. Woolf is a fantastic essayist. She’s even written an essay in here on the importance of writing essays and how to make them thoughtful, intelligent and even creative. It's hard not to be swayed by her words an ideas.
So I urge other readers who, like me, may have been put of by Woolf initially to give her another go.
March 29, 2022
Would give this 4.5 if I could! Goodreads PLEASE add a .5 feature I’m on my knees
April 23, 2024
7/10
favs:
mr bennett and mrs brown
character in fiction
impassioned prose
on being ill
leslie stephen
evening over sussex: reflections in a motor car
favs:
mr bennett and mrs brown
character in fiction
impassioned prose
on being ill
leslie stephen
evening over sussex: reflections in a motor car
February 21, 2015
Virginia Woolf's essays are delightful. Even better, perhaps, after reading
The Years
, because they resonated so much with the thoughts that the novel provoked in me about that struggle for certainty and voice, the feeling of being unable to feel or think clearly, to communicate. Most fascinating of all, is that in this struggle over what the novel should do, how a novel should be written and read, the role of the author -- Virginia Woolf, it turns out, has most decided opinions and a great clarity about the necessary uncertainty of modern writing.
It's such a strange juxtaposition of security and insecurity.
There is this lovely passage on writing the stream of consciousness, capturing thus the feel and experience of our moments as they shift and change and vanish:
This is certainly the most pure expression of what prose can do but more importantly, what life itself is. How it is lived. What she is trying for in her writing as an expression of that life. It is as luminous as she believes our lives to be.
Most of the essays are less personal, removed from literature as she directs her gaze at it. She writes of how literature has changed, with much firmness:
It of course bothers me that she is clearly writing for those who have cooks, not those who are cooks (coming from a family of at least one cook, I'm glad to see life was finally looking up for them), but I have more thoughts on the class issues in another post. Back to her descriptions on this change in 1910 (and surely this must be written before the war, my only fault with this book is that there is no short introduction for each essay giving the time and place published nor is that in the contents -- perhaps it is buried in the extensive timeline of Woolf's life). She writes that Samuel Butler is characteristic of it (and oh the tone of this comment!):
she includes in this change the plays of George Bernard Shaw. Could it be that they have recognised their own privilege, the limitations of their own experiences and perspectives? A realisation that there is a wonder of other worlds out there beyond their own, and they have value? I wonder, it is food for thought.
In another essay she unpicks further the differences between the novels of an earlier age and her own:
Here is another passage in which she ponders the modern in relation to what has come before:
These articulate so well the struggles faced by the characters in The Years, afraid of speaking, unable to grasp clarity in their thoughts, awash with a patter of internal dialogue and finding refuge only in feelings.It is the character of an age we experience through them, and through contemporary fiction and poetry.
Like Joyce. She has some quite wonderful digs at Joyce:
I enjoyed those too much really.
The essays on women and writing held two of my favourite passages -- where she is not forced to waste time demolishing idiotic and patriarchal ideas about what and how women should be writing -- if they should be writing at all.
I am not nearly grateful enough to all of the women who have fought and made possible the freedom I feel today, but this is still true for us I think:
There are a few additional insights, overcome to a greater or lesser extent by women writers over the years:
Even in the nineteenth century, a woman lived almost solely in her home and her emotions. And those nineteenth-century novels, remarkable as they were, were profoundly influenced by the fact that the women who wrote them were excluded by their sex from certain kinds of experience (134, 'Women and Fiction').
This, her vision for the future:
I don't know about fewer and better novels, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing either that much of women's writing still centres on the home and her emotions -- it is only when that becomes normative, right? But ah, leisure, money and a room to themselves? That is as elusive as ever.
Two other quotes I liked, this one on genre (and why we should stop being so uptight about putting things into just one box):
And this:
Just reading this sentence makes me feel a little rash and extreme...bring on the poetry!
It's such a strange juxtaposition of security and insecurity.
There is this lovely passage on writing the stream of consciousness, capturing thus the feel and experience of our moments as they shift and change and vanish:
Look within and life, it seems, is very far from being 'like this'. Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions--trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all side they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from of old; the moment of importance came not here but there; so that, if a writer were a free man and not a slave, if he could write what he chose, not what he must, if he could base his work upon his own feeling and not upon convention, there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps not a single button sewn on as the Bond Street tailors would have it. Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible? (9, 'Modern Fiction').
This is certainly the most pure expression of what prose can do but more importantly, what life itself is. How it is lived. What she is trying for in her writing as an expression of that life. It is as luminous as she believes our lives to be.
Most of the essays are less personal, removed from literature as she directs her gaze at it. She writes of how literature has changed, with much firmness:
And now I will hazard a second assertion, which is more disputable perhaps, to the effect that on or about December 1910, human character changed. ...
In life one can see the change, if I may use a homely illustration, in the character of one's cook. The Victorian cook lived like a leviathan in the lower depths, formidable, silent, obscure, inscrutable; the Georgian cook is a creature of sunshine and fresh air; in and out of the drawing room, now to borrow the Daily Herald, now to ask advice about a hat. (39, 'Character in Fiction')
It of course bothers me that she is clearly writing for those who have cooks, not those who are cooks (coming from a family of at least one cook, I'm glad to see life was finally looking up for them), but I have more thoughts on the class issues in another post. Back to her descriptions on this change in 1910 (and surely this must be written before the war, my only fault with this book is that there is no short introduction for each essay giving the time and place published nor is that in the contents -- perhaps it is buried in the extensive timeline of Woolf's life). She writes that Samuel Butler is characteristic of it (and oh the tone of this comment!):
No sooner had the Victorians departed than Samuel Butler, who had lived below-stairs, came out, like an observant bootboy, with the family secrets in The Way of All Flesh. It appeared that the basement was really in an appalling state. Though the saloons were splendid ad the dining-rooms portentous, the drains were of the most primitive description. (33, 'Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown')
she includes in this change the plays of George Bernard Shaw. Could it be that they have recognised their own privilege, the limitations of their own experiences and perspectives? A realisation that there is a wonder of other worlds out there beyond their own, and they have value? I wonder, it is food for thought.
In another essay she unpicks further the differences between the novels of an earlier age and her own:
Only believe, we find ourselves saying, and all the rest will come of itself...if you believe it implicitly and unquestioningly, you will not only make people a hundred years later feel the same thing, but you will make them it as literature. For certainty of that kind is the condition which makes it possible to write. To believe that your impressions hold good for other is to be released from the cramp and confinement of personality...
So then our contemporaries afflict us because they have ceased to believe...They cannot make a world, because they are not free of other human beings. They cannot tell stories because they do not believe that stories are true. They cannot generalise. They depend on their sense and emotions, whose testimony is trustworthy, rather than on their intellects whose message is obscure...Set down at a fresh angle of the eternal prosper they can only whip out their notebooks and record with agonised intensity the flying gleams, which light on what? and the transitory splendours, which may, perhaps, compose nothing whatever. (29, 'How it Strikes a Contemporary')
Here is another passage in which she ponders the modern in relation to what has come before:
And it is true of the Elizabethan dramatists that though they may bore us--and they do--they never make us feel that they are afraid or self-conscious, or that there is anything hindering, hampering, inhibiting the full current of their minds.
Yet our first thought when we open a modern poetic play--and this applies to much modern poetry--is that the writer is not at his ease. He is afraid, he is forced, he is self-conscious. (77, 'Poetry, Fiction and the Future')
These articulate so well the struggles faced by the characters in The Years, afraid of speaking, unable to grasp clarity in their thoughts, awash with a patter of internal dialogue and finding refuge only in feelings.It is the character of an age we experience through them, and through contemporary fiction and poetry.
Like Joyce. She has some quite wonderful digs at Joyce:
Ulysses was a memorable catastrophe--immense in daring, terrific in disaster. (26, 'How it Strikes a Contemporary')
Mr Joyce's indecency in Ulysses seems to me the conscious and calculated indecency of a desperate man who feels that in order to breathe he must break the windows. At moments, when the window is broken, he is magnificent. But what a waste of energy! And, after all, how dull indecency is, when it is not the overflowing of a superabundant energy or savagery, but the determined and public-spririted act of a man who needs fresh air! (52, 'Character in Fiction')
I enjoyed those too much really.
The essays on women and writing held two of my favourite passages -- where she is not forced to waste time demolishing idiotic and patriarchal ideas about what and how women should be writing -- if they should be writing at all.
The Angel in the House. It was she who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her. You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her--you may not know what I mean by the Angel of the House. I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it--in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all--I need not say it--she was pure. (141, 'Professions for Women')
I am not nearly grateful enough to all of the women who have fought and made possible the freedom I feel today, but this is still true for us I think:
Indeed it will be a long time still, I think, before a woman can sit down to write a book without finding a phantom to be slain, a rock to be dashed against. (144, 'Professions for Women')
There are a few additional insights, overcome to a greater or lesser extent by women writers over the years:
Even in the nineteenth century, a woman lived almost solely in her home and her emotions. And those nineteenth-century novels, remarkable as they were, were profoundly influenced by the fact that the women who wrote them were excluded by their sex from certain kinds of experience (134, 'Women and Fiction').
This, her vision for the future:
So, if we may prophecy, women in time to come will write fewer novels, but better novels; and not novels only, but poetry and cirticism and history. But in this, to be sure, one is looking ahead to that golden, that perhaps fabulous, age when women will have what has so long been denied them--leisure, and money, and a room to themselves. (139, 'Women and Fiction')
I don't know about fewer and better novels, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing either that much of women's writing still centres on the home and her emotions -- it is only when that becomes normative, right? But ah, leisure, money and a room to themselves? That is as elusive as ever.
Two other quotes I liked, this one on genre (and why we should stop being so uptight about putting things into just one box):
Books have a great deal in common; they are always overflowing their boundaries; they are always breeding new species from unexpected matches among themselves. (64, 'How Should One Read a Book?)
And this:
Thus in order to read poetry rightly, one must be in a rash, an extreme, a generous state of mind in which many of the supports and comforts of literature are done without. (70, How Should One Read a Book?)
Just reading this sentence makes me feel a little rash and extreme...bring on the poetry!
August 8, 2024
A well-rounded collection of Woolf's best. She never ceases to amaze and enlighten.
January 16, 2016
What I like most about her essays is the way she wrote it. The details were crafted in such a way that even the most trifle occurrence or what most people wouldn't even notice that happened right in front of them, were described in detail. Having only to have read a few of her short stories, of course I figured that she would implement her style of writing in her essays as well. The topics that she elaborated on were engaging. Especially the ones about London atmosphere. They always took me back to the week when I visited London for a week in December 2015.
Enjoyed every page of it!
Enjoyed every page of it!
March 5, 2023
"It is true that we get nothing whatsoever except pleasure from reading; it is true that the wisest of us is unable to say what that pleasure may be. But that pleasure - mysterious, unknown, useless as it is - is enough. That pleasure is so curious, so complex, so immensely fertilising to the mind of anyone who enjoys it, and so wide in its effects, that it would not be in the least surprising to discover, on the day of judgement, when secrets are revealed and the obscure is made plain, that the reason why we have grown from pigs to men and women, and come out from our caves, and dropped our bows and arrows, and sat round the fire and talked and drunk and made merry and given to the poor and helped the sick and made pavements and houses and erected some sort of shelter and society on the waste of the world, is nothing but this: we have loved reading."
February 21, 2020
Generally mediocre, but "The Cinema," "The Sun and the Fish," and "Flying Over London" are REALLY good.
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November 14, 2014These last couple of years, I've been growing increasingly fond of the essay as a form - but it can be a bit of a sausage party. So in the absence of a Michelle de Montaigne or Christine Hitchens, thank heavens for Virginia Woolf. Yes, she can be painfully condescending at times, even (especially?) when making sincere attempts to empathise with the poor. Yes, sometimes her striving for precision can paradoxically translate into a maddening vagueness. But it is the nature of the form that the essayist's foibles are magnified, and always behind it there lies that determination to capture the free play of the mind in all its contradictions - alloyed always by an awareness that this attempt can never fully succeed, and is likely to affect the observed mind even in so far as it does.
Arranged thematically, this selection is most trying on literature, where she will keep mentioning Arnold sodding Bennett; I suppose the degree to which he is now barely worth discussing should really give me hope (sic semper litfic). The finest section is the last, 'Looking On' - a mish-mash of psychogeography, hopes for the future, and memoirs of the mind. Here Woolf is most free, most perspicacious, and most herself.
This edition betrays a particularly severe case of a disease seemingly endemic in the modern OUP - a cancer of the footnotes. Most pages are dotted with asterisks, which one initially presumes will unfold some obscure and knotty point. Occasionally, they do. But we are also taken out of the pieces themselves for tiny summaries of the identity of such obscurities as Oscar Wilde, Wuthering Heights, William the Conqueror and Hitler. Some pruning would be most beneficial.
Arranged thematically, this selection is most trying on literature, where she will keep mentioning Arnold sodding Bennett; I suppose the degree to which he is now barely worth discussing should really give me hope (sic semper litfic). The finest section is the last, 'Looking On' - a mish-mash of psychogeography, hopes for the future, and memoirs of the mind. Here Woolf is most free, most perspicacious, and most herself.
This edition betrays a particularly severe case of a disease seemingly endemic in the modern OUP - a cancer of the footnotes. Most pages are dotted with asterisks, which one initially presumes will unfold some obscure and knotty point. Occasionally, they do. But we are also taken out of the pieces themselves for tiny summaries of the identity of such obscurities as Oscar Wilde, Wuthering Heights, William the Conqueror and Hitler. Some pruning would be most beneficial.
April 7, 2024
Such brilliance and sensitivity
“Life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding ourselves from the beginning of consciousness to the end…Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness.”
“It is the sense that there is no answer, that if honestly examined life presents question after question which just be left to sound on and on after the story is over in hopeless interrogation that fills us with a deep, and finally it may be with a resentful, despair.”
“Life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding ourselves from the beginning of consciousness to the end…Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness.”
“It is the sense that there is no answer, that if honestly examined life presents question after question which just be left to sound on and on after the story is over in hopeless interrogation that fills us with a deep, and finally it may be with a resentful, despair.”
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October 11, 2025Virginia Woolf writes some of the most intelligently and wittily bookish essays I have ever read!
September 24, 2020
I cannot believe I missed Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown.
Also I’m pretty sure I’m done with Woolf now? So much dedication has been put into a writer whom I find hard to have an opinion on. Still inconclusive.
Also I’m pretty sure I’m done with Woolf now? So much dedication has been put into a writer whom I find hard to have an opinion on. Still inconclusive.
December 19, 2021
This book contains one of the best essays written by Virgina Woolf; a writer who's writing speaks volumes with anyone who is willing to listen.
Woolf's writing is pure and raw. The reader can clearly sense her soul at work. Her ideas of woman and their role during the Victorian society is very visual and insightful. However, what's really intriguing is a peek into her perspective of writers, what writers are supposed to do, and what makes a good writer.
This collection of essays has been a pleasure to read! Anyone who truly appreciates good essays will instantly fall in love with this collection. However, if you're the kind of person who is easily bored by long essays then this book is not for you. For me though, it was a fun journey from start till end.
Woolf's writing is pure and raw. The reader can clearly sense her soul at work. Her ideas of woman and their role during the Victorian society is very visual and insightful. However, what's really intriguing is a peek into her perspective of writers, what writers are supposed to do, and what makes a good writer.
This collection of essays has been a pleasure to read! Anyone who truly appreciates good essays will instantly fall in love with this collection. However, if you're the kind of person who is easily bored by long essays then this book is not for you. For me though, it was a fun journey from start till end.
July 5, 2013
Although I didn´t read exactly this edition of the book, it is the closer I can get here on Goodreads to the Slovak edition I read. It consisted mostly of literary essays. First and foremost I gotta mention that I absolutely love Virginia Woolf with an almost undiscerning passion which, I fear, prevents me from maintaining an objective tone on this. She was possibly the biggest literary woman genius in the UK as far as my opinion goes. Yet I can´t say the same about her essays as I would about her fiction. Enlightened and poetic as they might be, I couldn´t get rid of the idea that they were more metaphorical than scientific. The reasons Woolf seems to give to support her arguments about certain literary works are pretty vague and can be subject to many other interpretations, in my opinion. She certainly was a bright lass, to say the least, but at some point I couldn´t help but think she is just "expressing her opinion" without any relevant arguments to back it up actually. One might disagree, however, that an essay has to be subjective in order to work, but I tend to lean towards the opinion that there has to be an equivalency between the subjective and objective in a good essay. Nevertheless, this did not keep me from reading through all the essays in the book in two days, in a manner so passionate that one would think I was reading a detective story or something. I simply love this woman - at least I love her in a way someone can love a person he never actually met and probably wouldn´t have done so even if he had that opportunity because he would feel totally not being worthy of such a favor.
July 29, 2011
Scratch everything I've ever read. This is point zero. This is where it all begins. Virginia Woolfe, still relevant 80 years later, still inspiring me to think for myself, trust myself, accept nothing and question the make-up of the world and my mind's eye. How Should One Read a Book?; Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid;The Modern Essay. So far so mesmerisingly mind-blowing.
April 23, 2011
I had to rush this because of academic commitments -- but brilliant stuff. Woolf's essays are extremely perceptive while being enjoyable. But we already knew that, didn't we?
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February 18, 2013Have read half of the essays, will return in due time. Interesting but not much further to say at the moment.
January 14, 2016
A very good selection of essays that allow one to understand more about Woolf as an author as well as the factors which may have influenced her writing.
July 24, 2014
Full of hope and help if you are trying to write; a good companion to her journals and novels as well.
June 27, 2012
I've just finished "Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid." Written with great insight.
May 9, 2018
„Semnul de pe perete” – include o viziune premonitorie a felului în care va se va sinucide scriitoarea. La fel schița „Vraja iazului”, mai explicit. Oare cînd a început să se gîndească cum va muri?
„Grădinile din Kew” – impresionismul la lucru; femei, bărbați și copii, ca forme ale culorilor, dizolvîndu-se în atmosferă, clipe din viața lor cărora le este martor un melc, pe lîngă care toți trec…
„Un roman nescris” – scriitoarea construiește un destin ipotetic unei vecine de compartiment de tren, destin care se dovedește eronat. La fel ca în „Semnul de pe perete”, „Doamna din oglindă”... scriitoarei îi place să fabuleze plecînd de la un semn, o părere, cu riscul de a se înșela, risc pe care și-l asumă înșelîndu-se repetat, împărtășind aceasta cu noi, cititorii, asigurîndu-ne astfel surpriza în ultimele rînduri ale fiecărei schițe.
„Casa bîntuită” – de fantome care au lăsat aici o comoară, lumina inimii (o bijuterie formală, impresionistă).
„Luni sau marți” – eforturi impresioniste de captare/definire a adevărului, imagini care te lasă mut.
„Obiecte masive” – despre formarea unei obsesii distrugătoare de relații sociale.
„Rochia cea nouă” – pretext de exacerbare a unui sentiment de inferioritate, subiect tratat și în „Omul care își iubea semenii”. În această din urmă schiță bate un vînt de Aldous Huxley (cel din „Punct. Contrapunct”) în descrierea ambianței de la petrecerea unde se desfășoară înîlnirea Ellis-O’Keefe. Huxley era foarte admirat de Virginia Woolf.
Aceeași lipsă de comunicare din „Omul care își iubea semenii” o găsim și în „Împreună dar despărțiți” în pofida unor frînturi de dialog chinuit, scrîșnit.
„Ducesa și bijutierul” – despre cum se tranzacționează accesul în lumea aristocraților pentru outsideri ambițioși; prilej de imagini care transmit o senzualitate aparte:
„Moștenirea” – ca jurnal conținînd mărturisirea infidelității.
„Doamna din oglindă” – în afară de poanta finală, similară povestirilor „Un roman nescris”… - menționate mai sus, rețin ideea de viață proprie a camerei, independentă de viața în oglindă, statică, corozivă.
„Recapitulare” – despre desfășurarea unei minți umile și inocente găzduite de un trup maiestuos între universul solid, protejat, al unei case clădite pe un teren smuls naturii și promiscuitatea și pragmatismul orașului (Londra ca „găleată”).
„Partida de vînătoare” – decăderea unei familii de nobili de țară, prin simpla descriere a unei partide de vînătoare, pe teren și în casa unde sînt așteptați vînătorii.
„O simplă melodie” – melodia vieții pe portativul reprezentat de un peisaj din epoca victoriană contemplat de bătrînul domn Carslake.
Preferatele mele – „Moștenirea”, „Grădinile din Kew”, „Partida de vînătoare”.
„Grădinile din Kew” – impresionismul la lucru; femei, bărbați și copii, ca forme ale culorilor, dizolvîndu-se în atmosferă, clipe din viața lor cărora le este martor un melc, pe lîngă care toți trec…
„Un roman nescris” – scriitoarea construiește un destin ipotetic unei vecine de compartiment de tren, destin care se dovedește eronat. La fel ca în „Semnul de pe perete”, „Doamna din oglindă”... scriitoarei îi place să fabuleze plecînd de la un semn, o părere, cu riscul de a se înșela, risc pe care și-l asumă înșelîndu-se repetat, împărtășind aceasta cu noi, cititorii, asigurîndu-ne astfel surpriza în ultimele rînduri ale fiecărei schițe.
„Casa bîntuită” – de fantome care au lăsat aici o comoară, lumina inimii (o bijuterie formală, impresionistă).
„Luni sau marți” – eforturi impresioniste de captare/definire a adevărului, imagini care te lasă mut.
„Leneș și nepăsător, scuturând cu ușurință spațiul de pe aripile sale, sigur de calea sa, bâtlanul trece pe deasupra bisericii aflată sub bolta cerului.”„Albastru și verde” – tablouri impresioniste; „Cvartetul de coarde” – alte eforturi impresioniste de interpretare vizuală a unei muzici complexe.
„Obiecte masive” – despre formarea unei obsesii distrugătoare de relații sociale.
„Rochia cea nouă” – pretext de exacerbare a unui sentiment de inferioritate, subiect tratat și în „Omul care își iubea semenii”. În această din urmă schiță bate un vînt de Aldous Huxley (cel din „Punct. Contrapunct”) în descrierea ambianței de la petrecerea unde se desfășoară înîlnirea Ellis-O’Keefe. Huxley era foarte admirat de Virginia Woolf.
Aceeași lipsă de comunicare din „Omul care își iubea semenii” o găsim și în „Împreună dar despărțiți” în pofida unor frînturi de dialog chinuit, scrîșnit.
„Ducesa și bijutierul” – despre cum se tranzacționează accesul în lumea aristocraților pentru outsideri ambițioși; prilej de imagini care transmit o senzualitate aparte:
„A redevenit băiețelul acela isteț, șiret, cu buzele precum cireșele ude. … Era zvelt, sprinten, cu ochii ca niște pietre linse.”„Lapin și Lapinova” – despre efortul sortit eșecului de a da sens unei căsătorii, punînd imaginația la lucru.
„Moștenirea” – ca jurnal conținînd mărturisirea infidelității.
„Doamna din oglindă” – în afară de poanta finală, similară povestirilor „Un roman nescris”… - menționate mai sus, rețin ideea de viață proprie a camerei, independentă de viața în oglindă, statică, corozivă.
„Oamenii nu ar trebui să-și lase oglinzile să atârne în odăi.””Clipe de viață” sau „Acele de la merceria Slater nu au vârf.” – despre fascinația pe care o poate exercita o persoană asupra alteia; construcția schiței îmi amintește cel mai mult de stilul scriitoarei din romanul „Spre far”.
„Recapitulare” – despre desfășurarea unei minți umile și inocente găzduite de un trup maiestuos între universul solid, protejat, al unei case clădite pe un teren smuls naturii și promiscuitatea și pragmatismul orașului (Londra ca „găleată”).
„Partida de vînătoare” – decăderea unei familii de nobili de țară, prin simpla descriere a unei partide de vînătoare, pe teren și în casa unde sînt așteptați vînătorii.
„În odaie era curent. Ușile nu se potriveau bine și nici ferestrele. În răstimpuri pe sub covor trecea o undă aidoma unei reptile. Pe covor se aflau aplicații de verde și de galben, unde se odihnea soarele, iar apoi soarele s-a mișcat și a arătat cu degetul – parcă în batjocură – la o gaură în covor și s-a oprit.”Paralela între cele două bătrîne ce așteaptă vînătorii și fazanii muribunzi și apoi morți este fabuloasă. O adevărată capodoperă.
„O simplă melodie” – melodia vieții pe portativul reprezentat de un peisaj din epoca victoriană contemplat de bătrînul domn Carslake.
„Gândurile lui nu puteau găsi cuvinte noi, curate, care să nu fi fost niciodată răvășite și îndoite sau cărora să nu le fi fost scos miezul în urma folosirii de către alții.”Prefața doctă a lui Mihai Miroiu îți oferă chei de interpretare și citire a unor texte care, altfel, pot fi puțin atractive, obositoare, prin exces de … impresionism 😊.
Preferatele mele – „Moștenirea”, „Grădinile din Kew”, „Partida de vînătoare”.
February 10, 2017
"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end."
-Modern Fiction
To write like Virginia Woolf is to possess some preternatural, divinely-endowed insight into the unexplored depths of ordinary lives, which is far more vivacious, imaginatively restless, and offering an infinitude of artistic and humanist possibilities if one thought, sympathized, and observed long and hard enough. Through her elegant prose and free-spirited diction, one is treated to a verbal kaleidoscope of what persons miss under the monotonous facade of daily life - the indifferent passersby of Piccadilly, the austere blankness of London docks, or the possible human entanglements of each stranger.
I might have just described how it felt like to read Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse, but reading Woolf's essays gave me similar impressions. Even though her subjects may seem distant to her common reader, they seem and read like characters in a novel, whether the working women at the Guild, Strachey, Austen, or her father. It helps that she's not writing as an academic but more as an experienced story-teller. Though she wrote on seemingly esoteric and antediluvian (for our time, not hers) topics and now-obscure authors, she maintains her characteristic sinuous style, even in her literary criticism. Her ideas were radical, sometimes chic, and occasionally sardonic, yet always imbued with wisdom and wit.
My favorites include Modern Fiction, How One Should Read a Book?, Craftsmanship (sections of which are narrated by Woolf in her only surviving voice recording), everything from "Women and Fiction", and Street Haunting - A London Adventure. I would list more memorable quotes here, but I would prefer letting you discover Woolf for yourself. Would likely proceed to her two volumes of the The Common Reader.
To write like Virginia Woolf is to possess some preternatural, divinely-endowed insight into the unexplored depths of ordinary lives, which is far more vivacious, imaginatively restless, and offering an infinitude of artistic and humanist possibilities if one thought, sympathized, and observed long and hard enough. Through her elegant prose and free-spirited diction, one is treated to a verbal kaleidoscope of what persons miss under the monotonous facade of daily life - the indifferent passersby of Piccadilly, the austere blankness of London docks, or the possible human entanglements of each stranger.
I might have just described how it felt like to read Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse, but reading Woolf's essays gave me similar impressions. Even though her subjects may seem distant to her common reader, they seem and read like characters in a novel, whether the working women at the Guild, Strachey, Austen, or her father. It helps that she's not writing as an academic but more as an experienced story-teller. Though she wrote on seemingly esoteric and antediluvian (for our time, not hers) topics and now-obscure authors, she maintains her characteristic sinuous style, even in her literary criticism. Her ideas were radical, sometimes chic, and occasionally sardonic, yet always imbued with wisdom and wit.
My favorites include Modern Fiction, How One Should Read a Book?, Craftsmanship (sections of which are narrated by Woolf in her only surviving voice recording), everything from "Women and Fiction", and Street Haunting - A London Adventure. I would list more memorable quotes here, but I would prefer letting you discover Woolf for yourself. Would likely proceed to her two volumes of the The Common Reader.
February 13, 2025
modern fiction
mr bennett and mrs brown
character in fiction
the famous passage - “The mind, exposed to the ordinary course of life, receives upon its surface a myriad impressions —trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms, composing in their sum what we might venture to call life itself; and to figure further as the semi-transparent envelope, or luminous halo, surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not perhaps the chief task of the novelist to convey this incessantly varying spirit with whatever stress or sudden deviation it may display, and as little admixture of the alien and external as possible? We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; but suggesting that the proper stuff for fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it ... Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small.”
mr bennett and mrs brown
character in fiction
the famous passage - “The mind, exposed to the ordinary course of life, receives upon its surface a myriad impressions —trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms, composing in their sum what we might venture to call life itself; and to figure further as the semi-transparent envelope, or luminous halo, surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not perhaps the chief task of the novelist to convey this incessantly varying spirit with whatever stress or sudden deviation it may display, and as little admixture of the alien and external as possible? We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; but suggesting that the proper stuff for fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it ... Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small.”
July 13, 2019
I mean, as an essayist, Woolf--one of the greatest writers to history, let alone modernism--is sorely underappreciated. These essays are sumptuous and masterfully plotted treats in themselves; flights of fancy as well as serious considerations, and so beautifully and intelligently written. And, they also just provide an essential understanding of Woolf's conception of form and literature, alongside an astonishing treatment of the position the modernist novelist finds himself in. But as Woolf declares, the aim of the essay is 'simply that it should give pleasure ... It should lay us under a spell with its first word, and we should only wake, refreshed, with its last'. Woolf is surely one of the masters of this form. She is best when she is blurring boundaries; using techniques of fiction to animate her essayism. Woolf's political ideology is really quite a minor part to understanding her--she had a deep commitment to literature; to form and art. And these essays are where she tries (essais) her ideas and they showcase her commitments. She seems freed from the constraints of the novel, which was under radical change with modernism--thrilling to follow her.
January 30, 2018
Every one of these essays is brilliant and acutely intelligent and finely-wrought. This is a great read for VW’s fans or anyone who is interested in her work, or is looking for an introduction to her writing. They are a lot easier to read than her novels or even short stories and really do her justice as one of the most intelligent and original writers of her time.
I liked how the essays were thematically grouped. They complement anyone’s reading of VW’s novels marvellously. It makes her choices as a writer clearer, and gives insight into her life. Her writing always, always makes me feel better and calmer. It’s like a little peaceful island in the world’s insanity.
The editor’s introduction for this collection of essays begins by saying that introductions to VW’s work are not necessary, and then ambles for 30 pages of useless drivel. Just thought that was funny. There are multiple unneeded notes in the text, which is very distracting. It could have been more bare-bones, just the essays themselves, which would have been nicer.
I liked how the essays were thematically grouped. They complement anyone’s reading of VW’s novels marvellously. It makes her choices as a writer clearer, and gives insight into her life. Her writing always, always makes me feel better and calmer. It’s like a little peaceful island in the world’s insanity.
The editor’s introduction for this collection of essays begins by saying that introductions to VW’s work are not necessary, and then ambles for 30 pages of useless drivel. Just thought that was funny. There are multiple unneeded notes in the text, which is very distracting. It could have been more bare-bones, just the essays themselves, which would have been nicer.
September 1, 2025
This may perhaps be the most annotated book on my shelf. This compendium of essays luxuriantly describe ideas taken up from every corner of life; memory, politics, women, fiction, and the minute details of human existence are taken up and reshaped into elaborate works of prose that are unique not only in substance, but in narrative quality. These are essays that are not humdrum and academic but rather vivid and strikingly fantastical, capable of bringing to the mind as much solid imagery as abstract intellectual ideas.
February 7, 2025
These essays are treasure for those interested in modernism, literacy criticism, feminism, and personal reflection on things in life!! She talks about modern life and the fluidity of identity and also the passage of time.
Her ability to combine artistic expression with deep philosophical thought is sooo stunning. She’s an unmatched observer of life and her essays are one of the things that show her intelligence in capturing the complexities of human existence and thinking.
Enjoyed!!!!
Her ability to combine artistic expression with deep philosophical thought is sooo stunning. She’s an unmatched observer of life and her essays are one of the things that show her intelligence in capturing the complexities of human existence and thinking.
Enjoyed!!!!
February 21, 2019
Good if you're a big fan of Virginia Woolf; I'm not sure that I am. However I did really enjoy a couple of these, particularly ones about life in London, and on experiences writing as a woman - similar ground covered to her more famous A Room of One's Own. (Though if you only read one out of that book and this book, it should probably be that book.)
March 24, 2023
I did not read all of the essays (I didn't even read all the assigned ones, yikes). I honestly did not like the essays. I am not quite sure, though, if thats because the essay format is just not appealing to me or if Woolf's writing also had an impact.
February 10, 2024
“Smeh više od bilo čega drugog čuva naš osećaj za meru; on nas večno podseća na to da smo samo ljudi, da nijedan čovek nije samo junak ili samo ništarija. Čim zaboravimo da se smejemo, stvari vidimo izvan proporcije i gubimo osećaj za realnost.”
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