Virginia Woolf and the Real World

by Alex Zwerdling

Overview

"The finest critical book on Virgina Woolf to date. Alex Zwerdling's large and subtle study places Virginia Woolf's world of class, politics, feminism, pacifism, and the family into firm historical perspective. The book leaves us with renewed appreciation for Woolf's work and for her mind."
-Elaine Showalter, Princeton University

"Buried beneath piles of criticism Virginia Woolf has at last been dug out by Alex Zwerdling. Virginia Woolf and the Real World is the most enlightened account of the real woman to appear for years."
-Noel Annan, The Observer

"A relief from the Bloomsbury fan dub: penetrating, learned, wide-ranging appreciation of Virginia Woolf in her social and political context, documenting what muscle and thought there was in her allegedly gossamer work."
-Richard Mayne, Encounter

"A well written book that deals with a field of Woolf studies that badly needs dear thinking and dear expression .... I think it a most useful work and in every way first rate."
-Quentin Bell

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520061842
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	10/14/1987
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	375
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alex Zwerdling is University Professor of English at George Washington University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 
Abbreviations 
Introduction 

PART ONE
1. The Enormous Eye 
2. The Reluctant Satirist 
3. Jacob'sR oom:W oolf's Satiric Elegy 

PART TWO
4. Class and Money 
5. Mrs. Dalloway and the Social System 
6. The Bonds of Family Life 
7. The Domestic Politics of To the Lighthouse 
8. Woolf's Feminism in Historical Perspective 
9. Anger and Conciliation in A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas 
10. Pacifism Without Hope 
11. Between the Acts and the Coming of War 

Epilogue 
Notes 
Index 

What People are Saying About This

Quentin Bell

A well-written book that deals with a field of Woolf's studies that badly needs clear-thinking and clear-expression... I think it a most useful work and in every way first-rate.

Elaine Showalter

The finest critical book on Virginia Woolf to date. Alex Zwerdling's large and federal study places Virginia Woolf's world of class, politics, feminism, pacifism, and the family into... historical perspective. The book leaves us with renewed appreciation for Woolf's work and for her mind.
— Elaine Showalter, Princeton University

Editorial Reviews

The majority of Woolf studies produced in the wake of the 1970s discovery of her unpublished diaries, memoirs and letters cast Woolf through her esthetics, use of literary tradition, exploration of the psyche and ``dark side''as an ``ivory tower'' introvert. In this lively and closely argued study, University of California professor Zwerdling (Yeats and the Heroic Ideal, etc.) aims at a more balanced view, stressing Woolf's social vision. Through a detailed examination of such themes as feminism, class, money, politics and war, he demonstrates forcefully that her major workfrom Jacob's Room to Between the Acts (with the exception of The Waves, whose intense subjectivity Woolf herself considered a dead end)exhibits a ``dialogue between public and private voices.'' Since Zwerdling is more intent on characterizing than evaluating that often ironic dialogue, however, he does relatively little to substantiate his estimate of Woolf as a major writer. (June 2)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Zwerdling aims to correct the standard image of Woolf as an ``immured priest ess in the temple of artdedicated, sol itary, out of touch with the life of her time.'' He constructs his argument around Woolf's ``intense interest in the life of society and its effect on the indi vidual,'' and treats such topics as class and money, the social system, the fam ily, feminism, the turbulent politics of the 1930s, and pacifism. This approach provides new angles of vision on novels that have been much discussed. But the book is no sociological treatise: Zwer dling shows how Woolf translates the sociopolitical currents of her time into the delicate, ambivalent language of fic tion. In the process he manages to say something both new and convincing about Woolf. Keith Cushman, Eng lish Dept., Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro

Library Journal

Buried beneath piles of criticism Virginia Woolf has at last been dug out by Alex Zwerdling. Virginia Woolf and the Real World is the most enlightened account of the real woman to appear for years.
— The Observer

Noel Annan