Photo source: Harvard Library
On the Timelessness of Virginia Woolf
By Elizabeth Riddolls, Staff Writer
When I first encountered U of T’s English department, I was surprised by their literary heroine of choice: Virginia Woolf. Professors and students alike gushed about her brilliance and her intricate readings of the human mind. No matter which corner I turned, her mournful figure loomed. The worst part? I didn’t care much for her work.
In high school, I dug out my mother’s old copy of Mrs. Dalloway. As I laboured through it, I remember gritting my teeth and muttering to myself, “This is literature. You are enjoying this. Woolf is literally The Literary Lesbian.” I still haven’t finished the book.
During my first semester, I remember learning about a first-year English class tucked away on a Friday afternoon reading Virginia Woolf. I decided I needed to redeem myself, and convinced a friend to let me sit in. I slipped into the theatre, and for two hours the professor dissected Mrs. Dalloway line by line, all set to the tune of “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles. I fell in love.
Woolf understood how I saw the world: tinged with an intense fascination with people’s inner lives, along with an appreciation for the mundane. I needed to know more about this woman, as soon as possible.
Flicking through the shelves of my favourite second-hand bookstore, I scanned the shelves: “Wolf… Wolfe… Aha!”
A copy of A Room of One’s Own stared back at me—Woolf’s famous treatise on women’s fiction. She argued that female writers required two things to truly thrive: money and a room of their own. The book was available in the public domain, but my fingers itched to own a copy. Three dollars later, it was tucked away in my bag. Her words, delicate and fiery, tumbled through my mind as I snuck pages in between tutorials and classes.
Still, I felt too far removed from the woman behind the words.
Woolf’s prose scared me. It was dense, convoluted, and despite my efforts, kept me at arm’s length. So, I searched for something more personal. Eventually, I found a series of Woolf’s letters to her lifelong lover, Vita Sackville-West. Sackville-West was a writer in her own right, known for her epic poem The Land, and for inspiring Woolf’s novel, Orlando. Their flirtations and jokes stretched over twenty years—Woolf’s fond nickname for Sackville-West, “my dear Creature,” and the brightness in her words when they saw one another felt timeless and familiar. Who hasn’t felt the world opening itself up again after seeing someone you love—a friend, partner, sibling—even for a brief moment?
“Two nights ago, Vita was here; and when she went, I began to feel the quality of the evening—how it was spring coming; a silver light; mixing with the early lamps; the cabs all rushing through the streets; I had a tremendous sense of life beginning; and all the doors opening; and this is I believe the moth shaking its wings in me; ideas rush in me” (Love Letters: Vita and Virginia, 1930).
On the other hand, Woolf’s loneliness also haunted her letters; she was often cooped up in bed recovering from migraines and suffered from depression throughout her life. It is tempting to associate her impressive creative output with the archetype of the tortured artist.
However, the myth of the tortured artist is a self-fulfilling one—in the pursuit of great art, some people begin to believe that suffering and untreated mental illness fuel an artist’s creative spark. In reality, however, pain, disability, and mental illness impede great art. Although many hail Woolf’s depression and what is speculated as bipolar disorder as her sources of inspiration, Woolf’s mental illness often left her unable to write for long periods of time.
Her creativity, I believe, can instead be explained by the rich community of artists she surrounded herself with. Virginia Woolf, alongside her sister Vanessa Bell and other wealthy artists and writers, founded the Bloomsbury group. It represented a unique artistic environment—one of sexual fluidity, informal yet impassioned intellectual debate, and ultimately, freedom.
The Bloomsbury group left a vibrant artistic legacy. The Hogarth Press, an independent publishing house, established by Leonard and Virginia Woolf in 1917, published a variety of significant writers, including T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster. They also provided a platform for young artists to connect and share their work through the Friday Club, the Grafton Group and the London Artists Association.
This unique artistic environment allowed Woolf’s creative spirit to flourish. Although it’s easy to fall prey to the idea of the artist as a solitary creature, art often blossoms from a community of artists. The way that Woolf created a community of her own was meaningful, especially in the early 20th century when homosexuality was taboo.
Despite the intimidating cloudiness of her prose, reading Woolf’s most intimate letters and diary letters allowed a glimpse into her mind—that of a deeply loving, lonely, and introspective woman embedded in a rich artistic community. As a young writer, it is comforting to see pieces of myself in a great writer trying to make sense of the world and find her place within its rigid boundaries. While Woolf faced her own struggles, she ultimately chose to share the delight of creation with others.
In all her brilliance, Woolf missed something fundamental when she penned A Room of One’s Own: sometimes, a writer needs not just a room of her own, but also a community of her own.
