The Feminist Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf: Modernism, Post-Impressionism, and the Politics of the Visual

by Jane Goldman

Overview

Jane Goldman offers a revisionary, feminist reading of Woolf's work. Focusing on Woolf's engagement with the artistic theories of her time, Goldman analyzes Woolf's fascination with the Post-Impressionist exhibition of 1920 and the solar eclipse of 1927 by linking her response to a much wider literary and cultural context. Illustrated with color pictures, this book will appeal not only to scholars working on Woolf, but also to students of modernism, art history, and women's studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521794589
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/04/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; Part I. Eclipse: 2. Virginia Woolf: heliotropics, subjectivity and feminism; 3. The astonishing moment; 4. The amusing game; 5. The gathering crowd; 6. The chasing of the sun and the victory of the colours; 7. Elegiacs: capsizing light and returning colour; 8. The death of the sun and the return of the fish; Part II. Prismatics: 9. Post-Impressionism: the explosion of colour; 10. Romantic to Classic: Post-Impressionist theories from 1910 to 1912; 11. The new prismatics: Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and English Post-Impressionism; 12. 'Her pictures stand for something': Woolf's forewords to Bell's paintings; 13. To the Lighthouse: purple triangle and green shawl; 14. The Waves: purple buttons and white foam; 15. Conclusion; Notes; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Goldman's book provides another lens through which to view Woolf's complex relationship with the other artists, art forms, and feminist movements of her day. Like Woolf's multiple-point-of-view novels themselves, the efforts to articulate and illuminate her creative process engage in an ongoing dialogue to which Goldman's book has contributed the valuable element of ‘feminist prismatics'." Diane F. Gillespie, Modern Fiction Studies

From the Publisher