WGSS 389
The Fiction of Virginia Woolf Spring 2015
Division II
Cross-listed ENGL 389
This is not the current course catalog

“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 fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small” (“Modern Fiction”). Virginia Woolf’s fiction represents a self-conscious and highly experimental challenge to the conventions of Victorian and Edwardian fiction. This course will explore the evolution of the innovative narrative techniques by which she tried to bridge the gap between the experience of consciousness and its representation in language. Accompanying concerns will be Woolf’s challenges to stable gender roles, her conception of the relationship of gender to creativity, and the ways in which her powerful lyric impulses are reflected in her fiction. We will read most of the major novels, probably including The Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, The Waves, and Between the Acts, together with selected short fiction and critical essays. The course will be taught in tutorial format. We will meet together as a seminar (time TBA)for the first and last weeks of the semester, and then divide into pairs for the remainder. Individual pairs will have some flexibility in the last we weeks of the course to tailor the syllabus to individual interests.