Virginia Woolf's *To the Lighthouse* - A Detailed Overview PDF

00:02 In the course, we're gonna be talking about Virginia wolfe's wonderful novel to the Lighthouse. I hope you think it's wonderful too. We'll find out in a minute. 00:11 And we're gonna be trying to talk about part one and part two. We may not complete our discussion, just like Heart of Darkness. We may need to. 00:20 Cover some of this material next week as well. That's fine. Please note the optional reading. This is the easier or the. 00:30 More accessible of the two optional readings. This is from Novels for students. It gives really good. 00:38 General introduction to to the lighthouse, to the themes, to the characters, to the plot, to areas of interest, to context. 00:48 So if you're, if you're sort of struggling with the novel, or even if you're not struggling with the novel, I do recommend looking at that link from the library. 00:57 Another good place to look, of course, is the introduction to the novel provided here. 01:07 I'll just jump quickly to the visualizer. 01:20 I don't think that. 01:26 Visualize. I'll just jump quickly to the visualizer, and I can. 01:32 Right this I've chosen an Oxford World Classic because they have these, one of the reasons I've chosen is they have these useful introductions. 01:45 This introduction has lots of interesting information and lots of interesting ideas, um, it's a little bit special. This one. 01:54 But there's lots of good material you can find here. Um, this one is written by, I think I mentioned. 02:04 This to you book, or it's quite a lengthy introduction. 02:09 Oh, we'll come. We'll come back to that right there. 02:13 This one is written by David Bradshaw, who is unfortunately dead now. And I actually have some good news to share with you that I just learned, if I can ride for a minute. 02:25 You see, this is Oxford World Classics, published by Oxford University Press, sold all over the world for students, for readers, for academics. 02:35 And just today, I signed my contract, I'm going to do a book for Oxford World Classics for a writer named Dorothy L Sayers. 02:46 So they're going to publish one of her books, and I'm going to write the introduction and do the footnotes, etc. And after that, I can die. I will be can. I will be happy my career. I can retire. 02:58 Forget that, but that's the peak of my career. So thank you. Okay, jump, jump back here. 03:11 Just jumping back here. So that's what we're doing today. Just a quick reminder, next week is National Day, so we have a holiday. Okay. 03:21 I will be in Taipei myself, um, celebrating National Day, as it were. I don't know. That doesn't make any sense. I used to live in Taiwan. 03:30 For many years. So I'm going back for a, a nostalgia. How about you? What are you gonna do for the holiday? 03:36 Stuck in the library. And that's please. Good. That's right. Read Virginia Wolf that's what you can do with your holiday. Um, I hope you have some time to enjoy yourself. 03:47 And then we'll meet again in week six, when we'll finish our discussion of Virginia Wolf, and indeed, have our second quits right there. Okay. 03:56 Questions, comments. Let us jump to straight into a. 04:04 Discussion of Virginia Wolf and. 04:09 To the lighthouse. Um. 04:13 So we're gonna talk about Virginia Wool 1882 to 1941. 04:20 So Virginia Wolf is of a younger generation than Joseph Conrad. We're moving forward. 04:28 Toward the content. 04:30 Prairie moment. I've just put a few of the well known pictures of her up there. This, sorry, it's a low quality image. That's probably the most famous picture. 04:41 Ever taken Virginia wool? Have any of you seen that before? She's. 04:47 Virginia, stephen, at that time, was her maiden name before she married, and she was a sort of famously young man. 04:55 In London. 04:57 In the late part in 1970, early twentieth century. And these are pictures of her as a, as a more mature woman. As you will see, as you can see here, she never really got. 05:08 1941. She died. And of course, some of you probably know already. She killed herself in 1941. 05:16 Committed suicide. Have any of you seen the movie about Virginia Wolf, called The Hours? 05:23 There's a very interesting movie dealing with Virginia Wolf, in which Nicole Kidman. You all know Nicole Kidman. 05:32 The a strip, no. Nicole Kidman, the Australian actress, she was in Hong Kong, like, two years ago, filming a TV show. 05:41 She's a big, a big movie star, um. And she. 05:46 She plays Virginia Wolf in this movie called The Hours. So if you're, if you're interested in seeing that, it's, it's a, it's a good one to to watch. Anyhow, um, I'll just tell you a little bit about her life. 05:59 I should say, by the way, virginia Wolf is my first big literary love. I did, I think I mentioned already, I did my phd on Virginia Wolf. 06:09 So I went to the University of Edinburgh, and I spent three, more than three years. 06:15 Is studying nothing but Virginia Wolf. And I even wrote a book on her, which you can Google and find if you want. 06:23 It's my group, to be honest. 06:25 I've written better books since then. So her life, virginia Wolf. And of course there, there's lots of things to say about her life. I'm gonna try to keep this relatively short. 06:35 She comes from a famous literary family. Okay, so in this regard, she's very different to Joseph Conrad. 06:45 Who came from a family of political exiles who was orphaned at a young age, although actually they have that in common. But, you know, it's very much a cultural outsider. 06:56 Virginia Wolf is the office. She's a cultural insider. Her father, a man named Sir Leslie. Steven was himself a very well known writer. 07:08 Um, not a writer of fiction, but a writer of nonfiction. He. 07:14 E.G. wrote a lot of bioy or criticism, semi philosophical works, heed Corn. 07:27 As I've said there, the Cornhill Magazine published work by Dickens, that published work by Trolley that published work by Back array It was a major literary magazine. 07:37 So, I-I the equivalent of being like the. 07:42 The CEO of Netflix or something, it was a big cultural position, um, and he created the Dictionary of National Biography, which is still going strong today. 07:54 It's, it's sort of who's who of the United Kingdom, anyone who is eminent or respected or notable. 08:05 In culture, in science, in art, in sport, in politics, will have an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. 08:13 He was a big figure um she had been married to a woman named Mina he had been married to a woman named Mina Factory. Mina Factory is not Virginia wools mother. 08:26 She died Um Mina Factory, was the daughter of William Make Peace Decorate. William Make Peace Decorate is one of the great Victorian writers. 08:37 Of Great Britain, he wrote a book called Vanity Fair which you may have heard of, so it just, it just goes to show you how connected her family was to the world of literature. 08:49 Of culture of the academic world as well um her mother was Julius Stephen so. Her father Sir Leslie Stephen remarried. 08:59 This woman named Julius Stephen. Julius Stephen was an author herself. She wrote a book called Notes From Sick Rooms published in 1883, that's around the time Virginia was born. 09:11 One year later this is kind of an interesting one um an upper class woman and. Virginia Wools family was definitely upper class. 09:21 An upper class woman in Britain in at this time, was not allowed to work right. 09:31 She did not have access to formal education, and she was not allowed to have a profession, right. Instead she was expected to stay home. 09:42 To take care of the family and to marry that sort of contribute to the family through this, but one job women could do was. 09:52 What today we would call private nursing, because when people got sick, they didn't upper class people. 10:00 Upper class people got sick, they didn't go to the hospital because the hospital was a shithole, so instead you would stay home, and you would be nursed privately at home. Doctors would come to your house. 10:13 So Julius Stephen filled this role as sort of a family nurse, and she actually wrote a book about it, note From Six Notes From Sick Rooms. 10:23 Um, so that's another literary connection her maternal aunt. So her mother's sister was a woman named Julia Margaret Cameron who very interestingly. 10:33 Was a really well known photographer, so this was very unusual for a woman to be working in a profession. 10:41 Be an artist as professional as a photographer. And indeed, that picture on the right, of the young Virginia Stephen was taken by her aunt. 10:51 Camera Julia Margaret Cameron. So she's got these connections, she came from a big family Victorian families. 11:01 And Victorian refers to the time period, right 19 century, victorian families tended to be quite large um. 11:10 And so she had several brothers and sisters. Her brothers Adrian and Toby were sent to Cambridge. This was the family tradition. 11:20 At this time there were really only two universities, some of you in my other class have heard this before, there were only two universities in Great Britain, really, at this time Cambridge and Oxford. 11:32 Right around 1880, we get a new university in London. 11:39 But until then you'd only have these two universities and families would send their sons, not their daughters. With an upper class, families would send their sons but not their daughters. 11:53 To these universities to study, so you were a Cambridge family or an Oxford family, they were a Cambridge family, virginia and her sister Vanessa were not sent. 12:04 University, they weren't even sent to school. They were educated at home, privately, and again, this is typical of their class and the time. 12:13 Right um you would have private tutors who would visit in the house and they got a good education. These would often be very good tutors, but obviously it's a very different Experience. 12:25 Boys would be sent to a public school where they would live with a large group of other boys right in this school. They would, they would stay there and get their education at the school but girls would stay home. 12:37 To be fair, wolf did study at University, at Kings College London, in what was known as the Ladies Department. 12:46 So not the Department of English, or the Department of Philosophy, or the Department of Science, but the ladies department, and all the girls, all the young women would go study. 12:56 There she studied there 1897 to 1901, she did not take a degree. She took some courses, why did she not take a degree. 13:06 Because women couldn't earn degrees at this time, even if they went to university and studied, they would not be given a bachelor's degree. 13:16 Right? It wasn't until 1921 or 22 that the first women were given their backs on those degrees. 13:25 Um, so that's kind of the background she grew up in, and then a whole series of family tragedies struck which really shape. 13:34 Her, her life and read the book you read. 13:37 Her mother died in 1895, so she would have been about twelve or 13 years old at that time then her half sister Stella. 13:49 So this was a sister from one of her father's previous marriages, stellar Duckworth was her name. 13:56 She took over as sort of the, the mother of the family, and then she died two years later that, her father died a few years later in 1904, and then her. Brother died. in 1906, 14:11 So a whole series of these family tragedies, and what was quite a big family became quite a small family, and Wolf, with her surviving siblings siblings became an orphan. 14:23 And these, all of these deaths in the family led to early mental problems, mental difficulties as a young woman. 14:33 Virginia Wolf was not psychologically well. She had periodic episodes of mental instability, and that continued, actually through her whole life. 14:45 You may have heard this about her, right, there's three sort of famous facts about Virginia Wolf, one she was crazy two. 14:54 She was gay and three she killed himself, so we'll come to that just going on um So mental issues. 15:02 So after her father died in 1904, and obviously this is another tragedy, she loved her father, but she did say, after her father's death some years later. 15:15 She said, if my father hadn't died, I could never have lived Right. 15:21 Um and and what she sort of meant by that is while her mother and her father were alive, she was being raised in a very conventional. 15:31 Very strict upper class family which had very strong. 15:38 Rules of behavior, what, what you could do and couldn't do, especially if you were a young woman and there were very strong familial expectations. 15:49 About what you would do as a young woman and the answer was you would get married right but once her father died she and her siblings, um. Her surviving siblings as one sister and one brother. 16:02 They inherited some money, not a lot of money, but, you know, a good, a good chunk of cash, and they bought a home in Gordon Square in blue. 16:12 Bloomsbury have any of you been to Bloomsbury. Have you been to London. 16:17 I always sort of think of London as like a suburb of Hong Kong but maybe maybe not so much um Bloomsbury today. It's in the heart of London. 16:27 It's super expensive, oh my God, forget it, you can't, you can't buy a house in Bloomsburg. 16:34 Unless you're a millionaire. But in the early part of the twentieth century, bloomsbury was kind of a disreputable working class neighborhood. 16:46 Or lower middle class neighborhood. So they were able to buy this house, and they established a sort of. 16:55 You could almost call it like a young person's open house or commune, because they had no parents and they had their own money and they were all about, you know, 2324 years old. 17:08 So their various friends from university, from the boys from university, their artistic friends, their cultural friends musicians dancers etc. 17:17 All started gathering at their house and hanging out, they became known eventually as the Bloomsbury Group. 17:28 And this is, this is a phrase you'll hear a lot, if you Google it, you'll see tons of hit hits, the Bluesburg group became a very very culturally. 17:39 Influential group of painters, writers, dancers, philosophers, artists. 17:49 Art historians and even economists, who had a huge influence on cultural life in Britain in the early part of the. Twentieth. Century. 17:58 Um, those probably the most famous member of the Roomsbury Group today, it's okay, virginia Wolf, but. Also. Jim Mainard. King. 18:08 Do any of you know who John Mayner Kings is, kings in? Economics. 18:15 He was a, he was an economist, and he developed the theory that governments should borrow money and spend it to keep. The economy. Going. During recessions. 18:29 Right, so he's one of the most famous influential economists ever, okay? Anyhow, bloomsbury Group in 1912. 18:37 Virginia Wolf married a man named Leonard Wolf, and this is, this is a little odd because I said already she's famously gay, um, so it was what might be called a companionate marriage. 18:50 They, they loved each other, they were very good friends, they did not have children, and they didn't even try. Right They. Were. Just sort. Of. 18:59 Leonard Wolf, she was breaking the rules again here. Leonard was a penniless? Jew. 19:08 That's a quote from Virginia Wolf, that's what she said about this man she was marrying. So she's. Breaking. Two cultural. Rules. 19:16 One, virginia Wolf is, comes from a Christian family, so she shouldn't marry? 19:23 Jewish person, that's not okay, right, or it's certainly very unusual, and even worse, a. Jewish person. With. No money. 19:33 If they have money, it's all right, but he had no money. Leonard Wolf was very, very interesting. He was a young man from a like? A-A poor family but he was, very smart. 19:44 He got into Cambridge, and he met Virginia's brothers at Cambridge, and they became. Friends when. He. Finished. 19:53 Cambridge, when he graduated, he took the Civil Service exam, and he was very successful because he was very smart, so they sent him at the age of like. 20:03 23 years old, 24, they sent him to say long today Sri Lanka. 20:12 And he, he was appointed as, like, a governor or an administrator for one of the provinces of Sri Lanka at the age of 24. 20:22 And he'd never really he never left England before um so anyhow he had this this great job as a colonial administrator and he hated it he couldn't stand it. 20:33 He did not want to be the colonial overboard for the people of Sri Lanka, so he quit his job, which. Was like This. Is. His. 20:43 His dream career, the best job he can have, and he returned to England with no money, no prospects. No future. No. Career. 20:52 And Virginia married him or They married each other, um. 20:58 1917, they founded the Hogarth Press, and this is important, we'll talk more about it, this was a publication house, so what they started doing from 1917 onwards was published. 21:14 In their own, virginia Wolf own novels, she published them herself with her husband. 21:21 And they also published the work of other authors too, right? And this was important because it gave Virginia Wolf. Sort. Of. Unprecedented creative. Control. 21:33 Right, when she wrote her books, she could print them and publish them exactly as. She. Wanted to. 21:41 She didn't have an editor saying, oh, could you maybe change the ending, we want something more cheerful she didn't have someone, a publisher, saying, okay, i'll publish it but only if. 21:55 And it eventually became very successful, the Hogarth press, it still exists today, it's owned by a big multinational course. 22:05 But it was a very successful press for a long time, just, e.g. they were the first people to publish Sigmund Freud. 22:14 In English. Right? So they, they were a really important publisher, and also, i'll just say that Leonard Wolf, he was one of the founders of the Labor Party. 22:24 So the political party that is in charge of the United Kingdom today was founded by Leonard Wolfe, with other people, not alone um. Okay, throughout? Her life. 22:35 She suffered from depression I mental, I mentioned her her mental illness, um, earlier on, and this came, this? Came back? Into mid? 22:45 So throughout her life she would be fine, she would be reading, she'd be writing, she'd be working, she'd be socializing. And then. She'd. Sort. Of crash. 22:55 And she would be hospitalized and, and or, or put into care, intrigued, and then would come, out? Again. Um. 23:02 She's probably some sort of manic depressive. We don't really know what was wrong. 23:06 Um I won't say any. There's lots of interesting things to say about that but I-I won't SAY anymore about it um. 23:15 And then finally, in 1941, she drowned herself in the river ooze, she put rocks in her pockets and walked into the river, she was having another episode of mental illness. 23:28 And she just didn't wanna deal with it, um, also, if you just look at the date, 20, eighth of march 1941 this was a really bad time. 23:40 In the United Kingdom World War Two, the Germans have conquered France. The Germans look like they're. Going, to invade? 23:50 England and Virginia Wolf and her husband, they were both actually on Hitler's kill list. He had a list of people, he? Was. Going, to? Kill. 24:01 When he conquered Great Britain and they were both on the list, so that's her life. I also said she was famous? For, being, gay? Or. Bisexual, 24:11 Um, just because you may have heard of that I'll just mention it. She was married her whole life to Leonard, a very close marriage, but not a physical marriage. She. Did. Have. 24:21 An affair at one point with a woman, but I'll just mention that coming up, she doesn't seem to have enjoyed that too much. either. Part of the background for this is apparently she was the victim of sexual abuse as a young? Woman. 24:36 Um from one of her extended families anyhow so that's her life. Her work is really varied, i've just put a list up here. 24:47 You'll remember with with Joseph Conrad I talked about the sort of three groups of his work. I haven't really done that here, i've. Simply divided it. Into. Fiction. 24:56 And nonfiction, so she wrote both fiction, short stories and novels, and she wrote nonfiction, and I'll just talk briefly. About. Those. Two, bodies? Work? 25:08 First novel, the Voyage out in 1915, and Night and Day in 1919. These are both relatively speaking. 25:16 Traditional novels. 25:18 By traditional I will find out, i'll be talking more about what I mean by that, but they're. Not, experimental. 25:27 A normal, your everyday, average reader in 1915, when they picked up The Voyage out, would have said, oh, this is a good novel or a bad novel they'd like it They. Would. 25:39 But there was nothing too unexpected in it. 25:43 For you guys, the voyage out would be really interesting because in a way, what she's doing, she kind of tells the same story as? Joseph. Conrads? Heart. Of, darkness? 25:54 A similar story, but she puts a young woman in the position of Marlow, so there's a young woman who goes up a river. Not. In Africa. But. In South. America. 26:06 Um so it's an interesting novel the Voyage out right it's it's a trip night and day again quite a conventional novel. 26:14 1922 is an important year here. It is sometimes referred to as the anos mirabilis. 26:24 Let's see if I this is more Latin for you. I'll see if I can? Write, it and. News, 26:30 Here love in this. 26:34 You can Google that to make sure my spelling is okay, it means miraculous year. 26:41 The miraculous year of modernism, and I'll just put that word in capital letters. Because, it? Is. 26:52 Important, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about modernism more in the second, so 1922, the year that Jacobs Room is published is sometimes called. 27:03 The miraculous year that I start right. 27:06 Of modernism. What do I mean by that, or what? I don't say that people say that critics say that in 1922. There's. A. Whole group. 27:17 Of works of literature that were published in the United Kingdom, in America, in Germany and France, that for? Many people? Represent. 27:27 This incredible sort of breakthrough in literature, a whole new style, new techniques, new subjects. New approaches? 27:39 So just to give you a few examples, we could mention T-S elliot very famous poem. 27:45 The waste land. 27:47 Does anyone know T-S elliott wrote a poem called the wasteland published in 1922 and all modern poetry. 27:59 All poetry from 1922 to today really comes from the wasteland, that's where I started, james Joyce's Ulysses. 28:09 It's the. 28:09 Many people argue that James Joyce is. 28:15 With William Shakespeare, the greatest writer of the English language, right, you have Shakespeare and Joyce, and in 1922 he published this book called Ulysses that is still today. 28:27 A landmark of world literature, the, the, sort of the birth of the modern novel comes there, and there are other examples, and Virginia Wolfs contribution. Is. Jacobs room. Fascinating. 28:39 Jacob, the ticular character is dead. 28:44 1922, why is he dead. 28:48 World War One, okay, very important context for modernism in general, and a very important context for to the Lighthouse. 29:00 World War 01:19 14, 1918. 29:05 France, america, and Italy fought a huge war against, sorry, britain, france Italy America. 29:15 And the Russian Empire fought a huge war against. 29:20 Germany and the Australia Hungarian Empire exactly, and during this war, millions and millions and millions of people died. 29:30 In Europe there was also fighting in. In Asia, the Japanese fought against the Germans in China, so for e.g. the city of. 29:43 Qingdao, where the beer comes from, right, that was a German colony at that time, and the Japanese attacked it, so anyhow, jacob has died in World War One. 29:54 So he is this empty center in the novel, the novel is sort of shaped around this missing character, very very experimental very new. 30:05 Then we have Mrs. Delaway, which is a very famous novel, um, by Virginia Wolf. 30:13 If you watch the movie, the Hours I mentioned early, it has a strong connection to Mrs. Daloway. This, again is a very experimental novel. 30:23 Because it is what is called a one day novel. 30:26 The whole novel takes place on one day, starts in the morning, ends in the evening of that day, and of course, that's not normal it wasn't normal. 30:38 Was unusual, was a typical at that time, and it tells the story of a middle aged. 30:45 Then a puzzle upper class wife. 30:50 So the, the, the subject matter, the choice of this woman, mrs. Daloway, is kind of interesting because it's kind of, it's kind of proverbial right. 31:01 Once women are no longer young excuse me I'm not, i'm not saying this because I believe it, this is a cultural stereotype, women after a certain age are not interesting. 31:11 In the culture anymore. And Virginia Wolf says, no nonsense to that, let's take this older woman and make her the center of our story, right to the lighthouse we are reading. 31:23 Many people consider it her masterpiece it's, you know, it's, we'll talk more about that. She then went on and wrote Orlando a biography. 31:34 This book was inspired by her, her homosexual relationship with a woman named Vita Sackville West. 31:42 And Orlando, super interesting. It's the biography of a young man named Orlando who grows up in Queen Elizabeth the seconds. 31:52 Court 500 years ago, but Orlando doesn't die. Orlando just turns into a woman at some point. 32:02 And continues living all through British history as a sort of man in a woman's body, or a woman in a man's body or a trans gender person. 32:14 However you wanna think about it so it's very I think for you know a lot of it's very topical for today um. 32:22 The waves really interest, sorry, very, very hard to. 32:28 Which one The Waves The Waves is very hard to read yes it's it's my favorite of her books you're lucky I didn't. Assign it for this class. The Waves is the story of a? group of six friends. 32:38 Three men and three women, and it starts with them as infants, so at the beginning of the book, the text is basically like infant. 32:49 Perception, infant thought, and then it follows them through their lives, no, it's just like it. It's infant fault, scattered fault. And then there's also poetry, there's, there's inter chapters of poetry, it's it's pretty tough. 33:04 Flush is a good one, it's a biography again, in this case, flush is not a human being Flush is a dog. 33:11 So it tells the life of a dog from a dog's perspective, um, so, again, a little unconventional the years 1937. 33:23 It covers about a hundred, a hundred years of British history in slices, that does, little snapshots. 33:33 In one year, and then it'll jump seven years forward and a dozen other one, and then finally, between the acts, 1941, her last unfinished novel. She killed herself before she actually. 33:43 Completed it, it's set during the war, and it's staged, it's set around a pageant, so a lot of the content of the novel is actually a play inside the novel. 33:56 So what's the point of all that? It's all highly experimental, and this is the key note here, that Virginia Wolf, every time she wrote a novel tried something different. 34:07 Right? And that is very typical of modernism. 34:13 She also wrote a lot of nonfiction, some of it is. 34:18 Feminist criticism, and that's quite important, I would point out, a room of one's own 1929 a very famous. 34:29 Work of nonfiction in which she argues that women must have access to their own physical spaces. 34:39 A room, and they must have access to money, right, because remember, at this point, women couldn't really work as in professions, they couldn't. be doctors, lawyers, business people, right? So they depended? On their male, 34:54 Relatives for an income, so that's an early work of feminist theory, and Virginia Wolf is strongly associated She also wrote biographies. 35:04 Etc. She wrote a lot of essays criticism of literature, and she wrote a diary. She left a diary a whole life. 35:13 And many people enjoy reading her diary as well, so there she is, okay, just wanna make sure my time is okay. 35:20 Yes. Okay. 35:21 Modernism, i've got the word up already here, so I just wanna take us now, before we take our, our first break, I wanna take us from Conrad to Wolf. 35:34 So the move we're making here is from Conrad, who was a Victorian slash and guardian. 35:44 Writer Victorian Queen Victoria Edwardian King Edward ruled from 19 hundred to 1910. 35:55 Maybe 1901, I don't remember, but just the early part of the twentieth century, after King Edward, we get King George sometime called the Georgian period. 36:05 We don't really call it the Georgian period anymore. Instead we call it the modernist period. 36:11 Okay so what's what's the sort of difference what changes. First thing to say. This is all really important so do take notes right. 36:22 Modernism is quite difficult to define. 36:26 In part because it includes many different smaller aesthetic, cultural and political movement. 36:37 So I've just given some examples up here, e.g. symbolism or futurism, futurism was a an aesthetic slash. 36:47 Political movement that came out of Italy before and after World War One surrealism. 36:54 Which I'm sure you've all heard of, this was A-A political sorry not, well it is, political it's an aesthetic slash political slash psychological movement. 37:05 That came out of France around World War One, switzerland, expressionism, imagism, borticism da da. 37:14 Or, I don't know how many of these you've heard of. 37:17 Each of them has its own history, its own ideas, its own tradition, so in a way, modernism is like an umbrella term. 37:26 For all of these smaller movements that go underneath. 37:32 It's also difficult to define, because modernism crosses genres and forms. 37:41 Modernism is not just about literature, modernism is about painting, modernism is about sculpture, modernism is? About architecture modernism. 37:52 Is about dance. So basically in all forms of cultural production, you get this new development, which we now retrospectively describe as modernism. 38:04 It's important to remember, virginia Wolf did not think I am a modernist. 38:09 Modernism came afterwards. It's a retrospective description of the historical sort of period. 38:19 Um and even even within say, if we say modernist literature I could say Virginia Wolf is a modernist Okay. 38:29 But Ernest Hemingway is a modernist, and if you've read Ernest Hemingway at all, you'll know his books and stories. 38:39 Are very different from Virginia Wolf, so what does it mean if they're both modernists? So there's some difficulty there. It's also difficult because modernism was not just from Great Britain. 38:51 It was a global phenomenon. It happened, arguably still is happening. 38:58 Question around the world, but not always in the same times and not always in the same ways, so we can definitely talk about. 39:09 E.g.. 39:11 Modernism in China, which might be associated with a writer like Eileen Chan. 39:21 China, being Hong Kong writer, hong Kong Shanghai writer, do you know, I hope so, there is a sculpture of her in Repulse Bay. 39:32 When you're walking down to the beach at Repulse Bay. 39:37 There's a little statue of Eileen Chan, sitting on a bench, anyway, she could be described as a modernist, but of course her history her experience her. 39:48 It's all quite different to say, virginia Wolf right um. We're the picture of. 39:55 Should wish do, do you consider waiting for God, god of. 40:00 Samuel Beckett, so it's a very famous play called Waiting For Good O. 40:05 G-O-D-O-T have you heard of it samuel beckett is what we Might call a late modernist samuel beckett was james joyces secretary? 40:17 And then after James Joyce had died, he went on and did his own work, so we could call that like, kind of late modernism, but, yes? It's modernist. 40:27 So it's also a global phenomenon, so we can talk about modernism in Britain, in France, in Germany, italy, but also in South America Brazil. 40:38 Argentina they have very strong modernist movements in Brazil that's called modern modern ease mall um but it's you know. It's. Different, in, every local. Context, 40:50 So that makes it a little difficult to talk about. Also, the dates are difficult, if it's, if it's a historical era, we should be able to put time on it. 41:02 So some of the, 41:07 Possible starting points are listed here. Some people say, okay, look at Queen Victoria's ring 1837 to 1901. So let's say just. 41:16 After Queen Victoria is when we get modernism, but other people say, no, no, no, and also, that's very specific to Great Britain, but okay 1901 is a key date. 41:27 The publication of marks and angles Capitol, that's Capitol 1894, maybe that's a key date or the publication. 41:37 Of Freuds, that Sigmund Freud, his Interpretation of Dreams 1899, key date, or maybe it's Einstein's. Theory, of, relativity, 41:47 The first theory 1905, the second theory of relativity in 1916, maybe those are key dates, right? So basically what we're getting is. 41:58 Beginning of the twentieth century somewhere. However, other people would say, well, if you look at the end of the nineteenth century. 42:07 You get writers like Bodela. 42:11 French poet who wrote La fluent Amal, the Flowers of Evil or The Flowers of Sickness depending on how you translate that, and they might say, look, that's modernist poetry, even though it's. Published. in 1880. 42:27 Right, or Henrich Hibson, the famous Danish Norwegian playwright who wrote Henry Gabbler Wild Swans etc etc. 42:38 What maybe his work is modernist, so it's a little tricky, and then for an end date. It's. Also, difficult. 42:46 Because you get someone like Samuel Beckett, he was writing up until the 1960s, 1970s, right, however, generally speaking, there, there's? Beckett. Listed. Right. There right. 42:58 Generally speaking, people look at World War Two as kind of the end of modernism right because. 43:06 World War Two transformed the world right. Everything was different after 1945. 43:12 And it's a new world learning that was. 43:14 Created, but many writers were still producing recognizably modernist literature or modernist painting or modernist art. 43:24 So just, just to sum it up, we might say 1890, 1945, that gives us a good range, that's the modernist period. 43:33 But what, what does it mean? I mean, a picture is worth a thousand words. So we're just gonna look at some pictures. 43:39 Pre modernist, traditional, conventional, realistic painting. 43:50 Modernist painting. 43:53 It reminds me, it it color, rise of the Renaissance and the black. 43:59 Dark Ages. So Dark Ages might have been their modernist. There could be a, so you could, you could rewind and look at it that way, pablo Picasso, right very? Famous painter? 44:11 And, you know, we, we can, we can actually just see what he's doing right, he's breaking up, in this painting, the human form, so that the shapes and contours of this woman's face. 44:24 Are no longer presented directly to the viewer in in a conventional or realistic way, the colors are changing right the the. Emotional? Tone? Is. Changing, 44:36 It is no longer necessarily decorative in the same way this is, it is maybe more challenging to the viewer. 44:46 Right we're not used to say I mean. We are used to this today, but you can imagine, a? Hundred? Years ago? Wow. 44:53 Right? Or I could show you modernist architecture. 44:57 This is a very conventional 19 century building, a small house, I think, in Scotland, but it could be. Almost, anywhere. 45:09 Um it maintains the traditional shapes and forms of the the vernacular architecture so e.g. It has these. 45:19 Bow windows, it's built out of traditional materials, etc etc. This is the Bauhaus school, in Germany. 45:29 In Weimar Germany, post World War One Germany, this was a modernist school that opened for. Design, and? Arts. 45:39 Right? And you can see we get a much more recognizably modern look, right? No decoration clean lines steel glass. 45:49 New materials, right? We basically still live in Bauhaus architecture, and when you go shopping and IKEA. 45:58 All that stuff you're buying from IKEA, it's basically Bauhaus, but much. Cheaper. Right? 46:06 Goodness, easy comparison fiction. Just take a look at this example. Sorry, i'm gonna let you have your break really soon. 46:17 Welcome. 46:19 Zhou. 46:19 On the left, 1911, arnold Bennett held the less ways. Take a look at that one first. 46:35 I'm not sure. 46:37 Right. 46:40 Question. 46:41 She's a. 46:46 Okay. 46:49 I don't. 46:51 That's right. 46:52 Perfectly normal, right. 46:58 The Polish that's in. 47:00 It's. 47:02 What you love. 47:04 And you're in the right. 47:06 For you. 47:06 So what, what, what makes this normal. 47:21 We could open any book today that I bought in the bookstore downstairs and it would be you know pretty similar. 47:33 What what characteristics does it have. What makes it traditional. 47:38 Linear narration focused on the story, linear narration, it starts right at one place with held up, and then it moves forward through time? Held, us, cleaning her. Kitchen, 47:56 Hilda finishes cleaning her kitchen and it's it's moving a plot for now we don't. We're just looking at one thing but the events are following each other sure. 48:06 We have a clear central character, hilda. 48:09 We have secondary characters, her widowed mother, right? Okay sure. 48:15 So linear narrative focus on moving the story forward. 48:21 My big ears are flapping. Any other ideas. 48:30 Zhou. 48:30 Um I-I would SAY dialogue introduced clearly. 48:41 By her mother's voice came from the sitting room, quote, where are you going to unquote this very a very traditional way. 48:52 Of linking dialogue, or the representation of spoken language, with the speaker. 48:59 Right, so we have no, no trouble separating it. 49:03 What do we know about hill does personality. 49:12 Take a look at her face. What's her face like. 49:25 Just. 49:25 To the top of that. 49:26 Dark and defiant, who says? It's dark and defiant. 49:34 Sorry. Well, society. Society have a voice. 49:42 The author or the narrator, right? Whoever, whoever is telling this story. 49:50 And that person is invisible, right? We don't have a first person narration here like we do in Joseph Conrad. 49:58 Um the the the nameless narrator is in a way like the voice of society. Yes and it is, providing. Us, as readers? 50:08 With pre digested interpretation, it is telling us what her face. 50:15 It's not telling us what it looks like, it's telling us what it means, right? Because what does it mean if her face looks defiant. 50:27 Can you make a defiant face? I-I don't even know what that means but it so in a way. 50:35 The author is interpreting the text for us right. We have her dark and defiant face. 50:44 It's full of grim satisfaction, notice what those adjectives are doing right, or her mother's voice. 50:53 Querulous and amiable, all of these adjectives are doing the work of reading in a way for you. 51:03 Right? It tells you what to think about the character. That's all quite traditional. Now, take a look at the other side, this. Is, james? Joyce? 51:13 I mentioned him already in, in a relationship to. 51:18 Ulysses But this is an earlier novel. 51:22 Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there was a mou cow coming down along the road, and this mou cow that was coming down along the road met. A. nice little boy. 51:34 Named baby talk you his father told him that story. His father looked at him through at last. He had a hairy face. 51:42 He was baby talk you the moon cow came down the road, betty burn lift, she sold, lemon plat? 51:50 What do I have to do now. 51:52 I have to sing, oh, the wild rose blossoms on the little green place So there's a song, right? It's okay. It's obviously different. 52:04 Right. Can you put some words to it, what's different? How is this different. 52:11 Wow, wow. 52:12 I was just different, 52:15 It's much more in the moment right, it's not, it's not outside the. Moment, reporting? Objectively? 52:29 On the moment, which is like this one, it's kind of in. The. Moment. Right. 52:35 It's it's it is in the time of narration not outside the time of narration good. 52:43 Asian. 52:43 Anything else? 52:52 You. 52:58 What's your. 52:59 I think we need to do the search for. 53:02 No. 53:02 Personally, the authors throughout the phenomenon instead of put some comments on that Okay, so the author is just presenting. 53:13 The sort of thing, the phenomenon, but. 53:17 Not giving us any interpretation you know we get Uncle Charles and Dan tape clapped. We don't get how did they clap. 53:27 Did they clap happily? Did they clap enthused? There's no interpretation. It's just the thing. 53:32 Basically, this text doesn't ask you as a reader to do a lot of extra work. 53:43 Right? The author is giving you the story in a way that makes the story quite digestible. 53:53 That's a funny term to use, but you know what I? Mean right? 53:57 This author, james Joyce, is giving you a story that will not make any sense unless you. 54:07 Put yourself into the story and start actively reading it, interpreting it, connecting characters right etc etc. 54:17 Right, so, e.g. his father looked at him through a glass, well, we, we don't, literally, we don't know what that means I don't know what that. 54:28 So we have to think as a reader, well, what could it mean Any ideas. 54:34 His father looked at him through glass, does that mean like a glot? This is a cup but. 54:40 Maybe spectacles, right, maybe. Maybe his father wears glasses, and from the baby's perspective, he sees. 54:56 And it's a glass, remember back then men sometimes were just one, right? So it could be, it could be a monocle rather than spectacles. 55:05 Just, e.g., I will also point out the subject matter, notice, notice this line here. 55:14 When you went the bed, first it is warm, then it gets cold. 55:20 That's not quite normal, is it. 55:24 I agree, I agree, it's true, but in this book, no one is going to pee or poop. 55:35 I guarantee right. 55:37 In this book, we've got the little boy wedding his bed, and James Joyce is quite famous in Ulysses which he wrote in 1922. 55:49 In the first chapter, there is a two page scene of a man having a ship, and it's just like, that's it, that's what he's. Sitting there. He's. Doing. It. 56:01 It's two pages, and it describes it everything. 56:05 So there's a subject matter as well, so there's, there's the way the story is told, and then there's what the stories about. 56:15 And they are both different in modernism. 56:18 And you might say, I don't want to read about a man going to the bathroom Fair enough. Many, many people didn't want to. read about a man going to the bathroom. 56:30 Right it's it's quite aggressive. It's quite challenging. 56:34 Okay, so just the last thing and then a break. 56:43 Is it? 56:43 Too much I'm I'm just gonna click through what I'm gonna do, i'm just gonna leave these. We'll take a break you can. 56:50 You can look at them, if you're gonna sit here during the break or not. When we come back we'll just talk about peace local. 56:55 So take ten, it's 13 now, so we'll start again at 1310. 57:02 This list here, and just say, do you see anything on this list that reminds you of your reading of. 57:11 Like that. 57:13 Parts one in part two, and you can, you can talk with each other about it first, see if you can come up with an idea together, and then we'll just share Some. 57:21 Ideas. 57:24 Ha, ha. 57:36 Which these are general descriptions of modernist literature. 57:46 Which ones did then apply to, to the lighthouse? 57:51 That's a not all the expensive. 57:53 So almost first. 57:55 That's good. 57:58 There's the superman in the in. 58:00 I've just been in the place of the moment, and I've been, in? The, city? 58:09 Do you think it's a little bit of a little bit of a third person and a living. 58:15 Okay. 58:17 I'm a London. 58:19 Yesterday, at the same time. 58:21 And here you this book, i'm the one. 58:24 Any ideas so far. 58:30 I think so. 58:31 Thank you. 58:32 Any of you student brother. 58:35 To my house. 58:38 How do you do. 58:40 And it's not that. 58:43 I, can you listen to the audience? I don't, I don't? Know, 58:47 And what's the question. 58:49 Anything resonate here. 58:54 The next look. 58:55 I think there was I-I forgot the third that it's, not really third person i think YOU live in this great person so you kind of got the, 59:05 A character, but then up the outside of that character flip, or you're thought that you could, you could match that maybe with number three, so if you look at number three up there, everyone the third bullet point, modernists experimented with fragmented. 59:20 It's a relation of multiple set perspectives, and what you're referring to is, I think, it's something called free indirect. 59:25 Of course, which we'll talk about actually, next week a little bit, but it's a great point that the way. 59:32 F-I-D re indirect discourse the way virginia wolf tells this story we have. 59:41 One perspective focused on one character, but it actually kind of moves around right the, the the perspective almost. 59:52 Loads from one character to another, or from one character to also some of the people nearby, sometimes we have changes perspective sometimes we have. 01:00:03 William Banks perspective, sometimes we have Mrs. Ramses perspective. We have all these multiple points of view. 01:00:11 Which is very typical of modern so good so. 01:00:17 That's bullet point number three. What about? What about any. 01:00:22 Arms. 01:00:23 Can I do that? I should be able to. 01:00:32 Wanted to play. 01:00:41 Of time doesn't work. 01:00:44 Okay, number three, done. What about, what about another one that. 01:00:52 We don't have to go into a lot of details, just have any sort of observation here. 01:00:57 I don't know if it's just me, but every time I see like, um, mr Len and Jerry guys. 01:01:03 That chat was really something that Charles Pan three or his Jeff, every time I read about like, from their perspective, I just find them this liberation. 01:01:14 Which is the waiting talk, the waiting, so which, which one might that link to? I'm saying the first one, number one. So if you look at the first bullet point. 01:01:23 A sort of criterical or satirical impulse, and the specific example we were looking at was this idea that Charles Pansley or Mr Ramsey. 01:01:35 These patriarchal male characters are presented as kind of irritating or narcissistic. 01:01:44 Right. Maybe Mr. Rap will both of them, those, it's a great term. So good, good example we have a convention. 01:01:52 Patriarchal masculinity. And we have this satire, or the novels making fun of them. 01:02:01 Right very much so. Also, so there's a tire. 01:02:06 And where this around TV is football's a good time, I think the show. 01:02:11 Right. 01:02:11 Philosopher, philosopher, but he doesn't explain his ideas of to his family even when there. 01:02:19 Talking about the lighthouse, and he's like, can they go to the lighthouse Like in his mind, when we go to this perspective, it's logical, like they they win, but you know, they do now they can't go to the lighthouse, it's going to way, but to his children, and it's who his wife. 01:02:32 It doesn't explain anything, just goes, oh, you're not, no, no, no And he expects them to understand, which is so ironically, says this from the psychologist point of view. 01:02:41 Um this is the way a child would act but they expect what they know to be what under this though so. There is something quite childish about that manly figure of Mr. Ramsey, excellent, 01:02:52 Remember, is not a psychologist, nobody's a philosopher, doesn't matter, good. So, number one, and number three, thank you guys anyone else number. 01:03:04 Are you on the low side. 01:03:05 Our project last hundred years, I mean in the. 01:03:08 This one here focus on low status or margin, say a little more who in the book. 01:03:14 There were some artists, and was on practices in the evening. 01:03:17 It's good that. It's awful to make a profession. 01:03:19 Exactly. So modernist writers very frequently focused on unusual characters. 01:03:28 Low status characters, the example I've given here, artists, the insane women, working class criminals, etc. So here we have Lily Briscoe an important character who is an artist. 01:03:41 And a woman, and she's, you know, she's not, she's an unsuccessful artist, she doesn't sell her paintings, nobody wants her work she's kind of an amateur. 01:03:51 So great she's a marginalized character. Lily Briscoe is an unmarried woman. 01:03:57 She's not Asian she has Chinese eyes but she's not Asian I it's very confusing and it's a great question. Lily Briscoe is described as having Chinese eyes. 01:04:10 But her name is Lily Briscoe, lily Briscoe, she's a Scottish woman or something She's not Chinese. 01:04:17 The question is, why is she described as having Chinese sides I don't even think it's a physical description you know. 01:04:26 It's an interesting question. Many, many students have asked me about this over the years and I. 01:04:33 And I still have no good answer I think it indicates really difference, you know, she's different from the other characters. 01:04:42 But she's a woman, she has no children, she's not married, she's not fulfilling her normative role in society right. 01:04:52 She should be married, she should have children, good. So this is really good. We can see already Virginia Wools novel is doing a lot of the things that modernist writers. Are there any others? Anyone else. 01:05:05 I think.2 and.5 could be combined together, like the extent that focus on the characters interior states could be considered as a kind of new technique. 01:05:19 Well, e.g., when they are at the table, and how Mrs. James say, thinking about her husband and like every guest in the. 01:05:27 Okay, excellent. This is so we can put these two together. If you think about this novel, there's not a lot of story in the novel there's not a lot of. 01:05:37 What right what we do get is a lot of what does it feel like to be Mrs. Ramsey, what is her inner life. 01:05:48 Her emotions, her sensitivities, or, or Lily Briscoe, or even Mr. Ramsey, right? So Wolf's novel is very interested in what we might call interiority. 01:06:00 Subjectivity, or psychology, really, you know, the, the psycho, what, what are people like inside? Whereas remember the example we had about Hilda less ways. 01:06:11 It's very sort of outside, right? It's objective, sort of outside the person looking in. 01:06:18 Is here inside the person, excellent. And of course, that is kind of an experiment. 01:06:25 This quote have I have here, from Ezra Pound. People sometimes talk about this as the, the sort of slogan of modernism, make it new, this idea that every work of art should be new, should be different, should be. 01:06:39 Something that's never been before. Ironically, asra Pound borrowed the slogan Make it New from Song dynasty Chinese poetry. 01:06:49 So he took something very old and he said, this is new right? That's the there's a attention. 01:06:56 Um, good. And I will just point out one more thing here self consciously. 01:07:05 There's another typo. You're supposed to get my typos, 01:07:14 I. 01:07:15 Self consciously integrated difficulty as a feature of their? Work, 01:07:27 So modernists wanted their novels or their poetry to be difficult, right? They didn't want you to be, able, to, just, sit, down, 01:07:39 And read it, and relax. 01:07:41 And there's a variety of reasons for this, but I think it's, it's worth acknowledging because I-I imagine how many of you found to the lighthouse a little difficult to read. 01:07:52 No none of you come on it was it's hard right. What makes it difficult? What are some of the things. 01:07:59 It keeps show in from perspective to perspective, and sometimes you forget which characters actually speaking, or not even actually speaking, but sort of, thinking, or, feel, whose, perspective, right, 01:08:11 So because of these multiple perspectives, it can be tricky to figure out sometimes which character am I, focused, on, right, now, 01:08:22 Good, what else? What else is difficult. 01:08:25 What else was hard about this, 01:08:36 That's a good question, 01:08:36 I know it was hard, the whole thing about the letter. 01:08:41 Just like how, how they're stuck at one letter. I whistle, confused by that, I Google it. Apparently it's about, it's about how many like Mr. 01:08:50 Rational thought A-B-C so that's a specific example so what what i could say is certain passages. 01:09:00 Are very abstract, wolf isn't sort of telling us what to think, or telling us what a certain passage means we need to interpret it. 01:09:10 And the passage in question was when Mr. Ramsey is like A-B she d and you think what is he, doing saying the alphabet But what Wolf is doing there is kind of abstractly representing the process of logical, 01:09:25 Block right, but she doesn't tell you she's doing it, so multiple perspectives? Difficult, abstract? Passages, 01:09:33 Multiple characters. How many characters are there? Tons of them, right? 01:09:39 There's like, there's like twelve name characters running all over the place. Chronology, you mentioned with Hilda, less ways starts at the beginning. 01:09:49 Is this story chronological? No, right, there are lots of difficulties, so this difficulty is? Not, a? 01:09:58 An error, it's a feature. It's not a glitch, it's a feature of the of. 01:10:04 Novel. Okay. 01:10:06 So there it is to the lighthouse um, this cover, just for the record, the illustration is done by her sister Vanessa Vanessa Bell. 01:10:18 Who was an important painter in early twentieth century written um so that's an interesting thing. Both sisters went on and, had, these, quite, spectacular, careers, 01:10:29 Um and there's the lighthouse right. Obviously the cover tells us, in a way, what the center of the, novel, is, the, lighthouse, 01:10:38 Her fifth novel, okay, 01:10:46 With. 01:10:46 Talked about this already, the way the center of consciousness, or the narrative vocalization, or the perspective shifts from, one? Character, to? Another, 01:10:55 And also shifts from the outside world to the inside world. So we've already talked about, that? A, little? 01:11:02 In 1921, wolf wrote, in an essay called Modern Fiction that she wanted to show. 01:11:13 How an ordinary mind, on an ordinary day, receives and organizes a myriad impressions. 01:11:23 So this is one way of thinking about this novel you could think about the way it's the human mind, and there's all of these impressions, things you see, things, you, hear, 01:11:33 Other people, and they're coming in, and then what happens inside, right? So that relationship between inside and outside. 01:11:44 Um, the novel is also formally experimental, it has an unusual shape. It's not chapter one, chapter? Two, chapter? Three, 01:11:54 Instead, it has three named sections. 01:12:00 It's the same with the magic. 01:12:01 Of unequal length, the first section is called the window, the second section is called time passes, 01:12:11 Third section is called the lighthouse right, and inside each section there are numbered. 01:12:19 Parts such chapters or, you know. 01:12:25 There's no terminology to describe this. It's important to note that we have one, day? 01:12:31 One day. 01:12:34 Ten years. So the chronology of the novel is very unusual. We have one big section of the novel that takes place on one day. 01:12:46 We have one big section of the novel that takes place on one day, and then we have a ten year stretch in the middle right. 01:12:52 And that's, time passes, so we'll come to that later. Let's look at our book now. I think we just need to get we need to get tucked in. 01:13:03 Isn't the, the, the, the, the, 01:13:10 Okay. 01:13:10 Okay, the first thing I wanna look at is narrative style, narrative structure, and I wanna ask you just, a, really, straightforward, question, 01:13:21 Zhou. 01:13:30 I'm not, 01:13:32 I. 01:13:38 And I think that's the question. 01:13:40 It's a good thing is it's. 01:13:43 You're right you can't. You're? Right, 01:13:47 You can actually see, the way I've, i've highlighted my text already, there's quite an, unusual, format, the, novel, opens, 01:13:56 In media rests right with this conversation? Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow, said Mrs. Ramsey, but you'll have to, be, with, the, lark, she, added, 01:14:08 And then down here but said his father, stopping in front of the drawing room window, it won't be fine for, the, two, lines, of, dialogue, 01:14:18 What happens in between turn to your partner, turn to the person next to you, what do we find in between, these, lines, of, dialogue, 01:14:30 And I don't know, 01:14:32 And it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it. 01:14:42 We have to take a look, to look. 01:14:48 Nice do you. 01:14:50 Um and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm. A, i'm, a, i'm, not, 01:14:58 What are we actually getting? What, 01:15:02 And it's your own business. And it's the, first, 01:15:04 Oh, okay, that, that'll be a little tricky here. 01:15:09 Morning. Night. 01:15:10 Can, you can read it up there, anyhow, which time, what are, we, doing, 01:15:13 We're in the middle of a conversation and, and what both has done is she's, oh you're in there. 01:15:22 Both is leveraged open the conversation, and she's created a sort of conversation sample. But what's the mean inside the conversation. 01:15:33 I mean, I don't know, you know, silicon people that do that. 01:15:38 You're not the houses and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the the, the the the the the. 01:15:44 What sort of information do we get in between these two lines, dialogues, 01:15:58 When she was a little bit on the air. 01:15:59 And I, I'm on the well we're getting, okay, so what we're, getting let's. 01:16:08 One, okay, one thing we can say is in the dialogue itself, we get a representation of a sort of loving caring soft. 01:16:18 Typical mother figure, right? Typical mother figure Mrs. Ramsey? Yes, of course we can go to the lighthouse, and then we get the more, also a very typical sort of tough. 01:16:29 Paternal, strict father saying, but it won't be fine So we've got that male female dichotomy but that's both. 01:16:39 That's in the dialogue, what I'm wondering about. 01:16:44 What's in here in the middle. 01:16:47 It's the same James is cutting paper. Okay, so we have information about the external world. 01:16:59 The objective world, we have one of the characters, james Ramsey, and he's doing something, he's cutting paper, he's, a, little, child, right, 01:17:09 And he's cutting pictures out of a magazine, okay, good. So that's one thing we get. 01:17:16 Information about activities in the real world, what else do we get. 01:17:23 In a restaurant. 01:17:27 I know. 01:17:29 It's in the first one. 01:17:31 He's in the National Society. 01:17:32 That James wanted to create one house at us as Alex. 01:17:40 TV about this you have for a while. Okay, so more, very good point. More generally, I could rephrase that and say we get information. 01:17:51 About James' feelings, we get external information about what James is doing. We get internal information about what James is feeling to her son. 01:18:02 These words conveyed an extraordinary joy, right? So we get his emotional state. 01:18:09 What else do we get. 01:18:12 Hello, mrs. Ram say, imagine that person will be in the future, we get information about Mrs Ramses mental activity. 01:18:21 But not her emotional state, but about her, sort of, her, her mind wandering, her imagination. Right, that's, towards, the, end, 01:18:31 So that his mother watching him, imagined him all in red and ermine on the bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise. 01:18:46 In some crisis of public affairs. So that's a mother looking at her son, and her, her little boy has this serious, face, so, she, thinks, oh, someday, 01:18:57 He'll grow up and he'll be a judge, or he'll be a, you know, he'll be a general, he'll be something important a mother fantasizing about herself. 01:19:06 I understand mothers do this good. So we've got internal information about James's emotional state, we have internal information about Mrs. Ramses mental activity we have external information about. 01:19:21 James as activities anything else. 01:19:30 And you're not the. 01:19:32 And it's, it's it. 01:19:34 How to. 01:19:39 You. 01:19:39 I think to be an inch, this was about, something about free plan that. 01:19:45 Since he belongs, even at the age of six, to that great clan, which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, it's not really about his lineage, but it's a good, it's a good one to look at what's going on in that? Underlines? 01:19:59 Text here. 01:20:00 Water. 01:20:03 Is that inside? No, that's it. That's a larry like. 01:20:09 The narrow, let's stick with that. So we also, we, we have internal? Emotional. State, 01:20:19 Of James Ramsey, we have internal intellectual activity or emotional state. Of Mrs. Ramsey, we have external action and we have. 01:20:29 Narratorial commentary. We have the voice of the narrator, right, since he belonged even at the age of six, to that great plan, which cannot, keep? This. Feeling, separate from. That, 01:20:41 But must let future prospects, with their sorrows and joyous, cloud but this action. This is the voice of the novel. 01:20:49 And it's giving us a sort of an analysis of of James's personality type, is is lineage is personality lineage right. 01:20:59 So the point I want to make here is we've got all of this different type. 01:21:06 Of text in between two lines of dialogue, and of course, our job is readers, is to sort of untangle that. 01:21:16 Right? And there's no marker to tell you what you're reading, right, there's no marker telling you, oh, now I'm, inside, now, i'm, outside, 01:21:25 Good how long does this conversation go on for. We've got a conversation, yes, of course, if it's. Fine tomorrow. 01:21:35 But you'll have to be up with the lark what, said his father. It won't be fine. How long does, this. Scene, last in. The, novel? 01:21:43 Take a guess. I mean, you probably don't know off the top of your head, but what do you think. 01:21:50 Oh, okay, in, in, in real I-I don't actually mean just these two lines but that's a good point the from the top of this page to the bottom of this page. 01:22:01 Probably 2 s real time, 01:22:04 She says something, he says something, it's over, but the narrative expands that time. What I mean is how many pages in the novel. 01:22:15 Does this conversation? Yes, it's fine. No, it's not fine. We'll go to the lighthouse. We won't go to the lighthouse, how, many, pages, does, that, conversation, last, 01:22:27 Take a guess, how many pages do you think this conversation goes on, 01:22:35 Ten. So we would look somewhere around. 01:22:40 Thank you for guessing. I always appreciate it. So we look somewhere, this is page eight, seven so around 17. 01:22:49 Um, perhaps you will wake up and find the sun shining and the birds singing, she said. So the conversation is still going on She's talking to James. 01:23:00 Um and then indeed, after easel over. 01:23:08 Give me. 01:23:08 And even if it isn't fine tomorrow, this is page. Even if it isn't fine, said tomorrow, said Mrs Ramsey it will be another day. 01:23:19 So still going on on page 24. I'll cut it short for you, it goes all the? Way, to? Page, 52? 01:23:27 Right. So in a way, if this is incredible, we're actually reading for 52 pages this sort of conversation? Between, mother? And, son? 01:23:39 About going to the lighthouse, and everything else in the story to that point fits in between these lines of dialogue? 01:23:48 It's right here. And that's the end, she said, the end, at the end of what, we'll talk about that in a minute, in, a, moment, he, would, ask, her, 01:24:00 Are we going to the lighthouse And she would have to say, no, not tomorrow Your father says, not right, that's, that's where this And then, happily, mildred came to fetch them. 01:24:11 Um and that's that's sort of the end of that scene page 5210 sections of the novel. It's a long chunk of text. 01:24:20 So, 01:24:22 Okay, I will show you one more thing that makes it very difficult. I'm just gonna go back to page ten. 01:24:34 Thank you. 01:24:38 At the. 01:24:38 Start page ten. 01:24:39 We get there'll be no landing at the lighthouse tomorrow, says Charles Pantry, clasped, clapping his hands together as he stood at the window with her husband. 01:24:50 So, 01:24:53 You've got sort of imagine the scene. 01:24:54 We have Mrs. Ramsey, 01:24:58 James and where are they. 01:25:03 They're at their vacation now, so they're kind of inside the house, but maybe there are some windows open onto the Paris and Mr Ramsey. 01:25:14 And Charles Tansley are outside, and they're having this conversation sort of inside outside. 01:25:21 Here, there will be no landing at the lighthouse tomorrow, said Charles Tansley. 01:25:27 She wished they would both leave her and James alone, and go on talking. She looked at him, he was such a miserable specimen the children said. 01:25:39 Then just go ahead and look in your book, look past that, what happens in terms of the time frame of the novel. 01:25:49 Right here, we're in the narrative present, right when he says There will be no landing at the lighthouse tomorrow we are on. 01:26:00 We're in this this one day. 01:26:03 What happens after this? Take a look. See if you can figure it out together. 01:26:18 Zhou. 01:26:34 Take a look at the top of page twelve, what's, what's going on there. 01:26:55 Is. 01:27:03 I'm. 01:27:13 The people. 01:27:14 I just mean, on a really basic level in terms of plot, what happens right here, um, 01:27:32 This rent. This rents he takes um adds me. To. 01:27:35 One parents is to carry back attention and, and she does it because she feels sorry for it, because nobody likes them, cause the guy's a jerk Right. 01:27:44 Does this happen in the narrative present, 01:27:48 No it's it's the middle of the conversation, mrs. Ramsey does not, get up, 01:27:58 And leave her son cutting things out and go into town and come back She is. Remembering. 01:28:06 She's remembering a previous occasion on which her children. 01:28:13 Um, he had followed her into the drawing room, that young man they laughed at. This is. In the past he had followed. 01:28:27 Past perfect right. She had a dull errand in town. Um blah blah blah blah blah. They go into town, they do some shopping, they talk about his life, they talk? About, the? circus. 01:28:40 Right. 01:28:41 Talk about some artists they see, which is interesting on page 14. 01:28:48 Charles stars and her eyes good to, blah blah blah blah blah. Then here too. No going to the lighthouse, james, he said as he stood by the window speaking awkwardly. 01:29:01 Trying to to lower his voice, odious little man, thought Mrs. Ramsey. Why go on saying that this is the narrative present. 01:29:10 This, as they walked up the street, she holding her parasol, charles Tansley felt an extraordinary pride. 01:29:20 This was some time in the past. 01:29:24 So that question of difficulty, oh, there it is, right? Wolf puts in a whole scene from the past and doesn't tell you why. 01:29:35 What, why do you think she does this, why would, why would this memory of the past be presented kind of on an equal plane. 01:29:44 With the present experience, 01:29:47 I think it's, it's been like angry. 01:29:50 A mouse though, here, because he seems like someone nobody would ever want to have a row. There's only one person who wants Charles tendency here Mr. Ramsey. 01:30:00 Mr. Romsy essentially lucky, 01:30:02 His, his, his, his junior colleague is, he's lackey Sure that's a good term but. So, so, why. 01:30:11 It it it gives us information about Charles Tansley you're right like. We learn things about Charles Tansley his, emotions he seems very unpleasant. 01:30:22 He is very unpleasant, but there's a reason for that, right? We learn about his background, but, but why does Wolfe just here's? The, present? 01:30:32 Here's like, right now, this moment, and then, oh, here's the past, i'm remembering Charles Tansley, and now I'm in the present again. Why, doesn't, charles, tansley, just, shut, up, 01:30:43 Right? Why would Wolf put the past and the present on the same level in her narrative. 01:30:54 Within that. 01:30:54 Mrs. Grams is mental state, like suddenly she heard that someone speaking, and always tensely, and that she just immediately remembered everything about. 01:31:07 If you think about that thing Wolf said in 1921, or essay, modern Fiction an? Ordinary, mind? 01:31:16 Receiving impressions and organizing them, well, I guess memories are an impression too, in, a way, 01:31:26 When, as we live our daily life, we remember things in the past. 01:31:33 But we remember them in the present, so our memories, wolf is implying, are part of our present. 01:31:42 Mind stick right, so if she's trying to write about what is happening inside. 01:31:51 Our minds as we live our daily life, of course, remembering the past is part of that, right. I sit here I teach you. 01:32:02 And at the same time, I sort of remember something that happened this morning. 01:32:09 And that like flashes into my mind, and then it's all right, but it's not separate. 01:32:16 More energy into the, 01:32:18 Does that I think that's a great answer. I think that's exactly what she's doing. She's saying the past and the present are not separate they're part of the same. 01:32:27 Mental present okay that. Does that make sense Okay. 01:32:36 Now that all of that is about the way the story is told, is there anything else we should say just about part one. 01:32:47 Is there anything else that struck you as interesting or unusual about the structure the narrative, the way the story is told. 01:32:56 The way it's organized. 01:32:58 We've got this exploded conversation, we've got the emerging of different textual levels, inside outside emotion thought memory. 01:33:11 It is. 01:33:12 The only other thing I would, I would point out is, you know one. 01:33:20 Starts here, right, part one, section one, and it goes. 01:33:29 And then chew is only this long, and then three. 01:33:36 Kind of middle life, and then four four is very long, so why any idea why would, why would Wolf be alternating. 01:33:47 These short and long number sections, what does it do. 01:33:56 I. 01:34:00 Zhou. 01:34:00 We have other short sections. 01:34:04 Most of them are quite long. 01:34:12 13 is quite short. 15, is that it? There we are. There's another 15 Yes said prove. 01:34:29 Considering way answer her mother's question, I think Nancy did go with them, just in a very general sense, what, what impact does it have hitting one of these very short. 01:34:40 What sort of effect does that have. 01:34:48 I feel like it drags you out from the dinner inner state of account, so snaps you out. 01:34:57 Right? Because we get, all of a sudden, we get lots of zoom out again. 01:35:01 We get lots of white paper surrounding it, we get the numbers. So maybe from, from a reading experience where we're kind of in the flow. 01:35:13 Of inner state of experience, of this sort of rhythm, and Virginia Wool famously said she writes to a rhythm. 01:35:24 Not a plot. So we're in this rhythm of language, and then all of a sudden we jump back up to the? Surface. With, this short. Little, section. 01:35:33 Good, any other ideas? What does it do. 01:35:37 What's that. 01:35:42 Just. 01:35:42 It kind of focuses us right I guess this this section becomes stronger because it's. It's separate right. Because, it's. 01:35:55 You know if this paragraph was just lost in pages, you know, it it would it would have the same impact. So for whatever reason she's highlighting that. 01:36:05 I. 01:36:07 Okay. 01:36:07 I also want to talk about inter textuality, which I'm sure you're all aware of. 01:36:16 Inter meaning between. 01:36:22 Text meaning book or or piece of writing. 01:36:28 Inter textuality so one of, one of the ways that modernist writers. 01:36:39 Try to organize or structure their work to give it meaning. Very typical is intellectuality. 01:36:50 So you have one book, a modern book, and it will refer. 01:36:54 To another text, very common, great example, james Joyce, ulysses. The title is textual. 01:37:04 Because James Joyce, 1922, ulysses that refers us directly to. 01:37:16 It, it's a volunteer. 01:37:18 Sorry, what's that mythal? Greek mythology and very specifically Homers, a Dcs, a Dcs and Ulysses same same thing. 01:37:28 Right, so did you notice any inter textuality in part one or two, the Lighthouse? Take a look, see if you, can, find, me, an, example, 01:37:39 Of inter textuality in Part One. 01:37:55 Zhou. 01:37:56 And then we'll take a quick break. 01:38:08 Ah. 01:38:08 Some point in the text un Wolf refers to another text. 01:38:23 Um, 01:38:25 I can. 01:38:27 I am. 01:38:34 I like. 01:38:35 Not to your question, public right, page nine zero. 01:38:40 So we could come right to the end of the passage. 01:38:50 And we could look here, this is at the end of the party with which. 01:38:59 The window opens right, we have this party, and we have. 01:39:05 Augustus car Michael had risen, holding his table napkin so that looked like a long, a long white robe. He stood chanting to see the kings go riding high over lawn and, daisy lead. 01:39:17 With their palm leaves and cedar sheaves, luriana Lurry lee. And as she passed him, he turned slightly towards her, repeating the last words Luriana lurily. 01:39:28 Good example. So as a reader, what do we need to do at this moment. 01:39:35 I mean, we don't need to, but we. We might want to. 01:39:48 You have a. 01:39:49 But we've got two choices. What can we do? One, we can just read it. 01:39:57 Oh. Or two, we can say, oh, well, what poem is this And we can go and read the poem, and we can think about what that poem means. 01:40:10 And then we come back to this novel and we say, oh, okay, well, how did the two, how did the two go together Is there any new meaning. 01:40:20 Generated by having this poem here. So this is the way inter textuality works you have text. 01:40:30 A, you have text B and sort of to come together and you get meaning. 01:40:40 A new meaning, a new idea, something develops. Good. Now that's a great example, thank you, but I'm gonna ignore Lary Ida Lurly, and I'm gonna. Give. Us? An. Easy one? 01:40:51 Okay, because that's a tough one, so let's look at it, an easy one. Let me look at the fisherman's wife Take a look at page 34. 01:41:01 And you'll see I've got marked with inter textuality there all right. 01:41:11 Great. 01:41:12 So there the, the inter text here is also. 01:41:19 And so, everyone. 01:41:22 Number. 01:41:22 Not that, as she read aloud the story of the fisherman, fisherman's wife, she knew precisely what it came from. 01:41:32 Yet, as the resonance died, and she turned to the fairy tale again, missus Ramsey felt not only exhausted in body, but also there pinged her physical fatigue, some faintly disagreeable sensation, with? another origin. 01:41:47 So on the level of plot, just external plot, what is Mrs. Ramsey doing in this scene. 01:41:55 She's reading a story aloud to her little boy, typical, right, a typical scene of a mother. 01:42:04 Reading to her child. Okay, what is she reading. 01:42:12 In delicious. 01:42:14 I. 01:42:14 A story of fairy tale called The Fisherman's Wife Now, do any of you happen to know the story of The Fisherman's Wife. 01:42:23 I'll just tell it to you really briefly it's a very famous fairy tale that was first collected by the Brothers, grim, the, brothers, grim, fairy, tales. 01:42:34 And it's a story about a fisherman, he goes to the beach and he finds A- A fish that's like up on the sand. 01:42:43 And the fish says, help me. Help me So he helps the fish, he throws it into the ocean, and the fish says, i'll give you anything you want you can have a wish And he says, no, I don't need anything, 01:42:54 You're a good fish go you know go swim and he goes home and he's very poor and his wife says what what do you mean? He didn't wish we need to be rich. 01:43:04 Go get that fish and ask for some money. So he goes back to the ocean, and he finds the fish again, and he says Oh look fish. 01:43:14 My, my wife wants some money, can we be rich? Oh, sure, no problem. So he goes home and they're, they're rich they live in a palace etc. 01:43:22 Is his, is his wife happy? No. So his wife says, okay, now we're rich, but we need to be powerful too. 01:43:33 We wanna be the king and queen so go back to the beach and and and get that fish again and make the fish so he goes to the beach and he says, i'm really sorry, fish, but my wife isn't happy. 01:43:43 She wants to be the king and queen now And the fish says, no, no problem. No problem. You can be the king and queen He goes back into the king and queen and his wife says, okay, no, it's not good enough, it's not good enough And he, says, what, do you mean, 01:43:56 Were the king and queen were rich, she says, I want to be, you know, I want to have control over nature, and the sun and the moon, I want to be equal to God. 01:44:05 So he goes back, he gets the fish, and he says, i'm really sorry, but my wife wants to be, you, know, equal, to, god, 01:44:13 And the fish says, okay, and they go back and they've lost everything, they're poor again, they're, not, you, know, 01:44:21 So it's a classic sort of fairy tale. Now notice how the meaning. 01:44:27 Text A to the Lighthouse Text B, the fisherman's wife How might these meanings go together? Just take a look right there. 01:44:45 I'm not, 01:44:51 It's not, 01:44:53 Because you're a. 01:44:55 There's no one spoke to. 01:44:56 So how might we how might we interpret this um well I was curious why. Why are you talking no doubt. 01:45:09 Very important, it's also reading the, the story of the, of, that, book, 01:45:14 The fisherman thought, I-I finished it and then i, found it quite interesting and the at the start the fisherman got the elder and? He was? Very upset. 01:45:23 And then there's not this whole thing where, oh, it goes from the house like a bigger house, it's a castle, and it's like, a palace, and then lost it, and then it goes back to the, coffee, and I felt like. 01:45:34 All that fluff in the middle was just officially imagining. 01:45:39 And then at at the end it was just, oh, you know, the wife says, it's okay we have it. 01:45:45 That's an unusual interpretation of the story, but okay, and it, and it kind of feels like you're involved. 01:45:53 Happening here, which is, it's kind of like how um, james wanted things to be. So first he she wants to go that says No it's just out that. 01:46:04 Like, I don't like you, alex. And then he's last, thinking, maybe it's possible for me and these, all these things, all these things in. The, middle? Of. The, people? Dangerous. 01:46:13 And in the end, it goes back back to where we are. Okay, interesting. That sounds like a deeper reading other than Look I-I need the basic reading first but okay that's an, interesting idea. 01:46:26 Fairy tales usually have, they're not, like Joseph Conrad, fairy tales have a very clear meaning inside like a nut. So what is the meaning of the fisherman's. 01:46:38 Be satisfied, don't be greedy. Learn when to start and who in the fisherman's wife. 01:46:48 Is greedy, unsatisfied, and doesn't know when to stop women, right so that's the sort of meaning of the fisherman's, wife, women, know, when, to, stop, 01:47:00 Don't push your husbands to, you know, blah blah How does that set over here compared, to, to, the, lighthouse, 01:47:09 Mr. Remsey takes the place of the wife who just is? Never, satisfied? 01:47:14 Mr. Ramsey is the one who is not satisfied. Look on the previous page this amazing scene. 01:47:26 In Section seven. 01:47:30 The stuff that I've highlighted here, i'll just zoom in so you can read it if you don't, have, a, copy, 01:47:40 So Mr. Rams is unhappy. Is dissatisfied. 01:47:44 He's walking along, and we get this scene. Nothing would make Mr. Ramsey move on. He, stood, there, demanding, sympathy, 01:47:57 Mrs. Ramsey, who had been sitting loosely, folding her son in her arm, braced herself and, half turning. Seemed to raise herself with an effort. 01:48:05 And at once, to pour erect into the air a rain of energy, a column of spray, looking at the same time animated and alive, as if all her energies were being fused into force. 01:48:19 Burning and illuminating quietly, though she sat, taking up her stocking again and into this delicious fecundity, this fountain, and, spray of, life, 01:48:30 The fatal sterility of the male plunged itself like a beak of brass bear and bear. 01:48:38 Who, what, what is the beak of brass barren and bear. 01:48:44 On bomb. 01:48:45 That's a sex scene, kids, that's a. That's a coded sex scene, isn't? It, 01:48:56 We have the mail with a beak of brass plunging, into? 01:49:03 The fountain of spray and energy. So on the one hand, it's a coded sexy? 01:49:11 Two, who is being generous here? Who is being giving, mrs. Ramsey? She's giving of her love, she's giving of her energy. 01:49:23 It's very abstract. It's another one of those scenes, like a BCD, it's hard to, but she's being warm, and, loving, mr, ramsey, is, being, demanded, 01:49:34 He wants, he wants, he wants, he's like Mr. Kurtz, he, wants, everything, right, 01:49:39 It was sympathy he wanted to be assured of his genius, and then to be taken within the, circle, of, life, 01:49:49 Warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored. So she's sort of taking, care, of him, 01:49:56 Then we turn the page. 01:50:00 Just the next page, and we get. 01:50:07 She's reading the fisherman's wife to her son, but she's feeling kind of. 01:50:12 Unhappy. 01:50:14 So do, do you see the way this inter textuality is working. 01:50:19 Does someone want to try to put that into words for me. 01:50:26 How is text A? Text B? What is the new meaning that is created. 01:50:31 For it's not just people. 01:50:38 I'm like, it doesn't mean I just I-I. 01:50:42 And I. 01:50:42 Sorry, I know we need a break. 01:50:45 In fact, we probably won't even do it great. We'll probably just wrap up on what, we, want, to, test, 01:50:50 We're getting close. Does anyone wanna try to put this, into, words, 01:51:00 The text day to the lighthouse says, what about men and women. 01:51:04 A woman. 01:51:09 Kids see and they slip in the manner of it. 01:51:12 Women keep giving, the men are unsatisfied. The when men want war, right. So in Mrs. Ramses Light, in the story of two the lighthouse. 01:51:20 We've got especially Mr. Ramsey, but we could say also Charles Tansley. We could say there are other men who are like this too who are demanding. 01:51:34 Sort of comfort and kindness and help from women, and there are other examples in the story, right, we, just, looked, at, one, 01:51:43 On page 33. But there are other examples like this, however, in the fisherman's, I mean, james, james needs, you, know, he's, 01:51:54 He's a boy, but he's a little man, and he wants his mother's attention. For 52 pages, she has, to, pay, attention, to, this, little, 01:52:03 Right. But in the story, in text be the fisherman's wife, we have A-A cultural text about. 01:52:13 Women being greedy? So what would, what would our new meaning be there. 01:52:20 It's kind of a reversal right it's it's it's the opposite. It's the idea that. 01:52:40 The personal experience of Mrs. Ramsey is. 01:52:46 That is is one thing, but the story, the very story she's reading to her son. 01:52:53 Is like an anti, an anti woman story, a misogynist story. So basically, this new meaning becomes what we might call kind of a feminist meaning. 01:53:03 Right? There's a feminist message coded in this inter textuality. 01:53:11 Do do you see it right? We have a woman, a mother and a wife, who does everything in her power to support. 01:53:20 The men and her family, but we have a story, which is about how awful and horrible and greedy women are. 01:53:28 And you put those two together, and you get like an opposite, like an irreconcilable situation, sorry, it looks like everybody feels great. 01:53:38 Sorry I'll shut up now take a break take a break, take. Just take a few minutes as you need. 01:53:45 I'm sure you're speaking. 01:53:47 I-I-I-I-I-I. 01:54:02 So far remember, it's called The Window it's one day, it starts with Mrs Ramsey reading to James. 01:54:11 It ends? How does part one end. 01:54:15 How does part one end. 01:54:18 A dinner party. 01:54:21 And we've got this question of unity or isolation, how are people together? But it starts during the daytime, it. Goes up. To. The dinner. 01:54:30 I just wanna say a few things about the structure about the novel, like Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness highly personal material. 01:54:40 Art of Darkness remember, is almost semi autobiographical. We could say the same thing about To the Lighthouse Ah, virginia Wolf wrote, this is going to be fairly short. 01:54:51 To the lighthouse. I don't know if it feels fairly short to you when you're reading it, to have father's character done complete in it, and mothers and St.. Ives and. Childhood. 01:55:00 And all the usual things, I try to put in, she wrote that in her diary in 1925, so basically the this is set. 01:55:10 To the lighthouses set on the Isle of Sky in Scotland but. 01:55:15 Actually, virginia Wolf spent her summers as a child in Cornwall. 01:55:22 In st., st. Ives, cornwall, you can visit it today, it's a beautiful part of the world, so she grew up in the summers in this house by. The ocean. 01:55:31 And in writing to the Lighthouse, she's really writing about her own childhood, right before her. Mother's. Death. 01:55:39 So she kind of view this novel as a form of allergy, that's the third point there. 01:55:47 An allergy is a type of poem you write in memory of the dead right, 01:55:54 So in a way, what she's trying to do is memorialize, particularly, her mother and her father, so we could draw. All these. Parallels. Between Mr. Ramsey. 01:56:05 And Sir Leslie Steven, and Julius Stevens, and Mrs, ramsey. 01:56:10 And Lily Grisco is a painter, just like her sister, vanessa, so she's really got a whole. Sort of family. In. There. 01:56:20 Um, we've talked about a lot of these sort of things already, so we'll move on now to time passes. This is from her diary again 1926 and. She wrote. 01:56:31 Yesterday I finished the first part of to the lighthouse, and today begin the second. I cannot make it out here is the. Most difficult. Abstract. Piece of. Writing. 01:56:42 I have to give an empty house, no people's characters the passage of time, all eyeless and featureless, with nothing to claim to well I rush at it and at once scatter out two pages. 01:56:53 Is it nonsense, is it brilliance? She doesn't even know herself if she's writing nonsense or brilliance, so you can decide what you think um. 01:57:03 Why am I so flown with words and apparently free to do exactly what I like? So I'm gonna ask you some questions. 01:57:10 The metal sort of shut me up. 01:57:12 So look, if you look at the start of. 01:57:22 Page. 01:57:24 A hundred and three, 01:57:31 No. 01:57:35 I think division. 01:57:36 Those are off one. 01:57:44 You. 01:57:46 Thank you. 01:57:48 The. 01:57:56 So you, you, you, you, you, you, you you. 01:57:59 So my first question is, as you can see here. 01:58:03 Give me a focus, 20 min, OK, where does this happen? Where does this connected. 01:58:11 Tell the person next you, I wanna shut up for a bit. 01:58:19 In. 01:58:20 I-I wanna SAY you. 01:58:22 It's gonna be a work. 01:58:26 And I'm very responsible. 01:58:27 So how how is there are the ten your most apartment in your gas and. It's one of the four. 01:58:35 And I have a number of experience again. 01:58:38 I'm I'm a. I'm a. 01:58:47 It would be the first man that I'll get, ha, ha ha ha. 01:58:54 You're. 01:59:00 I'll see you. 01:59:02 This is a different cuts and some of the documents that we're in. 01:59:08 Look, that's the way we have to talk to one after the first. 01:59:11 A book comes back and I'm I'm I'm I'm all about the booking on it. 01:59:19 Oh, you've been with you. 01:59:21 I'm sorry, I don't know, I really, you probably wanna be my sister. 01:59:27 So what do we think where's, where's the connection? Part one, the window ends, part two time passes starts. 01:59:36 How do they connect. 01:59:40 Um, the book. 01:59:41 The flood what. What do you mean by the flood. 01:59:48 Her mother has said to you that. 01:59:50 The increase the new schedule, 01:59:51 The the weather is going to get bad in part two. The weather is, not bad, 02:00:00 Right at the start of it because so not, not quite, I just mean, like, is there a gap. 02:00:08 Or does it go seamlessly part, you know, what's the relationship in? Terms of? Chronology. 02:00:15 How much of a gap? Well, according to the 2034. 02:00:21 Ten years no not ten years the ten year there is a ten year gap Dominic but. The ten. Year gap. Is between. 02:00:32 Here and here. So this is ten years. 02:00:35 But what I'm asking you about is just this moment right? Here. 02:00:43 I'm asking you about just that start right here when it says, well, we must wait for the future to show said Mr. Banks. Coming. In from. The. Terrace. 02:00:53 It's almost too dark to see, said Andrew coming up from the beach. How does that connect. To the. End part one. 02:01:02 So it's a. 02:01:05 You're welcome, 02:01:06 No, that happened earlier, the girl minted Doyle. They went to the beach before dinner to look for her brooch. 02:01:15 But you're you're getting close. What did everyone do after dinner. 02:01:21 It's, it's easy to miss these kind of details because there's so much. Text if. You. Just look. 02:01:32 And. 02:01:36 Page 94 at the end of section 18. 02:01:46 Um, 02:01:46 He said, we thought of going down to the beach to watch the waves This is after dinner, they've had their party Mrs Rams is very happy. 02:01:58 Has anyone got a watch? How I wish I could come with you she cried. 02:02:05 So, and then at this point, mrs. Ramsey goes upstairs, she says good night to the kids, she, she talks to her husband, and we have this strange thing, for she had Triumphed. 02:02:19 For she had triumphed again that's indoors Mr. And Mrs. Ramsey in their bed part Two time passes. 02:02:29 Well, we must wait for the future to sew. It's almost too dark, said Andrew, coming up from the beach. 02:02:34 Do we leave that light burning as they took their coats off indoors? No, said Prue, not of everyone's in. 02:02:42 So how much time has passed. 02:02:44 You are. 02:02:46 It could be a few hours that. That would be a long visit to the beach at night. 02:02:52 They finished dinner. The young people went outside. 02:02:58 To look at the beach. And then they looked at the beach, and they turned around and they came in. 02:03:06 So it could be only a few minutes, you know I-I think at most maybe half an hour you know how long do you look at the waves on a beach. 02:03:17 At night, not that long. So basically my first answer my question is. 02:03:25 In terms of narrative chronology, it comes immediately after. 02:03:30 As part one and part two starts, it's kind of seamless. Okay my second question. 02:03:46 And I'm not. 02:03:47 In time passes, there are really not many characters, I mean, there are some, and we'll talk about them but basically. 02:03:57 We don't have any people, you know, once we get onto number two, e.g. here. 02:04:03 There are no people here. What do we have instead of people. 02:04:12 Of characters, again, talk together. 02:04:18 I. 02:04:19 The two might three, 02:04:25 Thank you, thank you, thank you. 02:04:26 What replaces human character. 02:04:45 You know, the, the, the, the, the. 02:04:47 And how is anti the eyes, i'm sorry, imagery, OK, one possible answer, imagery. So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk in a thin rain drumming on the roof. 02:05:02 A down, here's the flood, A downpouring of immense darkness began. This flood is actually a flood of darkness. 02:05:09 Not bad weather yet, right. A down part of that darkness. So we've got this imagery of darkness Okay imagery What else. 02:05:19 What else do we have, instead of human characters, the house itself is talking to. 02:05:28 The house and the objects in the house which at times is talking or is communicating. The house is doing a lot of the things. 02:05:38 That a character would normally do so yes the house and the objects in the house. 02:05:43 What else? 02:05:48 N. 02:05:49 Anything else? 02:05:50 When you think of a human character, there usually the subject of an action. He played tennis. She. Read. To James. 02:06:03 Lily painted a picture, right. Take a look at some of the examples here. 02:06:10 A certain airs crept round corners and ventured indoors. 02:06:18 They entered the drawing room, questioning and wondering, toying with the. So what is the subject of the verb. 02:06:28 In those passages. 02:06:31 The little airs mounted the staircase. 02:06:42 One is in air. It's a. 02:06:47 Wind it's literally wind it it says it says right here um only through the rusty hinges and the swollen sea moist and woodwork Certain airs. 02:07:04 Detached from the body of the wind, crept round corners, so we've actually got nature. 02:07:09 Darkness, wind, later there will be waves and rain, you know. 02:07:17 So we've got the house itself and the objects in the house, we've got imagery, and we've got nature takes the sort of active role of the human character. Good question three. 02:07:27 Some parts of the text appear. 02:07:35 In square brackets. 02:07:42 Right? What do we find inside the square brackets? Talk together. What do we find inside the square brackets. 02:07:55 You. 02:07:57 What? 02:08:05 What sort of thing? I don't mean specifically. What sort of thing. 02:08:11 Oh, 02:08:13 Like this, it's the world. 02:08:15 I didn't, I didn't I didn't, I think that the right way that. 02:08:20 What sort of thing is it information about the imagery? Is it information about nature? Is it information about the house. 02:08:30 What are we getting there. 02:08:35 You, you may come up with that. 02:08:37 Yes, exactly. Characters. The main characters, the human beings, andrew, mr. Carr Michael. 02:08:47 And this a little more specifically, just to push it a little further, is there any particular type about the main characters that we're getting any particular type of information. 02:08:57 To. 02:08:57 Little Actions. Unimportant actions. 02:09:03 Can find updates, e.g.. 02:09:10 Simple. 02:09:10 Someone died, just somewhere to to Rency died, we've got death, we've got marriage, so updates, as you said, we get this? Key information? About the? Main characters. 02:09:25 Particularly. 02:09:26 Here page hundred and five. 02:09:32 Mr. Ramsey, stumbling along a passage, stretched his arms out one dark morning But Mrs. Ramsey, having died rather suddenly the night. 02:09:44 Before he stretched his arms out, they remained empty, so Mrs. Ramsey just died, right? The main character of part one? Of the? Novel just? Died. 02:09:57 Inside of square brackets, right, we what other, what other big things do? We have? 02:10:06 Go back to. 02:10:07 True, ramsey, leaning on her father's arm, was given in marriage that night. What people said could have been more fitting, and. They. Added how. Beautiful she looked. 02:10:23 Mrs. Ramsey dies. True Ramsey, one of the daughters gets married. What's the next thing. 02:10:29 She died. 02:10:31 Same page programs. He died that summer, okay. 02:10:37 In some illness connected with child birth, which was indeed a? Tragedy. 02:10:42 So the point is, here, there's a real inversion. 02:10:48 In a typical narrative, a traditional narrative, stories of marriage and death in the family, that's the. Main content. Of. The story. 02:11:00 Right? That's what the whole novel is about, and instead Virginia Wolf is packing it into the square brackets. What's the other big thing. that happens in square brackets in this section. 02:11:11 There's one other big piece of news. 02:11:16 They're pretty young, and they're not. 02:11:18 Including Andrew Azi. So we've got World War One is happening during time passes we have this great war. 02:11:29 And Andrew Ramsey is killed with 20 or 30 other young men, by a shell blowing up, and that too appears in square brackets. 02:11:39 Just for the record, one thing that's always puzzled me, and so this is like a genuine, I have no idea, and no one has ever answered this to the best. Of my knowledge. 02:11:49 If Pru Ramsy is getting married in May. 02:11:53 How does she die of illness connected with childbirth in the, summer, 02:12:02 Die much later. 02:12:03 May June July August. 02:12:07 September October November December January February That's not the sun I guess. It could be. The, next summer. 02:12:15 So, so it's, as summer neared this, 02:12:20 The concept that it doesn't have to be, well, no, but I don't know, this whole paragraph is about the summer, I don't know I think it's a little funny. 02:12:30 I think it's possible, one, virginia Wolf just lost track of time, or two true Ramsey. 02:12:38 Has been misbehaving I don't know I just honestly no one has ever I've never seen anyone talk about this. Hundreds. Of people. Have. Written books. About. 02:12:50 This, she could be fooling this, this is the, it could be, anyhow, that's a genuine question that you can try to answer. If. You want. Okay. 02:13:00 Next question. 02:13:02 Take a look at Mrs. Ramsey's death, 02:13:12 It's a real. 02:13:14 What's the. 02:13:17 Thank you. 02:13:18 No, I'm, i'm just gonna skip that question, 02:13:21 Look at this one. 02:13:32 Please. 02:13:33 I-I-I. 02:13:34 The ending of this section, we'll just, we'll just focus on that. 02:13:45 No. 02:13:45 In spring garden urns casually filled with wind, bone plants were gay as ever, violets came and daffodils, but the stillness and the brightness of. The. Day were. Strange. As. 02:13:59 Chaos and tumble to the night, with the trees standing there and the flowers standing there, looking before them, looking up, yet beholding. Nothing I list. And. Thus terrible. 02:14:08 What's so terrible about flowers. 02:14:22 Okay. 02:14:24 Very modern. 0

Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse - A Detailed Overview PDF

Document Details

Tags

Related

Summary

Full Transcript

Upgrade to continue