Description |
1 online resource (viii, 240 pages) |
Contents |
Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Reading Virginia Woolf in Constellation with Walter Benjamin -- Modernity, Modernism and the Past -- Theories of History, Models of Historiography -- Antiquity and Modernity: Jacob's Room and the 'Greek Myth' -- Historical Fictions, Fictional Fashions and Time: Orlando as the 'Angel of History' -- Natural History and Historical Nature in To the Lighthouse and Other Fiction -- Dreaming, History and the Visions of the Obscure in The Years -- This Stage of History: Between the Acts and the Destruction of Tradition -- A 'Common History': Anonymous Artists, Communal Collectivities -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index |
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Introduction : reading Virginia Woolf in constellation with Walter Benjamin -- Modernity, modernism and the past -- Theories of history, models of historiography -- Antiquity and modernity : Jacob's room and the 'Greek myth' -- Historical fictions, fictional fashions and time : Orlando as the 'angel of history' -- Natural history and historical nature in To the lighthouse and other fiction -- Dreaming, history and the visions of the obscure in The years -- This stage of history : Between the acts and the destruction of tradition -- A 'common history' : anonymous artists, communcal collectivities |
Summary |
This book analyses the representation of the past and the practice of historiography in both the fiction and the critical writings of Virginia Woolf. It argues for a critical historiography, distinct from the conventional assumptions of history writing, to be found in Woolf's essays and fiction, and links her historiographical imagination with Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history and associated theory of modernity along certain dialectical motifs and emblematic figures. Setting 'in constellation' the ideas of Woolf and Benjamin on the relationship between the past and the present, it inquiries into the intersections of Woolf's literary modernism with (feminist) politics and the experience of modernity, speaking to contemporary critical debates. Benjamin's thought provides an exciting new lens for reading Woolf's work whose historiographical constructions are shown to possess a pronounced political impetus that intervenes with how history is perceived and recorded, also addressing crucial questions about the meaning and status of modern artworks |
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"This new study analyses the representation of the past and the practice of historiography in the fiction and critical writings of Virginia Woolf, and draws parallels between Woolf's historiographical imagination and the thought of Walter Benjamin, German philosopher of history and key theorist of modernity"--Provided by publisher |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
Notes |
Print version record |
Subject |
Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941 -- Criticism and interpretation
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Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941 -- Knowledge -- Historiography
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Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940 -- Criticism and interpretation
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SUBJECT |
Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940 fast |
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Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941 fast |
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Woolf, Virginia. swd |
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Benjamin, Walter. swd |
Subject |
History in literature.
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History -- Philosophy.
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Modernism (Aesthetics)
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Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers -- English.
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Literary studies: from c 1900 -- English.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
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Literature.
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Historiography
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History in literature
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History -- Philosophy
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Modernism (Aesthetics)
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Geschichtsdarstellung
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Geschichtsphilosophie
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Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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dissertations.
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Academic theses.
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Thèses et écrits académiques.
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Form |
Electronic book
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ISBN |
9780230250444 |
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0230250440 |
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9781282910195 |
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1282910191 |
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