Abstract
This essay begins by considering how we might claim Woolf as a poet in prose and a writer of prose poetry, rather than a poetic novelist. It closes with the findings of research by creative practice, a poem sourced in the systematic harvesting of her journal and diary entries on poets, poetry, and poetics. Observed are attempts, such as that of Jackson Mac Low, to transform Woolf’s writing into poems. Woolf’s ‘BLUE & GREEN’ is analysed as a prose poem, drawing on her readings in French symbolism, and her key essays examining the inter-related work of poetry and prose are also considered. Systematic creative research into her recorded utterances on poetry and poetics evidences that Woolf did ‘grow more & more poetic’ while pioneering a new literary form.
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Notes
- 1.
Virginia Woolf , The Diary of Virginia Woolf (hereafter D), ed. Anne Olivier Bell, assisted by Andrew McNeillie, 5 vols. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1977–1984), vol. 2, 304.
- 2.
Woolf, The Essays of Virginia Woolf (hereafter E), 6 vols., ed. Andrew McNeillie (vols. 1–4) and Stuart N. Clarke (vols. 5–6) (London: Hogarth, 1986–2011), vol. 5, 379.
- 3.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet” (1844), The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed., ed. Vincent B. Leitch (New York: Norton, 2010), 623.
- 4.
Emerson, “The Poet,” 623.
- 5.
Jane Goldman, “Poetry Woolf” (2016), in Appendix below. This poem is one of a series of Woolf poems, the first of which is “Discovery Woolf,” in The Voyage Out: An Anthology, ed. Kirsty Gunn and Gail Low (Dundee: The Voyage Out Press, 2016).
- 6.
Alex Preminger, ed., Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetics, enlarged edition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 664.
- 7.
Preminger, Encyclopedia, 664.
- 8.
Walter de la Mare, Poetry in Prose: Warton Lecture on Poetry (London: British Academy, 1935), cited Rhian Williams , The Poetry Toolkit: The Essential Guide to Studying Poetry, 2nd ed. (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 130.
- 9.
Williams, Poetry Toolkit, 129, 130.
- 10.
Woolf, Roger Fry: A Biography (hereafter RF) (London: Hogarth), 106.
- 11.
The Waves (hereafter W) (London: Hogarth, 1931), 6.
- 12.
Jackson Mac Low , The Virginia Woolf Poems (Providence: Burning Deck Press, 1985), 162.
- 13.
William Butler Yeats , ed., The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892–1935 (1936), cited Williams, 131.
- 14.
Williams, Poetic Toolkit, 131.
- 15.
B.G. Brooks, “Review Article,” in Virginia Woolf : The Critical Heritage, ed. Robin Majumdar and Allen McLaurin (London: Routledge, 1975), 457.
- 16.
Stéphane Mallarmé , Poems, trans. Roger Fry (London: Chatto & Windus, 1936), a copy of which is in Woolf’s library (Washington State University Library). So, too, is a copy of Mallarmé, Poésies, 5. éd. (Paris: La Nouvelle revue française, 1915), which is inscribed to Leonard Woolf from Roger Fry, and accompanied by a translation of Mallarmé’s poem “A la nue accablante tu” by Roger Fry, beginning “To the overwhelming bleakness, thou”.
- 17.
Diane F. Gillespie, “Virginia Woolf , Vanessa Bell and Painting,” in The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and the Arts, ed. Maggie Humm (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 136.
- 18.
Diane F. Gillespie, The Sisters’ Arts: The Writing and Painting of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991), 1.
- 19.
Susan Dick, “Introduction,” in The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf (London: Hogarth, 1985), 2.
- 20.
Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf : A Biography, vol. 2 (London: Hogarth, 1972), 88, cited Dick, 3.
- 21.
Woolf, Monday or Tuesday (hereafter MT) (London: Hogarth, 1921), 66–67.
- 22.
Mallarmé, Poems, trans. Fry, 282.
- 23.
Mallarmé, POÈME: Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (Paris: La Nouvelle Revue Francais, 1914), https://math.dartmouth.edu/~doyle/docs/coup/scan/coup.pdf.
- 24.
Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (hereafter AROO) (London: Hogarth, 1929), 56–57.
- 25.
- 26.
See Appendix.
- 27.
The poet and critic James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) was a close friend to Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephen, who made him her ‘sponsor’, a secular or quasi-godfather. See Woolf, A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, ed. Mitchell Leaska (London: Hogarth, 1990), 50.
- 28.
In fact, Dorothea Fitzjames Stephen (1871–1965) was Woolf’s cousin on her paternal side. See Woolf, A Passionate Apprentice, 102.
- 29.
The “genius” poet in question (“his poems”) is, in fact, Edmund Charles Blunden (1896–1974) (D2 297); and “her poems” (D2 297) refers in this instance to Nancy Cunard (1896–1965), whose long poem entitled Parallax was published by Woolf’s Hogarth Press in 1925.
- 30.
The diary entry refers to an exchange with Professor Bonamy Dobrée (1891–1974), for whom Eliot’s poem East Coker (1940) is “didactic” (D5 278).
- 31.
In fact, Woolf’s diary entry is on the successful libel case brought by the sibling poets the Sitwells (Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell) against a hostile reviewer in February 1941 (D5 355–356).
Works Cited
Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. London: Hogarth, 1972.
de la Mare, Walter. Poetry in Prose: Warton Lecture on Poetry. London: British Academy, 1935.
Gillespie, Diane Filby. The Sisters’ Arts: The Writing and Painting of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991.
Goldman, Jane. “Discovery Woolf.” In The Voyage Out: An Anthology, edited by Kirsty Gunn and Gail Low. Dundee: The Voyage Out Press, 2016.
Mac Low, Jackson. The Virginia Woolf Poems. Providence: Burning Deck Press, 1985.
Mallarmé, Stéphane. POÈME: Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hazard. Paris: La Nouvelle Revue Francais, 1914. https://math.dartmouth.edu/~doyle/docs/coup/scan/coup.pdf.
———. Poems. Translated by Roger Fry. London: Chatto & Windus, 1936.
Preminger, Alex, ed. Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetics, Enlarged Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Williams, Rhian. The Poetry Toolkit: The Essential Guide to Studying Poetry, Second Edition. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
Woolf, Virginia. Two Stories. London: Hogarth, 1919.
———. Monday or Tuesday. London: Hogarth, 1921.
———. Jacob’s Room. London: Hogarth, 1922.
———. Mrs. Dalloway. London: Hogarth, 1925.
———. A Room of One’s Own. London: Hogarth, 1929.
———. The Waves. London: Hogarth, 1931.
———. Roger Fry: A Biography. London: Hogarth, 1940.
———. Between the Acts. London: Hogarth, 1941.
———. The Diary of Virginia Woolf (5 vols.). Edited by Anne Olivier Bell and Andrew McNeillie. London: Hogarth, 1977–1984.
———. The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf. Edited by Susan Dick. London: Hogarth, 1985.
———. The Essays of Virginia Woolf. Edited by Andrew McNeillie (vols. 1–4) and Stuart N. Clarke (vols. 5–6). London: Hogarth, 1986–2011.
———. A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals. Edited by Mitchell Leaska. London: Hogarth, 1990.
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Appendix Poetry Woolf (I Grow More & More Poetic)
Appendix Poetry Woolf (I Grow More & More Poetic)
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Goldman, J. (2018). ‘I Grow More & More Poetic’: Virginia Woolf and Prose Poetry. In: Monson, J. (eds) British Prose Poetry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77863-1_6
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