[Vwoolf] larks

[ANNE Fernald [Staff/Faculty [A&S]]]

Dear Jeremy & Woolfians all,

I've been struck by this, too, and yes: it's clear to me that you are
right. What a lark! Is a lovely perhaps slightly old-fashioned expression
of delight, unrelated to the bird.

Larking in this semse comes up in Stevie Smith's great "Not Waving but
Drowning": "Poor chap, he always loved larking / And now he's dead."

It's unrelated to the bird, but with the rooks on the same page & Clarissa
compared to a bird for the first of many times not long after, that
unrelated lark echoes with the bird in lovely ways, doesn't it?

Anne

On Tuesday, September 17, 2013, Jeremy Hawthorn wrote:

>  I can't be the first to be struck by the fact that the word "lark"
> appears very near the opening of both *Mrs Dalloway* and *To the
> Lighthouse*. But are they the same, etymologically? The TTL lark is
> unambiguous - up with the lark refers to the bird. But about "What a lark!
> What a plunge!" (quoted from memory as I'm on hoiliday) I'm less sure. It
> might also be a reference to the bird, which does rise and plunge. But it
> seems to me more likely to be related to lark meaning "game", still found
> in (I think) Lancashire dialect, where "laiking" means playing. This
> meaning is (again, I think) etymologically unrelated to the bird, and
> descends from an old Norse root from what I can gather. In modern
> Norwegian, "å leke" means "to play" as in a child's game. In modern British
> informal speech, "what a lark" does not suggest any relationship to the
> feathered creature, at least not to me.
>
> So: is Clarissa comparing herself to the bird, or is she thinking that
> it's like being a child again and rushing outdoors to play?
>
> Jeremy Hawthorn
>
>
>

-- 
Anne E. Fernald<http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/english/faculty/english_faculty/anne_fernald_28537.asp>
Director of Writing/Composition at Lincoln Center,
Associate Professor of
English<http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/english/index.asp>and
Women's
Studies <http://www.fordham.edu/womens_studies>
Fordham University
113 W 60th St.
New York NY 10023

212/636-7613
fernald at fordham.edu
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