Woolf, Virginia - The Russian Point of View (1925)

The Ancients and the Moderns ^ | Jan 03, 2014

[CondoleezzaProtege]

It's of no surprise that Virginia Woolf was well-read in Russian Literature. In fact, Woolf explored Russia through its literature and she went on to write several essays on the subject...

Woolf wrote,

"... it is the soul that is the chief character in Russian fiction. Delicate and subtle in Tchekov, subject to an infinite number of humours and distempers, it is of greater depth and volume in Dostoevsky; it is liable to violent diseases and raging fevers, but still the predominant concern... The novels of Dostoevsky are seething whirlpools, gyrating sandstorms, waterspouts which hiss and boil and suck us in. They are composed purely and wholly of the stuff of the soul. Against our wills we are drawn in, whirled round, blinded, suffocated, and at the same time filled with a giddy rapture. Out of Shakespeare there is no more exciting reading."

It is this, which she called "a new panorama of the human mind" that excited her, and within it dichotomies were broke down: there was no "good" or "bad", no one or the other, but the two merged together,

"Men are at the same time villains and saints; their acts are at once beautiful and despicable. We love and we hate at the same time."

Social barriers are broken down also. Referring to Dostoyevsky, she wrote,

"It is all the same to him whether you are noble or simple, a tramp or a great lady. Whoever you are, you are the vessel of this perplexed liquid, this cloudy, yeasty, precious stuff, the soul. The soul is not restrained by barriers. It overflows, it floods, it mingles with the souls of others..."

"Perhaps that is why it needs so great an effort on the part of an English reader..."

[CondoleezzaProtege]

[leaning conservative]

Bkmk, thanks.

[Vaquero]

Virginia Woolf. Liz and Dick. Saw that movie