Virginia Woolf


Virginia Woolf had an interesting life, one filled with mental illness and self-discovery. Her writing was shaped by her surroundings and life experiences which made her pieces raw and often lost on the average reader. The article I read about loneliness and creativity brought greater detail to Virginia Woolf’s work and her life as a whole. The article explains that solitude helps unlock the deeper creative pockets of the mind as you’re able to shut out the influence of others. Loneliness is bad for the mind however it brings it to a dark unsheltered place, one where you want nothing more than to crawl out and feel again. There is a difference between being alone and being in solitude. Being alone is the feeling you have no one there is not a single person coming to offer you any sort of comfort and the mind gets trapped here punishing itself constantly in an effort to escape. Solitude is something different while you are alone you’re alone by choice there are still people in your life who care for you and that you can escape back to, it just allows for the mind to be free and explore creative paths. Virginia however explains that it is that dark uncontrollable loneliness that fuels the best work, the most raw pieces come from a mind that has no place to go, one that is trapped in its own terror. The second article I read was dealing with diaries and their use as a writing tool. From the age of 33 until her death Virginia Woolf kept diaries and these were later published. A diary is a great place to practice the art of writing and perfect a style while also exploring ideas. Woolf also used her diary as an autobiographical tool often writing to her future or past self. Woolf’s writing was really shaped by her mental struggles and her willingness to break down barriers. She perfected this in her diaries where she wrote her thoughts and played with her ideas until something more true was born.

Comments

  1. Colette RouillerApril 22, 2019 at 6:16 AM

    Nick, I really enjoyed your perspective on Virginia Woolf's solitude. I also picked up on her allusions to solitude in her writing despite reading different articles, although I do think that her isolation was more imposed by her suffering of mental illness rather than deliberate suffering for the sake of her art. I also read the article on keeping a diary, and thorougly enjoyed it.

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