Virginia Woolf, Modernity and History: Constellations with Walter Benjamin

by Angeliki Spiropoulou

Overview

This book analyses the representation of the past and the practice of historiography in the fiction and critical writings of Virginia Woolf, and draws parallels between Woolf's historiographical imagination and the thought of Walter Benjamin, the German philosopher of history and key theorist of modernity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230537583
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	03/17/2010
Edition description:	2010
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Angeliki Spiropoulou holds a PhD from the University of Sussex, UK. She is Lecturer in Modern European Literature and Theory at the University of the Peloponnese, Greece. Her recent publications include: Culture Agonistes: Debating Culture, Rereading Texts (co-editor, Bern 2002); Contemporary Greek Fiction: International Orientations and Crossings (co-editor, Athens 2002); Walter Benjamin: Images and Myths of Modernity (editor, Athens 2007) and History of European Literature: 18th–20th C (co-author, Patras 2008).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments viii

Introduction: Reading Virginia Woolf in Constellation with Walter Benjamin 1

1 Modernity, Modernism and the Past 18

Definitions of modernity 18

Benjamin and modernity 25

Woolf, modernism and the past 30

2 Theories of History, Models of Historiography 37

Hisoty and historiography 37

Woolf on history: influences and differences 41

Benjamin's philosophy of history 50

3 Antiquity and Modernity: Jacob's Room and the 'Greek Myth' 60

4 Historical Fictions, Fictional Fashions and Time: Orlando as the 'Angel of History' 75

5 Natural History and Historical Nature in To the Lighthouse and Other Fiction 96

6 Dreaming, History and the Visions of the Obscure in The Years 114

7 This Stage of History: Between the Acts and the Destruction of Tradition 138

8 A 'Common History': Anonymous Artists, Communal Collectivities 162

Notes 177

Bibliography 215

Index 228

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Dr. Spiropoulou's elegant treatment of Virginia Woolf and Modernism deserves to be on any list of "must read" books on Woolf's complicated relation to modernism and, above all, to that "history" to which Woolf was devoted from childhood. Since modernism is commonly thought to be hostile to "history," Dr. Spiropoulou's subtle and perspicuous readings of Woolf's major works override such easy generalizations, complicate what might be meant by "modernism" today, and show a sensitivity to the confusion over the nature of that "history" that many looked to as a possible foundation for cultural renewal in the inter-war years. The research into diaries, letters, and other personal papers of Virginia Woolf adds flesh to the overall schema.” (Hayden White, University Professor, Emeritus, University of California, Consultant Professor, Comparative Literature, Stanford University, USA)

Editorial Reviews

Spiropoulou’s is the most significant full-length study on both Woolf and Benjamin ... She foregrounds the confluences between these two modernist icons, yet also highlights the tensions within their own oeuvres – between, most obviously, modernity and history and the present and the past. ... Spiropoulou’s very notion – or figuration – of constellations provides an illuminating means of exploring other relationships among writers." (Jeanne Dubino, Textual Practice, Vol 28 (4), July, 2014)

"This inventive, skilfully constructed study also serves as a site of new potentialities, producing vivid new readings of the author's work ... presenting Spiropoulou as a critic in perfect alignment with her subject." (James Bailey, European Journal of English Studies, Vol. 15 (1), March, 2011)

​"In bringing Virginia Woolf's histriographical techniques into constellation with Benjamin's thoughts on modernity and history, Spiropoulou offers a fresh approach to Woolf's engagement with history which neither ties her work to the "subjective realism" of new historicism, nor neccesarily implicates her as a precursor to postmodern approaches to history." (Routledge ABES)

"Angeliki Spiropoulou's Virginia Woolf, Modernity and History: Constellations with Walter Benjamin is a handy and compact book that can be taken as emblematic of the direction comparative literature is taking today. Spiropoulou shows vividly and cogently that the point is no longer to simply compare texts, periods, or authors, but to find new ways of combining literature and theory. The aim is to read better, deeper, and more intelligently the canonical authors that are too often taught in isolation." (Jean-Michel Rabate, Journal of Modern Literature)

"The book is an important contribution to Woolf studies as well as literary modernist studies and historical studies more generally. It is also a particularly timely book in that the relation between gender,sexuality and temporality, especially history, is currently receiving renewed critical attention." (Jana Funke, Historein)

"Virginia Woolf, Modernity and History suggests a method of inquiry that, indeed, could inspire interesting interdisciplinary approaches among historians, philosophers and literary theorists." (Daniel W. Bang, Woolf Studies Annual)

From the Publisher