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

Jane Goldman offers a revisionary, feminist reading of Woolf's work.

Jane Goldman (Author)

9780521794589, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 January 2001

264 pages, 8 colour illus.
22.9 x 15.4 x 1.9 cm, 0.435 kg

'In this innovative and important book, Jane Goldman argues that for Virginia Woolf, aesthetic concerns (with colour in particular) were inseparable from political and especially feminist concerns. Jane Goldman's book is essential reading not only for readers of Woolf, but also for those interested more generally in modernism and aesthetics.' Suzanne Raitt

Jane Goldman offers a revisionary, feminist reading of Woolf's work. Focusing on Woolf's engagement with the artistic theories of her time, Goldman traces the feminist implication of her aesthetics by reclaiming for the everyday world of history and politics what seem to be private mystical moments. Goldman analyses 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. She argues that Woolf evolves a kind of 'feminist prismatics' through which she is able to express and develop both the challenge and pessimism of her feminist vision. Lavishly illustrated with colour pictures, this book will appeal not only to scholars working on Woolf, but also to students of modernism, art history, and women's studies.

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.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Cultural studies [JFC], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: general [DSB], History of art & design styles: from c 1900 - [ACX]