Synopses & Reviews
After the Modernist literary experiments of her earlier work, Virginia Woolf became increasingly concerned with overt social and political commentary in her later writings, which are preoccupied with dissecting the links between patriarchy, patriotism, imperialism and war. This book unravels the complex textual histories of The Years (1937), Three Guineas (1938) and Between the Acts (1941) to expose the genesis and evolution of Virginia Woolf's late cultural criticism. Fusing a feminist-historicist approach with the practices and principles of genetic criticism, this innovative study scrutinizes a range of holograph, typescript and proof documents within their historical context to uncover the writing and thinking processes that produced Woolf's cultural analysis during 1931-1941. By demonstrating that Woolf's late cultural criticism developed through her literary experimentalism as well as in response to contemporary social, political and economic upheavals, this book offers a fresh perspective on her emergence as a cultural commentator in her final decade and paves the way for further genetic enquiries in the field.
About the Author
Alice Wood is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Portsmouth, UK.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Critiquing Patriarchy in the Years of
The Years 3. The Evolution of Woolf's Feminist-Pacifism in
Three Guineas 4. Writing Art in Times of Chaos in
Between the Acts 5. Conclusion
Notes
Appendices
Bibliography
Index