The Art of English - Assignment Example

? Creative Writing Tuesday May 28th (1929) Now about this book, The Moths [the initial working for what became The Waves]. How am I begin to it? And what is it to be? I feel no great impulse: no fever; only a great pressure of difficulty. Why write it then? Why write at all? Every morning I write a little sketch to amuse myself. I am not saying, I might say, that these sketches have any relevance. I am not trying to tell a story. Yet perhaps it might be done in that way. A mind thinking. They might be islands of light – islands in the stream that I am trying to convey: life itself going on. The current of the moths flying strongly this way. A lamp and a flower pot in the centre. The flower can always be changing. But there must be more unity between each scene than I can find at present. Autobiography it might be called. How am I going to make one lap or act, between the coming of the moths, more intense than another; if there are only scenes? One must get the sense that this is the beginning; this is the middle; that the climax – when she opens the window and the moth comes in. I shall have two different currents – the moths flying along; the flowers upright in the centre; a perpetual crumbling and renewing of the plant, In its leaves she might see things happen. But who is she? ... Virginia Woolf After reading passages such as this where the only human is simply described as ‘She’ and does nothing more than open a window, one can agree with Kronenburg ( as quoted by Liukkonen 2008) who claimed that Woolf was not concerned about her human characters but rather, ‘the poetic symbols, of life--the changing seasons, day and night, bread and wine, fire and cold, time and space, birth and death and change.’ This is a description of a purely internal process – no one watching would be able to guess what was going on unless they read over her shoulder. And even then they might ask ‘What’s she going on about?’ This lack of physical action has an effect upon the minds of readers – they are more used to stories with a beginning, a middle and an end – stories about people’s actions, achievements or disappointments, but Woolf seems much more concerned with the mind’s inner workings – thoughts, sensations, emotions, and often people find this harder to deal with. This would be especially so if they aren’t themselves as introspective, aren’t so concerned with why one acts in a certain way as in the action itself. She intends to write a novel yet says ‘ I am not writing a story’ – how can a novel not be a story? Virginia Woolf has had two books of her diaries published. This selection comes from ‘A Writer’s Diary’ and was edited by her husband Leonard. She was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in 1882, so was 47 at the time of this entry. The other work considered is by a soldier and prisoner of war. Both writers are Londoners, but John Mansel on the other hand was 32 when he wrote so they are almost, but not quite, of the same generation and background. John Mansel (1909- 1974) trained as an architect , but joined the Territorial Army in 1935. His diaries cover the period of his interment in Germany as a prisoner-of-war during the 2nd World War. There were huge differences between their lives – not least that Woolf was permanently scarred by childhood sexual interference. Both came from financially secure backgrounds.- Mansel senior was a stockbroker. He had attended both school and university and had professional qualifications - Virginia Woolf had never been to any kind of school. Mansel’s diary only covered the war years, whereas Woolf was a full time professional writer whose works, although not the easiest to read, were read widely. Mansel’s writing was presumably meant of only private consumption, at least in the first instance, although he is careful not to mention names, probably in case of causing offence. It was not published until a few years after his death. They each use the diary form in different ways. Woolf seems to be using it as preliminary notes for her latest work. ‘Now about this book’. She presumably did not edit her writing, and writes hurriedly, as on occasions she uses somewhat hurried, awkward grammar. ‘How am I begin to it? Her piece is quite introspective and melancholy. She would of course later commit suicide. She had suffered from mental breakdowns ever since the sudden death of her mother in 1895 when Woolf would have been only in her early teen years. This was despite the fact that she did not have a good or close relationship with her. ‘Can I remember being alone with her for more than a few minutes’ she once asked.( Liukkonen , 2008). She would have a number of further breakdowns over the years; in particular a very extended period of mental fragility followed the death of her brother in 1906 when she would have been in her mid twenties. She is described on the web site of the Virginia Woolf Society as coming from a family considered to be among “the ‘intellectual aristocracy' of Victorian England” being related to the novelist Thackeray and with her father having edited the prestigious Dictionary of National Biography. Yet here, in May 1929, she seems, at least temporarily, to be despairing of her self appointed task . Like so many professional writers she does not necessarily wait for inspiration, but writes without any great urge to do so at times. ‘I feel no great impulse: no fever;’ This isn’t exactly ‘writer’s block’ but the work obviously isn’t coming easily. As yet the format is not fixed, only vague ideas are mentioned. She experiences no blinding flash of genius, ‘only a great pressure of difficulty.’ This piece describes events that are unfamiliar to most people. Only professional writers who have struggled to start an important extended piece of writing will be able to empathize, and even then they are unlikely , even if they are practiced novelists, to be writers in a similar modernist, stream of consciousness piece , so even they may struggle to understand Woolf’s thought patterns. Mansel’s piece also describes a situation few of his readers will have experienced - being a prisoner, cut off from family and normal activities for an unknown period of time. On the other hand many of us have lived for an extended period with people we find irritating and even unpleasant in their personal habits and mannerisms. This could be families where both young people and their parents find the habits of the others annoying. It could be in a college hall of residence where there is someone who always eats your food from the fridge, burns pans and refuses to put the rubbish out. Humming is irritating , but not as bad as playing bad ‘music’ very loudly at 2 am. Perhaps readers have served in the armed services where they have to put up with the one person who lets the side down every time, or who snores loudly in a shared sleeping quarters. Any or all of such readers will be able to sympathize with Mansel in his close confined and minutely described irritation. Woolf goes on’ Why write it then? Why write at all?’ Like so much of Woolf’s writing these few words expose her inner conflicts. She has chosen writing as a career, yet questions why she does it. Why does anyone write? In part to express themselves, in part to achieve recognition for their talents, and often, at least in part, in order to pay bills. In Woolf’s case she felt that writing had been too long the province of males. Literature had in the main been a male creation ‘ made by men out of their own needs for their own uses’. As described by Liukkonen ( 2008) she therefore argued for a change – both in the authors and in their styles In Mansel’s case he may have just been passing time or have been trying to document an important period in his life, and that of millions of others - by making a record of his War experiences. Had he actually been fighting would he have kept a diary? - it is less likely that it would have been consistent due to the pressure of events. Entries might well have been shorter. Perhaps he was merely relieving his boredom – one more way in which to fill empty hours. It may be that by describing the things which irritated him he was better able to deal with his difficulties -writing about someone stroking their moustache, or dressing slowly, reveals to the writer how very trivial and unimportant such things really are. He was of course living under very confined conditions – having to share a room with a number of people he might well not have chosen as friends, but whom he was forced to mix with over a very extended period, with no option, no apparent possibility of release fro a very long time. His companions were to be tolerated because there was no alternative. Woolf had in her self imposed isolation plenty of opportunities of going out for a walk in the park, seeing friends, receiving visits, going to dinner, buying a new frock and all the other activities of everyday life. She had her husband and family – yet she continued to write at great length and seemingly preferred to remain in her room. Despite the fact that this was her own choice she puts into the mouth of Sally in Mrs Dalloway ‘What can one know even of the people one lives with every day? she asked. Are we not all prisoners?’ so perhaps there are more links between her and John Mansel than are first obvious. Lopez ( 2000) cites a description of her as an workaholic. Her husband has described her work habits 'Leonard has said that of the sixteen hours of her waking life, Virginia was working fifteen hours in one way or another.' ( John Lehman quoted by Lopez ,2000) who describes her personality as often shy and awkward. She found even shop assistants difficult to deal with. Lopez states that friend Elizabeth Bowen claims that Woolf could convey enjoyment – she would whoop like a child, but apparently could also be very malicious, making remarks that hurt. Perhaps it was safer to escape to the vague world of her books. It is believed (Anon 1999) that ‘The Waves’ - the later title of ‘The Moths’, is set in St Ives where Woolf spent idyllic childhood holidays with her family. It takes the form of a series of soliloquies from a group from their childhoods into adulthood. The writing was affected by the death of Virginia’s older brother Tholby. This style of writing is often described as ‘stream of consciousness’ i.e. the expression of thoughts and emotions in a long continuous narrative as had been done in ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce, another 20th century modernist novel. It is perhaps a somewhat strange choice considering that Woolf had refused to publish the early chapters of that work (Liukkonen 2008). She did not warm to Joyce’s use of dashes as punctuation, and described the work as an ‘ illiterate, underbred book … of a self taught working man.’ Surely to have succeeded as a self taught person is to worthy of praise, but Woolf makes it a negative quality - and she herself had no formal schooling at all – good or bad. Ireland quoted by Maggio ( 2008) says that her criticism was evidence perhaps of her sense of middle class superiority. Yet in 1925 she set, what is perhaps her best known novel, ‘Mrs Dalloway ‘ in a single day, just as Joyce had done. Maggio ( 2008) points out how, in September 1922 , she admitted that she had not read the work with care and had her ‘back up on purpose’ – she was after all writing in a competitive world – the person who bought ’Ulysses’ might not have cash left to buy one of her books. Note that Mansel was the ‘camp forger’. Presumably he did not want such actions to be discovered. A man who was daily writing in his diary would be less suspect if found writing, than one who did not normally pick up pen or pencil His diary could be a cover, rather than the pouring out of angst as seen in Woolf’s piece. Some of her diary entries are more descriptive as when on 6th September1939 she described her first air raid, but even then the description soon changes to such things as her asking herself ‘Am I a coward?’ Mansel’s language reflects the period of writing, the mid 20th century– he talks about a ‘twirp.’ A man plays at ‘Patience’ rather than with an electronic game. Smoking is mentioned and book reading – anything in print being consumed avidly. One can imagine a number of men sharing a room – several bunk beds perhaps, a stove and a table, but bleak and comfortless. His piece of creative writing is very descriptive, but also allows his readers to use their own imaginations, conjuring up not just the inhabitants of the room , but also their surroundings and circumstances. One can speculate about them, almost see them in their dusky, well worn khaki. How long before someone grabs a book back or at least exclaims ‘That’s mine. I was reading that!’. At what point will they tell the humming man to stop his irritating noise? Or at least change the tune? And the man who knows everything? Will someone set a trap – make up a piece of news to catch him out and see if he ‘already knows ‘all about it. The temptation must have been great, but would it cure the problem or only be a cause of further annoyance as well as hurt? Is this creative writing though? Yes if it describes relationships and reactions perhaps. But would a description of a range of hills or a litter of puppies be classed as creative or merely descriptive? The line between the two is difficult to draw and there are certainly overlaps. Is Woolf’s piece truly creative? It certainly describes her struggles with the creative process, but again this could be classed as descriptive only. Creativity is the process of creating something that has not been there before, whether it be a product, a work of art, including literature, or the elegant and perfect solution to a particular problem. By writing about his situation, his problem, Mansel is in a way creating an answer. By describing his irritation at the actions of others he deals with it without confrontation – after all these people are unlikely to change their ways, their long engrained life habits, just as his request. For all we know Mansel too has inclinations and practices that in their turn annoy the others incarcerated with him. Woolf gives few descriptive clues. She is rather seeking after creativity than experiencing it, except in the vaguest of ways. She comes up with various options but we remain unsure what the final piece will really be like. This could all be taking place in any place, or at any time, unless one looks at the date and knows where she lived in Richmond on the out skirts of London. She could be from almost any era, although in a 1919 entry she describes her self as an ‘up to date woman.’ ( 12th April 1919) - although of course women novelists were relatively late on the literary scene. The lamp – there is no way to tell if it electric, gas or even a candle, so the chronological setting of her book cannot be easily defined. What room was it- a bedroom, sitting room or elsewhere? How was it furnished? Was this a poor home or a rich one – a hotel perhaps? For that the reader of Woolf’s diary would have to read the finished novel. She perhaps suffered from bi-polar disorder and come across as a rather less sympathetic character than Mansel. He after all was a prisoner of war, imprisoned against his will. He had been fighting, or trying to, in defence of the Empire and, of course, all that was right. Woolf however was someone who apparently had everything, but was seemingly unsatisfied. And so it proved as is evidenced from her tragic death at her own hand. The type of book she describes – a modernist novel - was not to everyone’s taste and different in style from her more conventional early works, although in 1925 she had written another such work – ‘Mrs Dallaway’. In the 21st century her novels are rarely read except by students of feminist studies, although her diaries and letters are still read according to Lopez ( 2000). Sparks ( 2003) has as her cover a portrait of the writer and the words ‘ She wrote it, but it drove her crazy and she killed herself’. This is the same women who gave to Mrs Dalloway ( 1925), outwardly a successful society hostess, the words she uses while looking down upon sharp, upward pointed, keen-edged railings ‘ Is there a plan for our lives? Why do we live on in the face of pain and tragedy?’ It is difficult for readers to separate from their reading of her works the knowledge that she killed herself – a similar situation to those who read the poems of Sylvia Plath. Conclusion These two pieces can in one sense be considered as being in the same genre in that they are both diaries, both written by Londoners, and both belonging to the early half of the 20th century. They are also both, to a greater or lesser extent, concerned with the psychology of the writer, their inner feelings about the world around them. She was struggling with her work, her chosen profession in which she was actually quite skilled. He struggled in a very different way with the more solid characters and characteristics which he met every day and from which there was no escape. . These two diaries will be read for very different reasons. Mansel’s work, which is very descriptive, will be read by those interested in life within a prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. It’s readers will be interested not so much in Mansel as in the world he temporarily inhabited. With Virginia Woolf’s diaries the readers are more likely to be either those studying feminist issues or those who have read or are reading her novels and want to know more than the publisher’s blurb tells them of the woman behind them, perhaps psychologists. Another group will be students of creative writing who are interested in the actual creative process. Of Mansel they would perhaps wonder how these various characters came to be together in this particular place. What are their stories? What did they return to after the war was over? These are questions about real people. Of Woolf’s piece the questions will be about much more abstract ideas and therefore harder to pin down. Readers will ask ‘What was her inspiration?’ ‘How does she begin – does she ever draw a skeleton of the whole novel or just put down vaguer ideas?’ Does she write about men as she does about women? Why is she so concerned about their emotion sand thoughts rather than what they do? ‘Does she know the end from the beginning?’ ‘Are her characters based upon real people – if so who.’ Are they autobiographical at all? Does ‘the Waves’ reflect her own earlier, happier experiences in St Ives?’‘ Why does she choose the style she does?’ ‘Is she imitating Joyce?’ ‘Did she actually think well of Joyce and his style?’ ‘Could she only write about middleclass people?’ Some of these questions are easier to answer than others – and it seems from the particular passage chosen, and from the way in which her life ended in such a slow deliberate way, that even Woolf herself does not have all the answers. Works Cited Anon, What is the Setting of ‘The Waves’?, Virginia Woolf Seminar, 1999, 14th February 2011 http://www.uah.edu/womensstudies/woolf/wavessetting.html Liukkonen ,Petri.Virginia Woolf ( 1882- 1941) –in full Adeline Virginia Woolf, original surname Stephens, Books and Writers, , 2008, 14th February 2011 from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vwoolf.htm Lopez, Vincente, Virginia Woolf’s Psychiatric History, 2000,14th February 2009 http://www.uv.es/~fores/vwbio3.html Maggio, Paula, Woolf vs. Joyce in the Context of Women’s History, Blogging Woolf, 2008, 14th February 2011 http://bloggingwoolf.wordpress.com/2008/01/26/woolf-vs-joyce-in-the-context-of-womens-history/ Mansel, John, The Mansel Diaries: The Diaries of Captain John Mansel Prisoner-of-war – and Camp Forger – in Germany 1940 – 45, edited by E.Beckwith , published privately, 1977 and included by I and A. Taylor,( 2000) The Assassin’s Cloak, Edinburgh, Canongate Books, Sparks, Elisa., How to Suppress Women’s Writing,2003, cited among ‘Critical /Secondary Resources on Virginia Woolf’ ( undated) 14th February 2011 from http://www.brittomart.net/WoolfSem/resources.html Virginia Woolf, A Short Biography, Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, undated,14th February 2011 from http://www.virginiawoolfsociety.co.uk/vw_res.biography.htm Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary , editor Leonard Woolf, 1953, cited in Pope, R. Creativity: Theory, History, Practice (2005, pp. 227–8) Woolf, Virginia, Mrs Dalloway, 1925, 15th February 2011 http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91md/ Appendix 1 Extract from the Diary of Captain John Mansel March 1941 (POW Camp) Everyone has his particular habits which in normal circumstances one would never think of taking offence at. I will illustrate a few in our room, without any mention of names. The fellow who always hums to himself very quietly when he reads or you are talking to him. The man who persistently is stroking the long ends of his moustache with his tongue. The man who quietly spits out stray ends of tobacco from his cigarette; who eats abnormally slowly and endlessly chews a bit of nothing which I myself have swallowed in one. The man who dresses slowly and meticulously, looking no better for it, if anything rather a twirp. The man who will always produce an argument and who will always disagree with anything that is said. The man who is never present when he should be, who, being a bookworm, will pick up any book that comes into his vision, open it at the middle and page hop. The man who visits our room for this special purpose, who spends the whole day playing double pack Patience – and thereby taking up more than his fair share of room. And above all the man who must be first with the news or acknowledge with ‘Oh yes’ news started by someone else, showing that he knew it already, and who likes to show that he is the origin of all communal benefits or news by the incessant use of the first person singular. Captain John Mansel Read More