Modernist Themes in Virginia Woolf's Orlando

Résumé du document

To what extent does the extract between page 95, paragraph 3, and page 97 of Virginia Woolf's Orlando demonstrate the formal characteristics and thematic concerns of literary modernism?

Extraits

[...] (2012). Modernist Manifestos. In S. Greenblatt The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Twentieth Century and After (Volume F). (pp. 2056-2058). London: W. W. Norton & Company Ltd. Ronchetti, A. [...]

[...] The last formal characteristic worth mentioning in the extract, which can be categorised as modernist, is that of an aggressive tone, which can be viewed in the exclamations: "Horrid Sisters, go " and "THE TRUTH " (Woolf p.97). Such an aggressive tone in the narrative is consistent with the tones expressed by most modernist writers in their texts, as Levenson substantiates in affirming that: "By temperament as well as by their cultural position, the English modernists were inclined to definitive opinions expressed in vehement tones" (Levenson p. [...]

[...] Rainey, L. (2005). Introduction. In L. Rainey Modernism: An Anthology. (pp. xix-xxix). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Ramazani, J. & Stallworthy, J. [...]

[...] This immediately presents issues as to why the metropolis would be a modernist theme, if it is dominated by the values of an obsolete literary movement, although it is worth bearing in mind that the character, Orlando, is in an urban setting in the extract, specifically Constantinople. Therefore, when the three spirits abandon Orlando, and hence the city, this point in the novel could effectively represent the retreat of Victorian-realist morality from the metropolitan and the subsequent emergence of modernism. [...]

[...] Reinforcing this claim, Ronchetti states: "As a psychobiography, the book explores the nature of sexual and personal identity . her experience of her sex change, her personal development, and the search for an authentic self at its end" (Ronchetti pp.81-82). In conclusion, although the formal characteristics of the extract provide an extensive insight into how it might be considered as modernist, it is undoubtedly the thematic concerns which grant it this classification. In particular, it is the theme of sexual identity and gender roles which ties in with the definitively modernist notion of development by highlighting how the development of one's self bears equal importance to that of science and technology. [...]