Virginia Woolf in Context

Literature in Context

by Bryony Randall (Editor), Jane Goldman (Editor)

As a paradigmatic modernist author, Virginia Woolf is celebrated for the ways her fiction illuminates modern and contemporary life. Woolf scholars have long debated how context – whether historical, cultural, or theoretical – is to be understood in relation to her work, and how her work produces new insights into context. Drawing on an international field of leading and emergent specialists, this collection provides an authoritative resource for contemporary Woolf scholarship that explores the distinct and overlapping dimensions of her writings. Rather than survey existing scholarship, these essays extend Woolf studies in new directions by examining how the author is contextualized today. The collection also highlights connections between Woolf and key cultural, political, and historical issues of the twentieth century such as avant-gardism in music and art, developments in journalism and the publishing industry, political struggles over race, gender, and class, and the bearings of colonialism, empire, and war. A valuable critical touchstone for researchers, the volume will also complement graduate scholarship in English literature, literary theory, context studies, and modernism and postcolonial studies.

522 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2012

Reviews

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

The breadth of this collection is breathtaking, and there are a wealth of contributions here, many of which have been written by experts in the field of Woolf studies. Oh, and it's edited by both of my PhD supervisors, so that's reason enough to read it!