VIRGINIA WOOLF

(1882-1941)

British novelist and literary critic. Author of the novels "Mrs. Dalloway" (1925), "The Lighthouse" (1927), "Waves" (1931), etc.

As fate and work of Virginia Woolf as if crossed two centuries, creating a bit unusual fatal force, fatal to the soul, which carries the contradictions of two opposing eras, fatal to humans, rather than paradoxical in its character Victorian mores, "good old England" and refining vices of decadence. Bewildered, you can read about the twists and turns of the biography of Virginia Woolf - as well it did not explode this woman before, how could endure six decades, consumed so sharp mentally split. And for what, for what sin was she had the dubious "honor" breeding "individuals" XX century.

Lady Wolf, nee Stephen, came from an elitist, aristocratic families of Britain. Her father - a figure prominent in the social and literary life in Britain: radical, a freethinker, an atheist, philosopher, historian, literary critic. First marriage, Leslie Stephen was married to the youngest daughter of Thackeray, Harriet Miriem. She died young in 1878, Leslie married a second time - his choice was a close friend of Harriet, Julia Duckworth. Virginia became the third child of Leslie Stephen and Julia.

Art for the Virginia Stephen was a daily occurrence, as for any child - frolic and play. She grew up among the regular conversations and arguments about literature, painting, music.

Photo — «Virginia Woolf»

In the house of her father received the blessing of budding writers to subvert the universally recognized authority. And although Virginia, according to immutable principles of Victorian father, received a purely home-schooling, the opportunity to have such teachers are instructing our heroine would envy, and Oxford students. However, if the intellectual education at home by Stephen aspired to the highest level, the mental well-being of the situation was very disturbing.

In his most substantial novel, "To the Lighthouse by Virginia, to some extent the situation reveals his own childhood - a nervous sharp Mr. Ramsay, like Leslie Stephen, is a constant tension, constantly looking for something to complain about, spending time in the conversations of scientists. This cold world of abstraction, logical constructions, intolerance and self-assertion, on the one hand, stimulated the intellectual improvement of children in the family, on the other - killing a living soul, repressed sensuality. Impressionable and talented Virginia father's rationalism cost of such internal stresses that she paid for his mental health, and constant nervous breakdowns.

Behind the facade of foreign aristocratic decorum in hiding, apparently, more and more complex problems faced by the small Virginia. According to one version, the age of six she was subjected to sexual harassment of their adult uncles.

Photo — «Virginia Woolf»

These children's experiences brought into the world of our heroine's morbid fear of physical love. Anyway, when Lytton Strachey, a close friend of Virginia on the literary fraternity, he proposed to her, she did not look at what he was known as a notorious homosexual, and agreed to. True, the next day the newly-born groom horror refused to marry, but the opportunity to marry a man who liked him only for his wit and intelligence, betrayed the true attitude of Virginia to have sex with men.

And if you do not know of a single novel, Wolf of the opposite sex, then the rumors of the love of women supplemented many stories and memories of our heroine. Even in the age of sixteen Virginia was attracted by his girlfriend, close to her literary tastes. A twenty passionate epistolary novel tied girl with special tridtsatisemiletney from an aristocratic house. "When you wake up at night, do you still feel, I hope, as I embrace you," - confided to her friend Virginia is very intimate fantasies. Still, this novel was just platonic, though, and lasted for ten years.

After his father's death the family moved to Bloomsbury - the area in central London, where traditionally settled by artists, musicians and writers. This place was destined to play a significant role in the history of British culture of the XX century. Children of Leslie Stephen's kept the spirit estetskih conversations and intellectual competition that prevailed during the life of his father.

Photo — «Virginia Woolf»

Sons, Toby and Adrian, daughters, Vanessa and Virginia, formed the core of the circle, or salon, which was called "Bloomsbury. " The house is Steven going to young people who themselves hoarse zasizhivayas the night, arguing about art. The mere listing of names - the regulars lounge - says about the level of these meetings: the poet TS Eliot, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, literary critic Roger Fry, Edward Forster, the novelist . . .

Novice, first got here, happened at ease. Young David Lawrence, then the classics of English literature of the XX century, it seemed that he goes crazy with the endless talking, fit into that was not so easy. In this salon revered prophet, Freud, and studied the theory of the archetypes of Carl Jung. According to these new scientists get that area of subconscious no less important than the scope of conscious - there are hidden impulses, unfulfilled desires, sexual problems are portrayed in some unchanging pattern of behavior and thinking that relatives of modern man with his ancient ancestors. All these ideas were taken note of the young writers, melted into artistic discovery. In the salon, "Bloomsbury" ripened creative credo of the young Virginia.

Her first printed the stories provoked an explosion of discontent critics, puzzled the reader and the uncertainty of the author. "Haunted House", "Monday is Tuesday, . . . "," The stain on the wall, "" String Quartet "is hard to even be called stories for complete lack of plot, the temporal and geographical certainty.

Photo — «Virginia Woolf»

Heroes like the shadows, slipping on the periphery of the verbal construction. It was like a poem in prose, blank for future works, lyrical essays, and more describe the psychological state of the author, opened the anatomy of thinking than was a story in the classic sense of the word. Virginia Woolf was at the source of the prose of the XX century, which today received a pretentious name: "stream of consciousness. "

She wrote stories all the time. If any event or experience attracted her attention, she immediately wrote them. Then he repeatedly returned to the outline, and it turned out the finished product, but due to the extreme zakompleksovannosti and fear of criticism it long enough did not give her things to the press, constantly tinkering with something, perfecting.

Biased attitude towards their own work due to the fact that Virginia has published quite late and his first novel, written after she fell in many months the gravest depression with auditory hallucinations and was forced to be treated in a psychiatric clinic. By the time she was married to Leonard Woolf, a man from the circle of "Bloomsbury. "

Perhaps the man in the street will be hard to believe that, despite the lack of sexual attraction to each other, the family lived in harmony for nearly thirty years. Leonard, like nobody else understood his "difficult" woman. When, after the wedding night the husband felt that Virginia is experiencing a painful aversion to physical intimacy with him, he always ended with her intimate communion, and a writer all my life was grateful to him for that.

Photo — «Virginia Woolf»

Not in vain in the dying message, she wrote: "It seems to me that two people could not live a better life than we have lived with you. "

And yet sometimes Virginia envied those who by their talent was not obliged, in contrast to her own to pay for the most simple feminine being. She sadly watched her sister Vanessa - gorgeous women with a bunch of kids. About Virginia once said: "I am neither one nor the other. I'm not a man and a woman. " First, she dreamed of motherhood, love, passion, as she constantly reminded flowering species of Vanessa, but Virginia was unable to get rid of the aversion to sex. "This hazy world of literary images, like a dream, no love, no heart, no passion, no sex - this is the world I like, namely this world interesting to me. "

And yet in Virginia had an affair. In forty years of Virginia thirty-year love Vita showdance West. That feeling was mutual. Vita bad writing, and came from an aristocratic family. Their love affair lasted for 5 years. In the life of Woolf, this cardiac affection was perhaps the only one in which present an element of sex. Leonard on this occasion had no objection, as relationship between two women does not pose a threat to marriage. In a letter to Virginia Whyte wrote: "It still good to be a eunuch like me. " It was during the years due to Stranded Virginia wrote his best books.

The novel "Mrs. Dalloway" has brought fame Wolf in literary circles.

Photo — «Virginia Woolf»

Like all her work book was written with an incredible effort, with lots of sketches and studies, which transformed later in the story. Virginia panic afraid to be just formalistkoy, which could be accused of playing with words. She too tragically take their mirosuschestvovanie to play flirtatiously with literary images. "I took for this book, hoping to be able to express it in their attitude to creativity . . . It is necessary to write from the depths of feelings - thus teaches Dostoyevsky. I? Maybe I'm so loving words, just play them? No I think not. In this book, I have too many problems - I want to describe the life and death, health and madness, I want to critically portray the existing social system, to show it in action . . . And yet I'm writing from the depths of their feelings? Will . . I give reality? think about the writers of the eighteenth century. They were open, but not fastened, as we have now. "

What romance? Yes, in general, about one single June day in 1923. Fine lady, Clarissa Dalloway, spends the whole day in the bustle of the upcoming evening reception. Her husband, Richard, MP, lunch with an influential lady of Brutus and discussing important political news. Their daughter, Elizabeth, drinking tea in a cafe with a very unsympathetic teacher of history, long ago became her friend.

Literary tradition is not included Virginia Woolf in the number of authors have drawn in his works, dramatic portrait of the "lost generation".

Photo — «Virginia Woolf»

But the sense of meaninglessness of life, the madness that afflicted the world on the eve of World War II, are represented by the writer of his faithful confessor. Suicide mad hero of the novel "Mrs. Dalloway" - Septimus - a metaphor for the tragedy of her generation, crushed by the gigantic upheaval of two eras. For her, as for an English girl, educated in a traditional Victorian spirit is particularly acute loss of a home-fortress. Virginia understands the value of the house extensively. House as a material carrier of the home, and home as the keeper of the soul of its inhabitants.

Books Wolf - predugadanie today's women's destinies, and partly because of caution. We did not find her answer to the question "What do I do?". Yes, Virginia at the beginning of XX century and did not realize scope of the feminist movement and its potential losses. But the writer was given the gift to hear inner voices of his characters, and therefore should listen to its precepts. Oh And she was his mental anguish burnt in the fire, for women, which in the circumstances of the exclusion of men from their families, and ultimately - from home, she knew what to say. Wolfe said that women need to be brave, to remember that marriage - it everyday spiritual deed, that the relationship of spouses are very fragile, and therefore must learn mutual tolerance. And another thing: although the XX century - the century of the intellect, Virginia, cautioned against the perception of the mind as a panacea.

Photo — «Virginia Woolf»

Often more efficient can be beautiful. Wolf was an artist, always strives to life and creativity to the attainment of harmony, which she had never felt.

But we should not conclude that Virginia has been dismal, melancholy woman. On the contrary, it is in any company became the center of attention. Witty, lively, always aware of all the literary and political events, finally, just a beautiful woman, she gave the impression of a strong, solid man. Few knew how she suffers from depression and hallucinations, both plagued by her fears, and how she terrorized their home. All those who knew Virginia on literary salons, were shocked by her passing. Suicide is so not knitting with her appearance a woman who loved life voraciously.

As Shakespeare's Ophelia, she threw herself into the river, moreover, ordered way back in the pocket dress stones.