The Reading of Silence
Virginia Woolf in the English Tradition

Patricia Ondek Laurence (Author)

9780804721790

Paperback / softback, published 1 August 1993

256 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.358 kg

"Laurence's groundbreaking study teaches us how to read Virginia Woolf's psychological, social, historical, philosophical, rhythmic, and structural silences as it weaves multi-colored threads into a shimmering whole: Woolf's novels; the major works in Woolf criticism; the English literary tradition, male and female; surrealist painting and contemporary music; philosophy, psychoanalysis, and linguistics; and structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, reader response, and feminism. It suggests new directions for Woolf criticism . . . Lawrence's writing style is remarkably readable, clear, and careful."—English Language Notes "Using a wide range of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Kristeva and Derrida, Laurence demonstrates convincingly that Woolf was the rst modern woman novelist to practice silence in her writing and that, in so doing, she created a new language of the mind . . . and changed the metaphor of silence from one of absence or oppression to one of presence and strength."—Belles Lettres

A Stanford University Press classic.