This groundbreaking study explores the formative influence of art music on Woolf’s writing, illustrating its importance to Woolf’s creative, social and domestic lives. Discussing all the novels as well as selected essays and short fiction, it offers detailed commentaries on Woolf’s numerous allusions to classical repertoire and to composers including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. The chapters explore Woolf’s interest in the contested relationship between politics and music, placing her work in a matrix of ideas about music and national identity, class, anti-Semitism, pacifism, sexuality ... More

This groundbreaking study explores the formative influence of art music on Woolf’s writing, illustrating its importance to Woolf’s creative, social and domestic lives. Discussing all the novels as well as selected essays and short fiction, it offers detailed commentaries on Woolf’s numerous allusions to classical repertoire and to composers including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. The chapters explore Woolf’s interest in the contested relationship between politics and music, placing her work in a matrix of ideas about music and national identity, class, anti-Semitism, pacifism, sexuality and gender. The study also considers the formal influence of music – from fugue to Romantic opera – on Woolf’s prose and narrative techniques. It argues that music played a central part in Woolf’s creative practice and in the politics of her writing. The analysis of music’s role in Woolf’s aesthetics and fiction is contextualized in accounts of her musical education, activities as a listener, and friendships with musicians. The study also outlines the relationship between her ‘musicalized’ fiction and that of contemporaries including Joyce, Lawrence, Forster, Mansfield and Eliot.