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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Posted on Feb 23, 2017

There’s more to essayist and novelist Virginia Woolf than her words. A prolific intellect of the interwar period, Woolf was also a pioneering feminist.

National Portrait Gallery announces new Virginia Woolf exhibition at http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/national-portrait-gallery-announces-new-virginia-woolf-exhibition-9236574.html

Virginia Woolf was an author who pioneered feminism in literature. An important social figure of London in the interwar period, she was also an essayist who fearlessly made her voice heard despite society’s limits.

Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in Kensington, London, Virginia was well-educated and part of a mixed household because of her parents’ previous marriages. Her father, Leslie Stephen, was well-connected with the upper echelon of London society. This meant that his children were raised with influences from Henry James and James Russell Lowell. There was also a large library in their house, where Virginia learned about English literature. Despite not going to Cambridge like her brothers, Virginia and her sisters benefited from their connections, often hosting influencers and intellectuals from the university.

Because of several incidents in her life, including the death of her mother, sister, and father, Virginia constantly battled with mental illness and was even institutionalized at some point. After Virginia suffered from a nervous breakdown upon learning of her father’s death, she, her sister Vanessa, and her brother Adrian sold their house in Kensington and moved to Bloomsbury. There, she became associated with a circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, Virginia married Leonard Woolf, one of the members of the group. Together, they founded the Hogarth Press, which published some of Virginia’s novels, as well as those by T. S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and other writers.

Virginia’s first professional foray into writing was “Haworth, November 1904,” a journalistic account of her visit to the Brontë family home in Haworth. This was published in a women’s supplement to the Guardian in December 1904. Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915. Most of her work was self-published, the most popular being Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927).

The Voyage Out, originally titled Melymbrosia, is a novel that tells the story of Rachel Vinrace’s accidental journey toward self-discovery as she travels to South America on her father’s ship. The novel took a long time for Virginia to write and was created during the time when she was most psychologically vulnerable. Virginia used this novel to reflect on her journey from being in a repressive household to being part of the highly intellectual Bloomsbury Group.

THE VOYAGE OUT. In Dustwrapper at https://www.tbclrarebooks.com/pages/books/32448/virginia-woolf/the-voyage-out-in-dustwrapper

Mrs. Dalloway is about a society woman’s preparations for a party she is about to host. The novel goes back and forth in time and is told through different character perspectives, building an image of an interwar society.

Woolf in the World: A Pen and a Press of Her Own at http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/rarebook/exhibitions/penandpress/case8c.htm

To the Lighthouse tells the story of the Ramsays’ visits to Scotland between 1910 and 1920. It is one of her most complex novels as it has very little dialogue and action. Told in three parts, the novel is composed mostly of thoughts and observations. It tackles various complexities of the human experience.

Her claim to fame lay in her innovations with the use of the English language. She often experimented with the psychological and emotional motives, as well as the stream of consciousness, of her characters. Her command of the language is also unlike any other. Her use of words and descriptions help readers create vivid portraits of her stories.

Another important work of Virginia is Three Guineas, a book-length essay that is a response to a letter from a gentleman who asked for help to prevent war. In the essay, she outlines the disparity between men and women, the latter being unable to enter professional careers. She ends the essay with a call to action, asking to have a women’s college built and to have an organization that would help women enter the professional world. Virginia was able to paint a good picture of what she hoped the world to be like: one where both men and women were given equal opportunities.

With her writing, Virginia established herself not only as a prolific writer but also as a pioneering feminist. However, her mental illness always haunted her, and the Second World War didn’t help either. With Leonard being Jewish, Virginia was constantly in fear that her husband was in danger. The two were contemplating committing suicide once Germany invaded England. In 1941, Virginia committed suicide alone by drowning into the River Ouse, her coat filled with rocks.

Her popularity declined after World War II, but she was rediscovered as an important feminist figure in the 1970s. To this day, she remains an inspiration to feminists, writers, and feminist writers.

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In this series, we shine a spotlight on the most unsung heroes of language: punctuation marks. For this part of the series, we’re going to talk about quite a breathtaking mark. Like others, this one gets overlooked a lot, but if not for this particular punctuation mark, we probably would have run out of air. Let’s all take a pause and talk about the comma.

Behind the Mark

We can trace the roots of the comma back to third century BC in a system of single dots that indicated the “amount of breath” one was to take when reading verses aloud. The comma is a mark that is used across different languages and is available in different typefaces.

The comma shares a symbol similar to the apostrophe and the single quotation mark: a small dot with a tail. The difference is in placement because unlike the apostrophe and the single quotation mark, the comma is placed at the bottom of the line.

How to Use It in English

There are several uses for the comma, but generally, the comma has two functions: pauses and linkage. This is because the commas are used to distinguish separate but related ideas.

For one, commas are used to separate items in a list. The use of the comma in lists indicates not only separation but also the link between all the items within the list.

The new subjects include geography, biology, ethnography, and statistics.

Another important use of the comma is to separate clauses. Two dependent clauses may be separated by a comma. This again goes back to the idea that commas are used for distinguishing related ideas.

Ginger wanted to become a doctor, but she also wanted to teach.

Some adverbs also require the use of the comma when they are used. These include therefore, however, nevertheless, and others. Should these adverbs be used in the middle of a sentence, they would have to be preceded and followed by a comma.

Furthermore, studies show that smoking causes harm to both the smoker and anyone inhaling the smoke for cigarettes. It is recommended, therefore, that smoking be banned from public places.

In some cases, commas are used in place of parentheses, as in the case of parenthetical phrases. These phrases contain information that are not necessary to the meaning of the sentence.

Kath’s grandmother, whom she considers her closest relative, will be attending her graduation.

The comma is also a valuable punctuation mark when using vocatives and quotations.

In his speech today, the mayor said, “Students who apply for scholarships will also be eligible to receive a monthly allowance.” And that, Rose, is why you should aim for better grades this semester.

The comma also has plenty of uses outside of grammar. In mathematics, commas are used to separate numerical values. They are also used to separate geographical locations, names, and titles, as well as dates.

There are 525,600 minutes in one year.

I used to live in Nashville, Tennessee.

Today’s keynote speaker is Charles Xavier, PhD.

In speech as well as literature, commas mark a pause (as opposed to the full stop indicated by periods). The comma also retained its original use of marking breaths.

The Oxford Comma

One of the most controversial issues surrounding the comma is its elevated form, the Oxford comma. The Oxford comma is a highly contested and highly polarizing use of the mark. People either feel that it is absolutely necessary or absolutely useless.

The Oxford comma, or the serial comma, is an “optional” comma that comes before the word and on the last item of a list. For cases such as single-word lists, the serial comma may seem unnecessary, such as in the example below.

Popular dog breeds for large families include the Golden Retriever, the Labrador Retriever and the Newfoundland.

However, some lists may be confusing without the extra comma. Read this sentence below to see what I mean.

The lawyer’s clients include a teacher, a newly divorced mom and an accused murderer.

See the problem? Without the Oxford comma, two meanings could be gleaned from the above sentence: the lawyer has three distinct clients, or the lawyer’s client is a teacher, mom, and murderer all in one. Here it is easy to see the importance of the Oxford comma.

As is the case with plenty of rule makers (grammarians and linguists included), one of the aims is to standardize the use of the Oxford comma, making it more than just an option. While practitioners of the language are yet to come to an agreement, for now, the rule of thumb is to follow what the style guide you’re using says about the subject. For example, most academic style guides always require an Oxford comma, but most publication style guides don’t. It all boils down to whom you’re writing for.

Phew! Safe to say, that was more than just a pause. Safe to say, the comma is one punctuation mark that’s sure to pack a punch. We hope you learned plenty today, and we hope you stick around for the rest of 1-Hour Proofreading’s Punctuation Series!

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