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Олександра Кіш, Іна-41

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доц. Бандровська О. Т.

Есе з спецкурсу «Поетика модерністського роману»

“Orlando” by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf is considered to be one of the most pivotal figures in the British
modernism of 20th century. Her famous semi-biographical novel “Orlando” was first
published in 1928. Although “Orlando” is regarded as the most easy-to-read work of
hers, it is rather a complex piece of writing combining various literary styles and
numerous devices, and thereby creating its composite structure. It can be defined as
an autobiographical novel, a gender novel, a novel with elements of game, and even
representation of metaliterature. Many scholars claim the novel to be “a history of
English literature in satiric form”. “Orlando” was inspired by the story of Woolf’s
close friend, co-member of Bloomsbury group and another English writer Vita
Sackville-West, who had a tremendous influence on Virginia’s life.
The first interesting thing about the novel is its preface that deserves specific
attention. In this preface Virginia gives a rare glimpse of her social circles,
intellectual life and her professional activities, representing the most detailed
statements about her material condition of the modernism in the acknowledgement
list.
The plot of “Orlando” revolves around the eponymous “immortal” poet who
changes his sex from man to woman and lives for more than 300 years, representing
his life in four different periods of the British History and thus describing it from
completely different perspectives. The main motif and a thread that runs through the
entire body of the novel is the passing of time and spatial organization, the so-called
time travel of the protagonist. The author employs Henri Bergson’s intuitionism, the
concept of volatility and fluidity of events as well as of main character’s memories,
his thoughts, impressions, that fill his inner self and are implemented externally, and
therefore in a fleshly form. “For not only did he find himself confronted by problems
which have puzzled the wisest of men, such as What is love? What friendship? What
truth? but directly he came to think about them, his whole past, which seemed to him
of extreme length and variety, rushed into the falling second, swelled it a dozen times
its natural size, coloured it a thousand tints, and filled it with all the odds and ends in
the universe.” Even Orlando’s house is described as a sort of house of time with its
365 bedrooms and 52 staircases corresponding to the number of days and weeks of
the year.
The issue of a fantastical sexual transformation is another key issue of the novel.
The actual gender of Orlando is sometimes even hard to define. The very start of the
protagonist as a man is not a random choice of Woolf’s. In the opening scene the
author deliberately emphasizes Orlando’s masculinity: “HE—for there could be no
doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in
the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.” However,
later it is obvious that Orlando feels comfortable in both genders, just as his name
does. Even while being a man his female demeanor is implicit, which reflects
Woolf’s feministic vision and approach, and clearly her belief in sexual ambiguity.
In the novel Virginia reflects some distinct principals of refined aestheticism.
She presents suggestion rather than statement, shows smoldering sensuality and a
great use of symbols, like Orlando’s clothing, his poem “The Oak Tree”, this “boyish
dream” of his, that virtually represents his identity and transformation, being
rewritten and revised throughout his entire life. “One day he was adding a line or two
with enormous labour to ‘The Oak Tree, A Poem’, when a shadow crossed the tail of
his eye.” The changing of Orlando’s sex is also a display of aesthetic image. It seems
like the transfiguration was painless to the extent that Orlando herself did not realize
what happened. Virginia deliberately deprived her of this experience emphasizing on
the fact that happened rather than on the process. According to St. Jacques, Orlando
“simply slides through sexual ambiguity like an anaesthetized kitten, emerging from
her magical nap without a trace of pleasure or pain”. (St. Jacques, p. 56)
 In order to establish this vision of hers Woolf combines reality and fantasy.
Besides, Virginia makes extensive use of irony and parody while trying to explain
and depict inexplicable facts and fantastic events. She is mocking conventional
biography but at the same time she inserts some real historical persons and events in
the narrative to put the story in time and space. The regular appearances of Kings,
Queens and famous writers give the narrative its basic linear form: Orlando is
followed through different ages all the way to the book’s publishing date. There are
descriptions of the customs and culture of every era and their differences are
emphasized.
Virginia’s readership and the principle of reader’s participation could not but
affect the perception and comprehension of the novel. Caughie analyzes Woolf’s
reader as one who, directed by the writer, performs the next. Her narrative does not
just represent the world, but rather engages the reader in a “rhetoric of reality”.
(Benzel, p.169) The writer, the narrator-biographer, and reader work together to
overcome the narrative conventions in order to construct the real “self” of the novel,
and we can this this cooperation when the author indirectly addresses the reader:
“For though these are not matters on which a biographer can profitably enlarge it is
plain enough to those who have done a reader’s part in making up from bare hints
dropped here and there the whole boundary and circumference of a living person”.
Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” is superficially very different from her other novels,
but a closer reading shows that “Orlando” deals with the same themes of time,
identity, and memory that Woolf has explored in all her work. Being quite unique, the
novel introduces itself like a literary experiment, outpacing the modernism and
marking the pseudo beginning of the postmodern tendencies.

References
Benzel, K. (1994). Reading Readers in Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando: A
Biography”. Style, 28(2), pp. 169-182. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from
www.jstor.org/stable/42946241
St. Jacques, J. (2014). Sexual ambiguity : Narrative manifestations in adaptation.
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository): University of Amsterdam.
Retrieved April 25, 2020, from
https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/2014522/139498_06_Chapter_Three.pdf

“Women in love” by David Herbert Lawrence

David Herbert Lawrence is regarded as one of the most influential English

writers of the 20th century and the icon of the period of modernism in British
literature. His novel “Women in love” is a sequel to his earlier novel “The Rainbow”
(1915), and was not published until 1920 due to criticism. It is Lawrence’s most
ambitious and experimental work, which attempts a radical critique of the modern
world, and particularly modern British society, at the moment at which that world
was coming into being, in the middle of the First World War.
“Women in Love” is a modernist novel with roots in 19th-century realism,
depicting two relationships – one of which ends tragically and the other more hopeful
– of two sisters Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen and two men who live nearby, school
inspector Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich, heir to a coal-mine. In the novel we see
how Lawrence moves beyond realism and the realist conception of character.
However, the trace of realism is clearly seen. The setting of 1910’s England,
conventional realistic descriptions of characters’ appearances, and even the very
opening of the novel shows classic 19-century novel. “Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen
sat one morning in the window-bay of their father’s house in Beldover, working and
talking”.
Still, Lawrence’s departing from realism is demonstrated throughout the entire
novel. He uses a different technique which is contrary to the traditional to arrange the
structure of the novel so as to achieve his goal. It is true that the narrative structure of
“Women in Love” is complicated. On the one hand, it has lucid narration technique
to draw the outline of its theme. On the other hand, it has the psychological
description which is unique and has profound symbolism. The novel abandons the
traditional plot and linear narrative technique in novel writing, and chooses special
scenes and stories which have profound significance. Within these seemingly
fragmentary scenes and stories, there are internal links that draw the fate of characters
together. He extensively uses symbolic images watering down those convention
descriptions. For instance, when he compares Gerald with a wolf: “His face was
white and gleaming, she knew by the light in his eyes that she was in his power—the
wolf”, bringing it even further to his death in the Alps. Besides, the narration in the
novel is implemented not by cause-and-effect action, but by a series of symbolic
scenes which are usually portrayed quite artistically.
In all of his major works Lawrence attempts to redefine the relationship between
men and women so that is becomes a source of liberation and self-realization.
“Women in love” is certainly not an exception. Lawrence’s modern vision of love
here promotes a unity of mind and body, and so-called embodiment of love. (Bond,
p.22) The problem statement within this theme is about the confrontation between
“organic”, “natural” and “mechanical”, between the real destiny following the inner
self’s will and falsity of life obeying the guidance of “social mechanism”, with Birkin
and Gerald illustrating polar opposites. While Rupert claimed “I don’t believe in the
humanity I pretend to be part of, I don’t care a straw for the social ideals I live by, I
hate the dying organic form of social mankind”, Gerald actually believed “It is
artificially held TOGETHER by the social mechanism”.
Being the novel of ideas, novel’s structure and development of its characters are
directly linked with the theme of the novel, and vividly expresses Lawrence’s
thinking about the development of modern man’s civilization and his theory about the
relationship between male and female. The relationships between the two pairs of
lovers develop towards the opposite sides. In a perfect symmetry the narrative
devices form an antithesis which reflects the main theme of the novel. Besides,
Lawrence is one of the first novelists to introduce themes of psychology into his
literary works. The readers can find Lawrence widely uses psychological description
to portray and analyze the characters, and that is conducive to reveal the theme—the
mixed feeling of love and hate of the four characters. The “psychological pattern”
created by Lawrence is used to describe the characters and to promote the
development of their relationships. (Leavis, p. 135)
The work is replete with cultural, mythological, biblical and philosophical
allusions, the objective of which is to illustrate author’s ideas. For instance, all the
biblical allusions and suggestions form the novel’s framework upon which the
structure of the novel organized. Lawrence compares both Birkin and Gerald to Jesus
Christ. Birkin acts as both destroyer and savior of the world. Throughout the whole
novel, almost all the death-like images and nature of the modern society is exposed
by Birkin. ‘Oh, DON’T make me think of Birkin,’ Halliday was squealing. ‘He makes
me perfectly sick. He is as bad as Jesus”. Birkin’s comparison to one of God’s
suggests the beginning of a new life, a new consciousness and a new world.
Lawrence feels that the most sacred thing is love, and the sacred can be realized
only in the love between a man and a woman. Only in love can man restore his true
emotional self. Thus, Lawrence invents a love story which takes the wasteland of
modern industrial society as its backdrop. The novel deals with the possible
unconscious influence on human relationships, marriage and personal fulfillment. All
this makes “Women in Love” not just an ever-lasting love novel, but one of the most
complex and important novels in the 20th century.

References
Bond, C. (2016). Embodied Love: D. H. Lawrence, Modernity, and Pregnancy. The
D.H. Lawrence Review, 41(1), pp. 21-44. Retrieved April 27, 2020, from
www.jstor.org/stable/44683789
Leavis, F. R. (1995). Lawrence and Art. Shanghai: Shanghai Art Publishing Press.
pp.114-221. Retrieved April 27, 2020, from
http://www.camaradesantacruzcabralia.ba.gov.br/thought-words-and-creativity-
art-and-thought-in-d-h-lawrence-by-f-r-leavis.pdf
 “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley

“Brave New World” is doubtlessly the most prominent antiutopian novel by

English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. It is number 5
on the list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. As a literary
work, it is most commonly considered an antiutopian visualization of the future of
modern civilization. The title “Brave New World” ironically derives from Miranda's
speech in William Shakespeare's “The Tempest”. Huxley himself said that “Brave
New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H. G. Wells, who greatly
influenced Aldous’s life. However, the external impact does not end there. The novel
was also influenced by the works of D. H. Lawrence, J. B. S. Haldane, the events of
the Depression in the UK in 1931, Huxley’s trip to the United States and even the
book of Henry Ford he found on the boat to America.
The novel is usually defined as antiutopian science fiction with an extensive use
of irony. On writing his novel, Huxley must have had in mind the image of Europe
left in ruins after the First World War, a world that was torn between nationalistic
radicalisms on the left and on the right. (Safeen, p.39) Therefore, the book came out
to be of a transcendental, visionary outlook though the author insisted that his novel
was not a prophetic, but a cautionary one.
The major issue in the novel is displayed through the extreme obsession with
society’s stability created by fear of humanity’s flaws. The central idea is a possible
future fantastical world where technology becomes such powerfully dominant that,
though it prevents sickness, disease, and wars, it threatens humanity and ultimately
crushes it by implication. The action develops round Bernard Marx, a revolting
Alpha-plus, who brings John the Savage from a New Mexican reservation back to
London. The transformation of society into a mechanized one finds its best
expression in the mass-production of people in test tubes and the creation of social
classes through generic manipulations to determine a person’s intelligence and body
type. In a futuristic society that is unified as World State, the population is strictly
classified into five castes, and such a seemingly ideal world has no place for
“unwanted emotions,” which are suppressed by a drug known as soma.

Huxley focuses more on the setting and spends three chapters elaborating the
detail of the history and ideology of the World State. The world Huxley portrays here
is "brave", humanity is carefree and technologically advanced, warfare and poverty
have been entirely eliminated and everyone is permanently happy. All these things,
ironically, have been accomplished at the expense of many things that humans hold
to be central to their identity, such as family, culture, art, literature, science, religion,
and philosophy. Huxley calls the people objects of society. One object he compares
them to are bottles. “Bottled, they crossed the street; bottled, they took the lift up to
Henry’s room on twenty-eighth floor”
Narrating such a dystopian society, Huxley focuses not only on the content, but
also on the form: Huxley’s use of scientific and literary languages is his way of
showing the conflict between science and humanity. He juxtaposes the fragments of
scenes intentionally and deliberately divides the narration into paragraphs or
sentences. He allows readers to connect each paragraph or sentence using the logic of
the discourse. He further allows readers to formulate the sentences in the end of the
chapter in a somewhat mathematic way.

‘My old black -patent bandolier …’

‘And a man called Shakespeare. You’ve never heard of them, of
course.’
‘It’s an absolute disgrace – that bandolier of mine.’
‘Such are the advantages of a really scientific education.’
Such narrative strategies of Huxley’s can be seen as his idiosyncratic way to
write about dystopia. In other words, when readers read the different kinds of
languages in the novel, they experience the difference between science and literature.
 Probably the most essential basis on which the whole novel is built up is an
ample use of satire. Being dystopian a priori involves being satiric. However, “Brand
New World” is not a satire of future, but of the present time. In it, everything we
believe to be morally right in our society is seen as wrong and bizarre to that extent,
that Huxley even replaces religion with drugs. (Firchow, p.453) Later, while John
feels it is “natural to feel there is a God”, Mond explains it away by saying it is a
conditioned response. “The gods are just and of our pleasant vices make instruments
to plague us; the dark and vicious place where thee he got cost him his eyes”.
A nightmarish vision of a world that is devoid of any authentic belief and
spiritual values, Huxley's novel finds in the character of John the Savage, with his
passion for Shakespeare –another Shakespearean allusion – a victim or a scapegoat
rather than a willful figure with "an alternative to a choice between an insane utopia
and a barbaric lunacy". The issue of savageness, as suggested by the Savage's name
and as opposed to the World State's civilization, runs as a motif all the way through
the second part of the novel where John's revolting side shows up to be dimensional
to the novel's central conflict.
Another dystopian tool of bringing comprehension to the reader is symbolism.
In the novel symbols play the role of a framework interweaving with all other literary
devices. Huxley utilizes direct symbols like “Ford” and “fordliness” instead of God
and godliness. Ford is the perfect "god" for World State society for he created the
world they knew. Shakespearean allusions are also very important symbols in the
novel meaning two things: the art that has been rejected and destroyed by the World
State: and the powerful emotion, passion, love, and beauty on display in
Shakespeare's plays stand for all the noble aspects of humanity that have been
sacrificed by the World State. We see how this “brave new world” in trying to erase
all the past things for them to have no place in the new world.
“But why is it prohibited?” asked the Savage. In the excitement of meeting a
man who had read Shakespeare he had momentarily forgotten everything
else.
The Controller shrugged his shoulders.
 “Because it’s old; that’s the chief reason. We haven’t any use for old things
here.”
“Even when they’re beautiful?”
“Particularly when they’re beautiful. Beauty’s attractive, and we don’t want
people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones.”
It has been argued in this essay, Brave New World is no more than a novel about
an imagined future. A future where technology has advanced to such an extent that
the freedom exists no more. However, this horrid, nightmarish image Huxley created
makes us rethink the whole system of values in today’s world.

References

Firchow, P. (1966). THE SATIRE OF HUXLEY'S "BRAVE NEW WORLD".

Modern Fiction Studies, 12(4), pp. 451-460. Retrieved April 30, 2020, from
www.jstor.org/stable/26278482

Saffeen, N. A. (2016). The Civilization of Aldous Huxley’s Brave World.

International Journal of Literature and Arts. 4(3), pp. 38-43. doi:
10.11648/j.ijla.20160403.13
52. Модернізм як один з провідних літературних напрямів першої
половини XX століття
Modernism – is a literary movement of late 19th – early 20th century, in particular
1910-1940 years. Modernism is characterized by a self-conscious break with
traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction. Modernists experimented
with literary form and expression, expressed rejection of tradition and its parody in
new forms. Modernist literature attempted to move from the bonds of realist literature
and to introduce concepts such as disjointed timelines. The appearance of modernism
was caused by a number of cultural factors. First of all, it is the decadence of the late
19th century: spiritual disintegration, postwar pessimism, another industrial
revolution, urbanization, the development of capitalism, general social discontent etc.
Among philosophical influences on modernism there are: theories of Sigmund Freud
and Ernst Mach on logical positivism, philosophy of Nietzsche, so-called philosophy
of life and Bergson’s intuitivism. The term modernism covers a number of related,
and overlapping, artistic and literary movements, including Imagism, Symbolism,
Futurism, Vorticism, Cubism, Surrealism, Expressionism, and Dadaism.
The main stylistic characteristics of modernism as a literary movement are:
 Rejection of conventional forms and tradition & Constant searching of new
forms, new themes, new problems
 Literary experimenting
 Psychology & Mythology & Intellectualism
 Stream of consciousness, inner monologues
  Wide use of classical allusions
 Juxtaposition of characters & intertextuality
 Symbolic representation
 Use of irony & satire
 Discontinuous narrative, meta-narrative, multiple narrative
The main thematical characteristics:
 Breakdown of social norms
 Realistic & fleshly embodiment of social meanings
 Sense of spiritual loneliness, alienation, frustration
 Objection of the traditional thoughts and the traditional moralities & religion
 Substitution of a mythical past

The first display of modernism appeared in poetry in the works of Ezra Pound,
Thomas Stearns Eliot, David Jones. They developed Imagism with its searching of
new images, new poetical language. E. Pound was the first poet to use the stream of
conscious in his works. Modernism also brought new genres like poem-myth (“The
Waste Land” by T.S.Eliot). Among prose genres novel is a central one. There
developed novel-myth (“Ulyssess” by James Joice), psychological novel (“Mrs
Dalloway”, “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf, “Sons and lovers” by D. H.
Lawrence), intellectual novel or novel of ideas (“After many a summer”, “Island” by
Aldous Huxley), antiutopian novel (“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley),
bildungsroman or coming-of-age novel (“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”,
“Stephen Hero” by James Joice), erotic novel (“Lady Chatterley's Lover” by D. H.
Lawrence). The essays of Virginia Woolf “Modern fiction” and “Mr. Bennett and
Mrs. Brown” became manifesto to modernism.
53. Творчість Вірджинії Вулф

Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882- 1941) was an English writer – novelist, essayist,
publisher, critic – considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century
authors. Born into a privileged English household in 1882, author Virginia Woolf
was raised by free-thinking parents and began writing as a young girl. Her father was
a historian and author, and mother had been born in India and later served as a model
for several Pre-Raphaelite painters. Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing
professionally in 1900, was married to Leonard Woolf, and together they founded the
Hogarth Press and became central members of Bloomsbury Group. Throughout her
life, Woolf was troubled by her mental illness – bipolar disorder. At age 59, Woolf
died by putting rocks in her coat pockets and drowning herself in the River Ouse.
Virginia Woolf was a key figure and a representative of literary modernism.
Modernism has its origins in late 19th century but the first major works appeared in
early 20th century. Modernism is characterized by a self-conscious break with
traditional ways of writing, quite pessimistic philosophy of Nietzsche and so-called
philosophy of life, experiments with literary forms and expressions, Bergson’s
intuitivism, interest in mythology, etc.
Virginia is considered to be a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a
narrative device, that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings
which pass through the mind" of a narrator. She also became one of the central
subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism. Her style is highly
experimental: with indirect interior monologue, aesthetic conventions, a narrative,
frequently uneventful, intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity, symbolism and
allusions. The main genre that prevails among Woolf’s works is novel, in particular
psychological novel.
Woolf’s most famous works are: novels “Mrs Dalloway”, “To the Lighthouse”,
“Orlando”, the first novel “The Voyage Out”, the last novel “Between the Acts”;
essays “A Room of One's Own”, “The Moment” and other. Her famous critical essay
“Modern fiction” had a tremendous impact on the modern fiction writers and became
a manifesto to modernism, and her essay “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” also
concerning modernism and modern views.
“Mrs Dalloway” – a psychological novel, centers on the efforts of Clarissa
Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organize a party, even as her life is
paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has
returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars. All of the
action, aside from the flashbacks, takes place on one day. It is an example of stream
of consciousness storytelling, freely alternating her mode of narration between
omniscient description, indirect interior monologue, and soliloquy. Wide use of
symbolism and allusion.
“To the Lighthouse” – is defined as a novel – portrayal of psychological
realism. The plot centers on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a
visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. Cited as a key example of
the literary technique of multiple focalization, the novel includes little dialogue and
almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations.
“Orlando” – can be defined as an autobiographical novel, a gender novel, a
novel with elements of game, and even representation of metaliterature. “Orlando”
was inspired by the story of Woolf’s close friend, co-member of Bloomsbury group
and another English writer Vita Sackville-West. The plot of “Orlando” revolves
around the eponymous “immortal” poet who changes his sex from man to woman and
lives for more than 300 years, representing his life in four different periods of the
British History. Woolf employs Bergson’s intuitionism, the concept of volatility and
fluidity of events, principals of refined aestheticism, etc.