Virginia Woolf and the Poetry of Fiction

Book excerpt: Originally published in 1990, Virginia Woolf and the Poetry of Fiction, provides a stylistic study of the fiction of Virginia Woolf. The book examines what is generally described as a ‘traditional novel’, examining such works as Jacob’s Room, and the way in which meaning is nonetheless conveyed poetically. The book argues that her early novels, are shown to contain writing of considerable sophistication and maturity and how her major works of fiction are approached in a more specific way: Mrs Dalloway through its poetic rhythms, To the Lighthouse as a multi-perspectival exploration of a reality embodied in a single image, and The Waves as a play-poem.