（英语语言文学专业论文）革新之路.pdf

革 新 之 路 the path of innovation on the form of virginia woolfs novels of stream of consciousness 专业:英语语言文学 姓名:杨兴松 导师:叶华年 教授 摘 要 作为意识流文学的代表人物弗吉尼亚伍尔夫不满足于老一代现实主义作 家的成就决心另辟蹊径投身于小说和艺术的改革之中探索新的文学表现形 式并取得了辉煌的成绩本论文以她的两篇意识流短篇小说墙上的斑点和 邱园记事为起点探寻她的文学创作道路分析了她的最有影响的三部意识 流作品达洛威夫人到灯塔去和浪以反映她的理论倾向对小说形 式的不懈的追求和对现代文学的贡献本文探讨了这三部小说的具体表现形式之 间的联系以及她不断探索新形式的内因弗吉尼亚伍尔夫的每一部小说的表 现形式都与其前一部小说的形式相联系但又不是简单的重复而是对小说主题 表现的升华通过分析本文揭示了弗吉尼亚伍尔夫始终遵循着音乐和绘画中 的美学原则的同时在创作过程中不断扬弃和创新的探索之路 abstracts virginia woolf is an outstanding representative of the school of stream of consciousness in both america and england. she was not satisfied with the achievements of the realistic novelists of the older generation. determined to blaze a new trail to explore new styles of literary representation and devoting all her life to the reform of novel and the innovation of art, she has made great contributions to the development of western modernist literature. the thesis takes her first two short stories “the mark on the wall” and “kew gardens” as the starting point, traces the path of her literary creation, analyzes the forms of her three most influential novels of stream of consciousness mrs. dalloway, to the lighthouse, and the waves with a view to reflecting her theoretical predilection, her stubborn pursuit of significant form and her contribution to modernist literature. through the analysis, the thesis points out that the form of her each novel is always closely related to that of her previous novel and is the improved representation of her favorite theme. exploring the concrete relationships between her three novels of stream of consciousness, the thesis arrives at the conclusion that virginia woolf, while following the line of creative aesthetic value existing in painting and music, always innovated the form of her novel to convey her subject matter in a better way. 1 chapter 1 life and work of virginia woolf virginia woolf is a famous british experimental novelist, critic, short story writer and essayist of the twentieth century. she had conscientiously studied european cultural heritage and found that the achievements of the realistic novelists of the old generation were not satisfactory, so she was determined to blaze a new trail to explore new styles of literary representation and gained outstanding achievements. just like james joyce, the famous master of stream of consciousness, she devoted all her life to the reform of novel and the innovation of art. she applied successfully the techniques of stream of consciousness to portray the inner world of characters almost at the same time as james joyce, which won her worldwide reputation as an outstanding representative of the school of stream of consciousness in both america and england. virginia woolf has made great contributions to the development of western modernist literature, and occupies an important position in the western literary history. adeline virginia woolf was born at hyde park gate in london in 1882. her father was sir leslie stephen, a philosopher, autobiography writer and publisher. her mother was a gentle, refined and kind woman with exuberant sensibility. she had an important influence upon virginia woolf in her childhood, and her death hurt virginia woolf deeply and caused her first breakdown at the age of 13. on the death of her father in 1904, virginia woolf suffered a spiritual blow again. afterwards she moved with her brother thoby and sister vanessa to bloomsbury, where they gathered around them the bloomsbury set of writers and artists, including t. s. eliot, katherine mansfield and leonard woolf, who married virginia in 1912. in 1917, virginia woolf and her husband set up the hogarth press, which contributed much to spreading modernist works. virginia woolfs literary creation began during the first world war. her first two novels, voyage out (1915) and night and day (1919), are fairly conventional in form, but her short story collection monday or tuesday (1921) published immediately after and her third novel jacobs room(1922) showed she had begun her exploration and experiment in theme, form and technique of novel, which “launched her as a highly innovative writer”. 1 in fact, before the publication of her second novel night and day, 2 she had already published some experimental short stories in which she made some experiments of new forms. at the same time as night and day (1919) was written, she wrote the story “the mark on the wall”, her first work using the technique of stream of consciousness and an indication that she began to break with the conventional style of the third person narration showed in her two early novels voyage out and night and day 2 mrs. woolfs second influential short story of the stream of consciousness is “kew gardens”, published in 1919. in writing the two short stories, she racked her brains to catch “the moment of importance” and “moments of being”, and developed a kind of unique technique of stream of consciousness. her modernist approach invented and experimented in writing the short stories, such as interior monologue, poetic symbolism and the emphasis on character as opposed to plot was further developed in her later novels: mrs. dalloway (1925), to the lighthouse (1927), the waves (1931) and the posthumously published between the acts (1941). with the publication of the novels of stream of consciousness, mrs. woolfs position as a representative of british modernist literature and novels of stream of consciousness was firmly established. in the decade from 1922 to 1931, virginia woolf was astonishingly productive. she published five major novels, a collection of essays and a pathbreaking work about women and fiction. by the end of the decade, she was successful and famous. but the most astonishing thing about her works in these ten years is that each of her books differed in most basic ways from the others. each work was a new experiment, innovatory in form, fundamentally changing the rules of the fictional game. 3 during these ten years and the decade after, mrs. woolf led a peaceful life. nothing hindered her from working except occasional attacks of periodic mental depression. every day she lived in creative work and imagination, positively writing or rewriting her books, or making plan for her next book. the breakout of the second world war made mrs. woolf feel extremely pessimistic and depressed. the raid of german air force against london completely ruined her dwelling and hogarth press, which led her to doubt the so-called western civilization and began to worry about the destiny of mankind. at the same time she felt so exhausted and tired after she devoted all her energy and mentality to her literary career and underwent longtime tension that she could not stand the pressure of life and work any longer. on march 28, 1943, she drowned herself in a river. 3 virginia woolf is not only a distinct novelist of stream of consciousness, but also a famous critic. she published about 300 sketches, reviews and critical essays all her life, which expounded exhaustively her thought about the reform of modern novel and the theory of stream of consciousness. she argued fiercely with three representatives of realism: bennet, wells and galsworthy and challenged their conservative, inflexible and outdated style. she was severely critical of them because “she is not interested in reproducing the visible world with photographic exactitude.”4 she did not maintain “that the novel is supposed to be a social commentary, an illustrated story or a piece of decoration”.5 she thought that conventional realistic novel was like minutes of odds and ends, which was empty, dull and boring. the characters of conventional realistic novel were often stiff, insubstantial, leaving hardly any sense of reality upon readers. mrs. woolf denied the achievements of english conventional novel since the 18th century and denounced severely its formularized pattern of presentation. she discarded the conventional approach to novels writing and began to explore seriously the theme, form and technique of modern novel. in the upheavals of the early 20th century, western civilization had begun to decline and the traditional social structure was collapsing, social life underwent radical changes, and a sense of crisis and terror of life loomed large in peoples mind, with the result that the sentiments and spirits of modern people in the west changed greatly and diverged farther and farther from those of older generations. mrs. woolf keenly realized the change and thought that modern writers should not turn a blind eye to the increasingly severe alienation, disenchantment and disillusionment and remain indifferent. they should resort to every means to reflect their real moods and activities of their mind, even at the cost of splitting with conventions and rules of realist novels. in “modern fiction ”and “mr. bennet and mrs. brown”, mrs. woolf pointed out that: by 1910, a kind of crystallization of taste had taken place; with the roll of a few more years, there occurred a radical change in mens whole system of reference to the world and reality; as the twentieth century advanced, it became increasingly difficult to define reality purely in terms of the visible, external world just as wells, bennet and others did, because the effect of these changes was felt in all the spheres of intellectual life. 6 she said to her contemporaries vehemently: 4 look within and life, it seems, is very far from being “like this.” examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. the mind receives a myriad impressions trivial, fantastic, evanescent or engraved with the sharpness of steel. from all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of monday of tuesday 7 obviously, here, mrs. woolfs view of life and reality constitutes the basic features of novels of stream of consciousness. just like the works of james joyce, mrs. woolfs works fully embody her creative principle that much importance should be attached to soul rather than body, to subjective sensation rather than objective things, to psychological time rather than physical time. in writing her novels of stream of consciousness, she often overlooked or ignored the concrete details of daily life and objective reality and took pains to describe characters variable and erratic intellectual life in perspective, to “look within” “an ordinary mind”, which is the core of her works. in her view, only by adequately reflecting characters complex psychological structure and closely following their soul can novels appear true and believable. mrs. woolf cherished the belief that it is not the actual and the visible but the probable and the hidden that is real and true, and that it is only in a moment that a novelist can catch a glimpse of this reality and truth. 8 on the whole, mrs. woolfs fiction shows a constant urge for experiment in forms, because she wanted to explore human motive and conduct, revolutionize peoples conception of “reality” and reform the novel so as to relate it to the intellectual and esthetical currents of the day. her works are the embodiment of a relentless search not only for technique but also for subject matter due to the very distinctive quality of her beliefs and experiences. that is why every novel that she wrote was a departure from its predecessor. she thought that the function of a novelist lay in exploring fresh materials and devising new forms. here lies the reason why i do my research on mrs. woolfs novels. david garnett pointed out in “in recollections of virginia woolf” that virginia woolf “was never satisfied to repeat herself but was always experimenting and developing”. 9 looking into the whole process of mrs. woolfs creative career, we can find it is so indeed. her first short story “the mark on the wall” (1917) reveals a mind given to speculation and fantasy. her second one, “kew gardens” (1919) focuses on the visual and the painterly. 5 these two short stories, in combination with “an unwritten novel” (1920), contained the seed of her future novels. then she began to deal with what she called “the important and lasting side of things and not with the passing”. she invented for her novels one new form after another derived from painting and music. out of the nine novels virginia woolf wrote, three are considered to be maturer. they are mrs. dalloway, to the lighthouse and the waves. my dissertation will take mrs. woolfs short stories of stream of consciousness as the starting point of her exploration to trace the path of her creation of novels, and analyze the three novels, with a view to reflecting her theoretical predilection, her stubborn pursuit of significant form and her contribution to modernist literature. notes 1 preface to mrs. dalloway, (london: penguin books ltd, 1996). 2 伍厚恺. 弗吉尼亚 伍尔夫存在的瞬间成都 四川人民出版社1999 年版第 140 页 3 john mepham, virginia woolf: a literary life, the macmillan press ltd, 1991, p. 91 4 s. p. mittal, the aesthetic venture: virginia woolfs poetics of the novel atlantic highlads n. j.: humanities press, 1985, p. 8 5 ibid. 6 ibid. 7 virginia woolf, modern fiction, the norton anthology of english literature, fourth edition, edited by m. h. abrams, (new york-london: w. w. norton the steady film of yellow light up on the page of my book; the three chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl on the mantelpiece. yes, it must have been the winter time, and we had just finished our tea, for i remember that i was smoking a cigarette when i looked up and saw the mark on the wall for the first time. 1 from this passage we can find “i” begins her recollection by using words such as “remember”, “think of “, “must have been”. these words will easily lead us into the inner world of “i”. then “i” goes on with her daydream or reverie. when “i” sees “the burning coals”, “i” thinks of “the cavalcade of red knights”. but “i” concentrates her attention on the mark on the wall which “was a small round mark, black upon the white wall, about six or seven inches above the mantle piece”. as the identity of the mark itself is not yet ascertained at this moment, it is thought-provoking. it leads the thought of “i” to run wild. at first, “i” thinks it “was made by a nail”, which leads “i” to guess about the picture that may have hanged on it. following the thoughts, “i” associates the picture with the landlords taste of art and the reason he moves away. later, “i” directs her attention back 7 to the mark and doubts the reliability of her guess. “i” feels that it is not made by a nail because “its too big, too round, for that”. “i might get up, but if i got up and looked at it, ten to one i should not be able to say for certain.” at this, “i” cannot help heaving a sigh: “oh! dear me, the mystery of life; the inaccuracy of thought! the ignorance of humanity!” after musing on life, ones own possessions, and the casual, haphazard fate of people, “i” turns back to the mark again. “i” guesses the mark “is not a hole at all”. it may be caused by some round black substance, such as a small rose leaf. when “i” looks at the dust on the mantelpiece, “i” thinks of ancient troy, shakespeare, charles the first, sunday afternoon walk in london. “i” jumps from “botany” to “mirror”, from “mirror” to “rules”, and “the masculine point of view”. “i” hopes one may send all those into the dustbin, “leaving us all with an intoxicating sense of illegitimate freedom.” when “i” turns her attention back to the mark for the third time, “i” feels it is circular, “to project from the wall”. then the image of a tomb comes into the mind of “i”, and it leads to a track of thoughts about an antiquary. but “i” feels it seems to be “the head of a gigantic old nail”, from which “i” visualizes “ a very pleasant world” without policemen, modern knowledge. at the moment, “i” must jump up and see for myself. what that mark on the wall really is a nail, a rose-leaf a crack in the wood? (p147) from “wood” “i” thinks of natures “old game of self-preservation”, trees, and nature full of life. wood is a pleasant thing to think about. it comes from a tree; and trees grow, and we dont know how they grow . even so, life isnt done with; there are a million patient, watchful lives still for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on pavement, lining rooms, where men and women sit after tea, smoking cigarettes. (p148) while “i” is lost in the thoughts about the meaning of life and seeks some revelation, the thoughts get confused: “where was i? what has it all been about? a tree? a river? the downs? whitakers almanack? the fields of asphodel? i cant remember a thing. everythings moving, falling, slipping vanishing .” just at this moment, “there is a vast upheaval of matter, someone is standing over me and saying:” im going out to buy a newspaper. yes? 8 though its no good buying newspaper . nothing ever happens. curse this war; god damn this war all the same, i dont see why we should have a snail on our wall.”(p149) the voice and curse make “i” come back to reality. “i” realizes suddenly: “ah the mark on the wall! it was a snail.” with the final realization, “the moment of importance” which brings up one stream of thoughts after another comes to an end. “the mark on the wall” is an attempt to describe the mental life by using free association. it is a typical work of stream of consciousness. the character has no relations with the outside objective world except the mark on the wall, which becomes a medium linking the characters thoughts to the world, and a bridge connecting one track of thoughts to another. the description of the psych