<div dir="ltr"><div>I would like to know how others in classroom respond to students saying as a (somewhat settled diagnosis) that Virginia Woolf was 'bi-polar."</div><div><br></div><div>When I resisted partly because since age 9 I have known depression, anxiety-attacks, panic and a whole array of mental problems let's say and I find each new fashionable set of terms from schizophrenic to bi-polar unconvincing. Too simplistic, too reductive.</div><div><br></div><div>But I listened and what I seemed to hear was this diagnosis of "bi-polar" made Woolf into a "sane" person who had deep mood swings - from say productive, cheerful and "strong" to some snakepit of breakdown, despair, suicidal impulses. As used, it seemed a normalzing tool, as if were to make Woolf more acceptable</div><div><br></div><div>They said they found it in a New York Times article which was trying to sell Cornwall as a place to go through the association with To the Lighthouse. On this I remarked that literally To the Lighthouse is situated in the Hebrides (I see a connection and memory of Johnson and Boswell here too), another place on the edge of the British mainland...</div><div><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/travel/virginia-woolf-cornwall.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/travel/virginia-woolf-cornwall.html</a></span></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></span></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#222222" face="Arial" size="2">How do or would others handle this.</font></span></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#222222" face="Arial" size="2"></font></span></span><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font color="#222222" face="Arial" size="2">Ellen Moody</font></span></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></span></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;word-spacing:0px;float:none;display:inline;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></span></span></div></div>