Virginia Woolf – Page 6 – My Own RE:public

Looking for the real in the fictional

The title in itself is deceptive – “The real Clarissa Dalloway”. How real can a fiction be? Reality is always once removed for the writer in the very process of creating a character, and then again for the reader in the reception.

The article by David Taylor in the Times Literary Supplement (which I can’t seem to adequately date, but there is the suggestion that it was written prior to 2015) is, in the first instance, concerned with Kitty Maxse and by extension her family, rather than the fictional character created by Virginia Woolf – making a modest debut in her first novel (The Voyage Out, 1915) and coming into her own in Mrs. Dalloway ten years later – for whom Maxse may have been inspiration. Given the Stephen family’s intimate connections with the Lushingtons, and some reasonable evidence, it seems more than plausible that Woolf, at least when Clarissa Dalloway made her first appearance, was very well thinking about Kitty.

This, a cross reference with my notes on Virginia Woolf’s diary in which I comment on her entry of 8th October 1922 upon learning of Kitty’s untimely (and unusual) death. She does indeed say that she hadn’t spoken with Kitty since 1908; and this being approximately the time she began talking about Melymbrosia (especially with Clive Bell), and a time in which both Stephen sisters were irredeemably lost to tradition and convention (personified by Kitty Maxse).

Knowing 1922 to have been approximately when Woolf began working on “The Hours” (to become Mrs. Dalloway), I must say I did wonder whether Maxse’s death may have rekindled her interest in Clarissa Dalloway. Returning to my notes, I see that Woolf had in fact written the short story “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street” in the summer of that year (though it wouldn’t be published until 1923) and a project with the title “The Hours” is mentioned for the first time (in her diary) in conversation with E.M. Forster in May, 1923.

“Ulysses” circa. 1922

Transatlantic reception

“Bloomsday” just gone reminded me to look again at what I knew to be Virginia Woolf’s complicated relationship with Joyce’s work, and in doing so an interest was sparked in general to the reaction to Ulysses on both sides of the Atlantic at the time. An encouraging gesture, if nothing else, towards sometime diving in and finally reading this classic of modernism myself!

Famously, with the exception of parts serialized in The Little Review between 1918 and 1920 (for instance, here is a link to Episode XI), Ulysses became the subject of scandal and extended obscenity trials, and was in fact banned in the United States and the UK until 1934 and 1936 respectively. Copies published and printed by Shakespeare & Co. in Paris did circulate, could be got to, and especially was so amongst the intelligentsia of the time, and consequently was reviewed by on both sides of the Atlantic.

And, that included by T.S. Eliot, with whom Woolf sparred with on the subject, and his November, 1923, review for The Dial can be read here that the British Library. Formally written and glowing in its praise, it is written as a refutation of an earlier review by Richard Aldington (English Review, 1921) – which I can not easily find, but does seem in tandem with the Eliot response a constant in the academic realm of Ulysses scholarship, and to that end this short article in the James Joyce Quaterly (Spring, 1973) that gives evidence that Aldington had in fact encouraged, or even initiated, a response from Eliot. (On another matter, I do know that this was all at a time when Aldington was, not only helping Eliot professionally, but also one of the initiators of a fund to help Eliot financially, a matter in which Woolf was also involved.)

This is a difficult to read facsimile, but unfortunately the best I can come up with, of the review by Gilbert Seldes that Leonard Woolf encouraged Virginia Woolf to read (upon which she decided she should temporarily stifle her verdict and take another look!). As I say, visually speaking, not an easy read, but it is to my mind at least a better read than Eliot’s. (May I say, Eliot may have few peers in twentieth century poetry, but his essay style is very highbrow to the point of pedanticism.)

And then there is this piece by the Irish critic, Mary Colum (who I don’t know, but do now!) in The Freeman on 19 July 1922. Perhaps lacking impartiality, due to an abiding friendship, but an excellent read just the same.

Dalloway Day 2020

More recent than Bloomsday, but showing signs of becoming a permanent fixture of the literary calendar, is Dalloway Day – this year the Royal Society of Literature takes the 96th Wednesday after that of Clarissa Dalloway’s party into the virtual world – to which we are still bound by virtue [sic] of the corona pandemic.

The British Library blog also has an entry with their own contributions, and cross referencing to the RSL and others.

Especially interesting this year, and in light of the discussions about race, is an aural tour exploring the black heritage on London streets once walked perhaps by a Mrs. Dalloway and most certainly by Virginia Woolf. Following is the audio tour on Soundcloud, and here is an accompanying interactive map.

Bloomsday 2020

Another sort of “Odyssey” – James Joyce’s Ulysses. That one day wonder, or is it wander – through the streets of Dublin – on 16th June, 1904. Yes, I plead guilty to not having…! Virginia Woolf, however, did read it (in the end) and had opinions; not all good, for reasons which I am no longer sure of and would have to return to her diary to clarify (which I will!) [*Which I now have – see for instance this VW diary entry]. I do remember her sounding off about it to all who would listen, and provoking heady discourse where she could; meaning I suspect that it also interested her madly and she wanted to talk about it. Impossible! did she say of it? …or worse – obscene! vulgar! But I am fairly sure that Woolf suggests that they, that is she and Leonard, that is, their Hogarth Press, only turned it down because of the length and the complicated structure and typography required, supposing the manual setting would be time consuming to the detriment of their own work and other publications. A personal musing: am I the only person to wonder at the Leonard Bloom/Leonard Woolf/Bloomsbury/Jewish coincidental? I can’t think that Joyce ever knew the Woolves. Coincidence.

But it got published anyway, and has a life of its very own, a day of its own, and from one end of the world to the next, first and foremost, in Ireland, it is celebrated; this year a little differently – “Bloomsday to Zoomsday” quips The Guardian. In that spirit here is a selection from the James Joyce Centre in Dublin.

An old pupil writes…

Reading and writing a little in my continuous Virginia Woolf project (s), this 1920 diary entry had me looking about for more information on the classicist Janet Case, and led me to an academic journal article from 1982 which I liked so much that I include the JSTOR link here. (Alley, Henry M. “A Rediscovered Eulogy: Virginia Woolf’s ‘Miss Janet Case: Classical Scholar and Teacher.’” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 28, no. 3, 1982, pp. 290–301. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/441180. Accessed 23 May 2020.) Henry M. Alley’s piece written following the discovery of Woolf’s 1937 eulogy, says multitudes about both women; the conflicts between generations, the choices made, the hurdles surmounted and sometimes not.

Miss J.E. Case as Athena
in *Aeschylus’ Eumenides* (Cambridge 1885)

An anomaly, by virtue of her sex, at Cambridge at the end of the 19th century, the extraordinary young classics scholar, found her way into The Cambridge Greek Play (mentioned by Woolf in her eulogy), and that I can’t help but notice was first presented in 1882, the year of Virginia Woolf’s birth. And, one doesn’t have to go back to the Antique or Renaissance for evidence of the possessive hand men still held upon theatre and the classics, for her appearance seems to have been an exception – or at least a misunderstanding!

…in the Eumenides of 1885, the part of Athena was played by a woman, Miss J.E. Case, who had made her mark as Electra in an enterprising production of Sophocles’ play a the new Girton College in November 1883 […] despite her acclaimed success no woman featured again until 1950 …
The History of the Cambridge Greek Play

Janet Elizabeth Case became Virginia Woolf’s (or more precisely Virginia Stephen’s) Greek tutor in 1902, and over time her role evolved beyond that of intellectual mentor and into one as confidante and friend. Case entered the young Virginia’s life at a chaotic time; when her mental state was fragile, and into a dysfunctional familial and domestic situation, fraught by grief and power struggles. Obviously Case’s learnedness and intellectual rigour would have impressed, and her lessons would have offered some structure and discipline to her pupil’s often tortured days, but she may also have exemplified for Virginia an alternative life model of what a woman could be – a notion that was taking form in the stifling atmosphere of her Father’s house, and which was to become an essential component of her work and how she lived her life.

As the years passed, the relationship between the two women became complicated variously by age, tradition, expectation and circumstance, but in The London Times 22 July 1937 obituary (reprinted at the end of Alley’s article), the respectful tribute Woolf pens to her old tutor and friend, could be no finer, no more generous in spirit. For the older Woolf had long ceased craving the approval of her old teacher (or just about anyone else for that matter!), was confident enough in her fame and the literary route chosen, and was no longer tormented by petty irritations and jealousies. And she knew then what the younger had not, of the burden of intractability brought on simply by the years lived – of being ‘set in one’s ways’ – for they now were upon her. What remained for Woolf were the ideas sown and lessons learnt long ago, that were essential to the writer she became – and an appreciation for their giver. So, then, was the profound personal loss she felt for Miss Janet Case – the tutor who showed her the way to the Greeks – and without the grammar!

“On rereading…

such and such, …” – how often I have started a sentence so; inconsistently placing a hyphen, as in ‘re-reading’, or sometimes not – how then delighted I am by reading this essay written by Larry McMurtry in The New York Review of Books in 2005. (The NYRB is showing a great kindness of late by heavily digging into their archives, but available for only a limited period I would suggest.)

Referring to Leonard Woolf’s autobiography, McMurtry says:

[…Woolf…] records that his widowed mother, Marie Woolf, got herself a copy of Dr. Johnson’s Rasselas, kept it by her bedside, and reread it “dozens of times.” …As one who has so far failed to make it through Rasselas even once, I consider Marie Woolf’s devotion to the book a matter worth pondering. […Should what WooIf said be true …]—Marie Woolf was probably the world’s biggest fan of Rasselas, […as I…] might claim to be the world’s biggest fan of Slowly Down the Ganges, a wonderful travel book by Eric Newby, which I have been rereading more or less continuously since 1965.
On Rereading, Larry McMurtry, NYRB JULY 14, 2005 ISSUE

And does then go on to ponder whether rereaders generally have the “one book fetish” he shares with Marie Woolf, or are more inclined to reread over a greater range. Anthony Powell and Shakespeare, but a thing for The Sun also Rises (humanising him, says McMurtry). Kenneth Clark and Ruskin, but Clark takes a shortcut and edits a collection (presumably including his favourites), always to keep near. And Edmund Wilson and Cyril Connolly ? Rereading was par the course inherent to their work, but one must think also an abiding pleasure. Did they have a “talisman”? McMurtry seems not to know. One could though go asearchin’ in the University of Tulsa repositories for clues. (By the way, okay Wilson is a renowned American literary figure, but I always wonder why the papers of others – like the aforesaid, and very British, Connolly – end up in universities in the middle of the US! Yes I know the answer I suppose – $$$!)

We are all Mrs. Dalloway

“We are all Mrs. Dalloway now.” says Evan Kindley in The New Yorker. Well, it may well be that many of us can’t afford to be – she is, after all, a lady of means, of a certain class. But I do get the point – the simple pleasures, the granted freedoms; of a walk in the streets, buying flowers, having a party – for us now laden with the aura of nostalgia and even adventure.

And, at the very least, we crave some moments, however fleeting, like those shrouding Clarissa Dalloway on that beautiful June morning in 1923 London; tempering her disquiet and apprehensions in the aftermath of war and illness, and allowing her instead to revel for a time in the bustle of city life.

From page to stage (II)

Continuing with a topic I have recently been thinking about, I have come upon an interesting essay; inspired by a stage version of Mrs. Dalloway, it is a couple of years old but makes pertinent observations just the same, and not necessarily specific to Virginia Woolf. It reminds me of just how often I wonder at the fortitude or foolhardiness of some theatrical or cinematic adaptations from the literary moderne of a century ago, and whether some forms are just better left as they were intended. The conservative in me speaks.

Considering the 2018 experimental production at the Arcola Theater in London, Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours” and its film adaptation, Jo Glanville ponders, with reference to renowned Woolf biographer Hermione Lee, how adequate any adaptation of Woolf’s work can ever be, and especially here Mrs. Dalloway, composed as it is of a fragmentary flow of imagination and memory – unordered, even chaotic.

… Woolf evokes the very experience of being alive through a ceaseless poetic chain of thoughts, responses and memories as the narrative shifts between the world within and the world outside. In an essay on the novel, Hermione Lee quotes from Woolf’s correspondence with the painter Jacques Raverat while she was writing Mrs Dalloway. Raverat wrote that it was not possible to represent the way our minds respond to an idea or experience in a linear narrative. Woolf responded that it’s the job of a writer to go beyond ‘the formal railway line of sentence’ and to show how people ‘feel or think or dream […] all over the place’. How can an adaptation recreate that effect?…
Boundless, Unbound.com

Glanville doesn’t exactly answer the question she poses, and appears as sceptical as I tend to be, but nevertheless clearly admires the bravura in having a go, for better or worse, at transforming all the fleeting moments, shadings of emotions, muddled thoughts that make Mrs. Dalloway such a splendid work of literature, into a “real time” experience of sorts. When it’s all said and done, any attempt to capture the haunted past and let it mingle amongst the crowded present is very much in the spirit of Virginia Woolf. Perhaps an adequate enough reason after all. Bring them on – the reworkings, the inspired appropriations! The radical now raises her voice.