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Virginia Woolf and the Rhythm of the Novel
Author(s) -
York R. A.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1995.tb00074.x
Subject(s) - feeling , repetition (rhetorical device) , natural (archaeology) , rhythm , aesthetics , climax , perspective (graphical) , texture (cosmology) , power (physics) , history , literature , psychology , art , philosophy , computer science , visual arts , social psychology , linguistics , artificial intelligence , image (mathematics) , archaeology , quantum mechanics , physics
Virginia Woolf's novels are profoundly affected by her acute sense of time and her feeling that time is not broken up by distinct events. She therefore uses various fictional techniques which stress the continuity of experience and so avoid climax, or present apparent climaxes as gratuitous or trivial. She tends rather to present experience as developing (at best) to a natural and harmonious fulfilment; and the texture of her novels depends largely on the interplay between scenes in which such fulfilment is attained and scenes in which the process of development is interrupted by sudden acts of characters or sudden changes in perspective on the part of the author. Most typically the scenes of fulfilment occur towards the end of the novel and are preceded by a preparation and a complication and succeeded by an aftermath; the relative paces of these sections, especially as apparent in delay and repetition, determine the sense of the quality of life which is conveyed in the texts.