Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group

One of the issues of continuing controversy in modernist studies is the impact of the Bloomsbury Group on the writings of Virginia Woolf. “Bloomsbury”—a district of London near the British Museum—is also the popular moniker for a circle of a writers, artists, and critics who once lived there and who were at the center of intellectual life in England during the first few decades of the twentieth century. The seminar will read Woolf in the context of writings by a number of other members of the group, ( Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Clive Bell, and Leonard Woolf) which will allow us to consider her novels in relation to complementary issues in art, economics, politics, and philosophy. Since “Bloomsbury” has become almost too fashionable in recent years--as evidenced by the enormous number of articles and books written about it and the popularity of films either about its members (such as Carrington, and Tom and Viv) or based on their writing (such as Woolf’s Orlando, and the many filmed versions of Forster’s novels)—the seminar may also investigate the reasons for this current popular interest. It may also address the larger issue of the marketing of modernism itself and Bloomsbury’s role in that process. We will look at a considerable number and variety of texts by both members and opponents of the group and in so doing, explore the ways their interactions affected the development of British literary modernism.

Texts:

• S.P. Rosenbaum. A Bloomsbury Group Reader. Blackwell.
• E.M. Forster. Howards End. Bantam.
• Katherine Mansfield. Stories. Random.
• Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse. Harbrace.
• Virginia Woolf. The Waves. Harbrace.