I feel certain I am going mad again...

        Seeing as how we'll be starting on Virginia Woolf's works and she happens to be one of my favorite writers, I figured we could do a little context on her. I think that knowing the context of the writer can bring a better understanding of the literature. I have done my own work with Woolf, in and out of class; Her story has always interested me. Her life was so tinged with sadness, tragedy, and even mental illness, yet she still managed to push through. Suicide frequents her writings and she did not find it a sin or cowardice. She was a feminist (you'll get to read more about that tomorrow in class), and people still constantly talk about her writings. Any of the information I did not know I got at www.online-literature.com/virginia_woolf/

 

          Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London, England on 25 Jaunary, 1882. She was born into a rather privelaged family, and her father was the first editior of the Dictionary of National Biography. She was one of eight children, four of whom were her half siblings. She was very close with her older sister Vanessa. Their home was frequented by many successful Victorian authors and they had a massive library that helped to add to the children's home education.

         Her family had a summer home in St. Ives off the Atlantic Ocean and she had fond memories of her time spent there. It even influenced her writing. They stopped going after her mother died when Virginia was only 13. She had a mental breakdown, the first of many. The death of Stella, her older sister prompted another breakdown, and the death of her father, another one. She was bipolar, and some wonder if she did not have a form of schizophrenia. Her episodes would be so bad she would withdraw from her busy social life and get frustrated that she couldn't seem to focus long enough to read or write. She wrote that she heard voices and had visions and would occasionally go to nursing homes for 'rest cures'. In 1905, living with her sister Vanessa and her brothers Thoby and Adrian in a different neighborhood in London, she started to feel better. She started writing again and taught English and History at Morley College. The very next year when travelling, Her brother Thoby died from Typhoid Fever. 

        After Leonard Woolf (political journalist, author, and editor) proposed to her three times, they finally married in August of 1912 (she was 30 years old). When World War II broke out two years later, they retreated to their country home 'Monk's House'. She was working on a satirical coming-of-age story, her first novel, The Voyage Out. Not long after that, Virginia and her husband founded the Hogarth Press. She wrote seemingly constantly. Leonard was constantly anticipating her next episode. She would get migraines and be sleepless. She eventually drowned herself on the 28^th of March in 1941. She filled her coat pockets with rocks and went into the River Ouse. Her ashes were spread at 'Monk's House'. She left this letter to Leonard;

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again... And I shan't recover this time... I am doing what seems the best thing to do... I can't fight any longer... Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer... I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.

        After Virginia died, her husband edited her many unpublished works, journals, and correspondences. Her works are seen to be some of the most important feminist works, and she was among the founders of the modernist movement with T.S. Eliot, Ezra pound, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.