The Unknown Virginia Woolf
4th Edition
Published on 12. March 1999
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-521-48241-7 (ISBN)
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Description
Since its first publication in 1978, Roger Poole's The Unknown Virginia Woolf has achieved recognition as one of the classic studies of Woolf's life and work. Poole revised the conventional view of Woolf as 'mad' by treating her breakdown as socially intelligible. The theme of madness was reconceived in order to provide an intellectual biography that traced Woolf's fear and resentment to her childhood and adolescence. Poole uses the phenomenological concept of embodiment to address the concealed intentionality that lies behind apparently deviant behaviour. He shows how Woolf's challenge to accepted conventions of communication, in both her life and work, is an appeal for meaning. Long considered radical and iconoclastic, this book now occupies a central place in Woolf, gender, and modernist studies. This new edition includes a specially written preface evaluating recent developments in Woolf studies, literary theory and contemporary feminist criticism.
Reviews / Votes
'... in the best sense of an over-used word, it is challenging; it makes us aware of the dangers of a canon being too easily established in biographical interpretation, and of the closeness of relation between the novels and the life. It is especially welcomed for its verve, its overriding sense of engagement, its self-evident 'need to be written'.' The Times Higher Education Supplement 'Poole's analysis of Virginia's marriage to Leonard Woolf is deadly frank and honest - and, I feel, absolutely accurate. As is the rest of this remarkable work. The Unknown Virginia Woolf is a brilliantly argued interpretation of the life of a genius, much maligned by her closest associates and friends.' Eric Hiscock, The BooksellerMore details
Edition
4th Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Edition type
Revised edition
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-521-48241-7 (9780521482417)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Content
Acknowledgments; Preface to the fourth edition; 1. 'Rosy-flowered fruit tree and beak of brass'; 2. The body, the mirror, Gerald and George; 3. The terrors of engagement; 4. Full bellies, dull minds; 5. 'What exactly do you mean by that'; 6. Leonard's three problems; 7. The ordeal of 1912; 8. 'Butter, cream, and eggs and bacon'; 9. Virginia's own view negated and disconfirmed; 10. 'Taboo against eating - guilt'; 11. 'Conspiracy'; 12. 'Forbade childbirth, penalised despair'; 13. 'The birds talking Greek'; 14. Was Septimus Smith 'insane'?; 15. Virginia's embodiment; 16. Fuhrer, Duece, tyrant; 17. Incompatibility; 18. Octavia Wilberforce: 'oak and triple brass were around her breast'; 19. Death by shrapnel or death by water; Bibliographical note; Index.