Virginia Woolf: Her Life and Work

Virginia Woolf: Her Life and Work
OSHER 373-001
Dates: Thursdays: 9/27/12 – 11/8/12 (no class 10/4/12)
Times: 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Location: Annex, see building doors for room number
Instructor: Penny Phillips, tele 801.466.3501
Materials or Texts: Class participants shall be asked to have read To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s
Own
Course Overview
The course offers an historical look at Victorian/Edwardian and war-torn England through the life,
times, and writing of Virginia Woolf. Virginia Woolf was a prolific writer – her earliest written words
were in letters to her family at the age of 5 and culminate in her last letter to Leonard Woolf before her
suicide in 1941. Between those dates she wrote volumes of diaries, letters to friends and family,
essays, and fiction. The course will examine two of her most salient works: To the Lighthouse and A
Room of One’s Own within the context of her early family life, illnesses, politics, and experimental
writing.
Schedule of Topics by Week
WEEK ONE – INTRODUCTION TO VIRGINIA WOOLF. What do we know of Virginia Woolf? VW emerges as one
of the 20 th century’s most prolific and profound writers: she is complex, experimental, revolutionary,
and an eloquent craftsperson of language. The class will examine what we perceive of VW in light of
her familial background, early influences, and budding writing skills.
WEEK TWO – THE INCANDESCENT MIND. VW experienced repeated bouts of incapacitating mental illness
commencing in her teens and ending with her death by suicide. Rather than allow her illness to defeat
her work, it rather informed her language, art and community in a unique and powerful way. We will
examine the forces that shaped her work and created the Bloomsbury group.
WEEK THREE – TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, PART 1. The book was published in 1927 and was critically and
popularly acclaimed at the time and remains so today. VW considered it to be, perhaps, her “best”
writing. The book exemplifies a blending of biography and fiction in a way that manages to – if not
exorcise – keep one’s demons at bay. The class will explore the fine line between fact and fiction.
WEEK FOUR – TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, PART 2. The book may be her finest example of experimental structure
of the novel, elements of stream of conscious writing in developing character, and presenting the case
for feminist fiction. The class will examine VW’s role in the modernist movement in fiction writing.

WEEK FIVE – A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN. VW again blurs the lines between fact and fiction by speaking
through the Beton/Seton/Carmichael narrators as she develops a case for feminist perspective when
examining women and fiction. She weaves together these fictitious narrators with the themes of
“space”, “distraction”, “money”, “sexual roles”, and “androgyny” to develop her premise.
WEEK SIX – THE JOURNEY’S JUST BEGUN. The body of work VW left the world is engaging without being
intimidating – picking up a diary or a series of letters can be as absorbing as reading her better known
fiction. The final class will attempt to tie-up loose ends and set the reader on a deeper journey of
discovery and understanding of the life and work of Virginia Woolf.