Virginia Woolf: A Centenary Perspective

by Eric Warner

Proceedings of the Virginia Woolf Centenary Conference, which took place on 20-22 September, 1982 at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge--Introd.

169 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1984

Reviews

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of essays! Though there aren't many essays, all the essays in here are superbly argued and perceptive I think. Good, strong evidence: the scholars have looked at the texts very carefully. Of particular interest were several quotes from Woolf which I have not seen elsewhere, perhaps because they are more difficult to get (or that I just haven't read enough :S ). Also the panel discussions were of great interest. Many of the ideas noted in this 1982 conference have been taken up in much later criticism, though perhaps not extensively developed, I think, immediately after the conference. In fact -- I wouldn't say I'm an authority on Woolfsian criticism -- but it seems that the panel discussions cover areas that are generally less covered (from what I know of Woolfsian criticism). This is great, for me anyway, because it confirms many of my suspicions -- I am not alone! -- some people think like me! And also that the intuitive *reaction* to her novels, for several critics, mirrors mine, which might explain why so far people have paid less attention to irony in her work, which I'm working on: perhaps, as my supervisor says, it is self-evident, or something which people think is not worth discussing with respect to her 'place' as a modernist reformer... or that her aesthetics hardly mention it.