Virginia Woolf

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Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen, in 1882. She suffered immensely as a child from a series of emotional shocks (these are included in the biography of Virginia Woolf). However, she overcame these incredible personal damages and became a major British novelist, essayist and critic. Woolf also belonged to an elite group that included Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot. Woolf pioneered in incorporating feminism in her writings. “Virginia Woolf’s journalistic and polemical writings show that she made a significant contribution to the development of feminist thought” (Dalsimer). Despite her tumultuous childhood, she was an original thinker and a revolutionary writer, specifically the way she described depth of characters in her novels. Her novels are distinctively modern and express characters in a way no other writer had done before. One reason it is easy to acknowledge the importance of Virginia Woolf is because she wrote prolifically. Along with many novels, she wrote essays, critiques and many volumes of her personal journals have been published. She is one of the most extraordinary and influential female writers throughout history. Virginia Woolf is an influential author because of her unique style, incorporations of symbolism and use of similes and metaphors in her literature, specifically in Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves.

Virginia Woolf’s eccentric style is what causes her writings to be distinct from other authors of her time. The unique characteristics of her works such as the structure, characterization, themes, etc are difficult to imitate and cause a strong impression in her literary pieces. “Virginia Woolf’s works are strongly idiosyncratic, strange, a surprise to ...

... middle of paper ...

...g. This technique makes her a notable author of the 20th century because of her unique style, incorporation of symbolism, and use of similes and metaphors in her literature.

Works Cited

Dalsimer, Katherine. Virginia Woolf: Becoming a Writer. New Haven, CT: Yale, 2001.

DeSalvo, Louise A. Virginia Woolf: the Impact of Chilhood Sexual Abuse on her Life and work. Boston: Beacon, 1989. 122-25.

Goldman, Jane. The Feminist Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf: Modernism, Post- Impressionism and the Politics of the Visual. Cambridge, U.K., New York,

NY: Cambridge, 1998. 100-115

Gualtieri, Elena. Virginia Woolf’s Essays: Sketching the Past. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000. 4-9

Guiguet, Jean. Virginia Woolf and her Works. London: Hogart, 1965.

Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989. 106-7

---Mrs. Dalloway, 1990. 141

---The Waves, 1980. 153-4

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