[Vwoolf] Wishing will not make it so
Patterson
dcipatterson at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 17 15:29:05 EDT 2013
Virginia Woolf was a lovely chameleon, who appeared the same to us all. That is why she writes so beautifully. Remember, from On Being Ill, the best little piece of personal stint into the ineluctable. Her writing is full of a observant love; Joyce, differed.
________________________________
From: Patterson <dcipatterson at yahoo.com>
To: Stephen Barkway <sbarkway at btinternet.com>; Stuart N. Clarke <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>; "vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu" <vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 3:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Wishing will not make it so
Sleek.
________________________________
From: Stephen Barkway <sbarkway at btinternet.com>
To: Stuart N. Clarke <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>; vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2013 11:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Wishing will not make it so
To me the reference to the barn owl being 'blunt'
is to do with its head/face.
Compared to most birds, the barn owl's face if so
flat and un-aero-dynamic. Take a look at the pictures on this website
(link below). The fifth one shows how blunt its face is . . . and it
has a 'black spot in its claws'.
Stephen
http://www.shropshirebirder.co.uk/barnowl.html
----- Original Message -----
>From: Stuart N. Clarke
>To: vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
>Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2013 12:28
PM
>Subject: [Vwoolf] Wishing will not make it so
>
>
>
>In the 2013 vol. of “Woolf Studies Annual”, there is a very interesting reading of “The Moment: Summer’s Night”, marred for me by being pretty heavy going in places, particularly at the beginning. It would therefore be forgivable for someone to start reading it, and then give up. Which would be a pity. However, I have the following specific criticisms, which do not invalidate the argument of the piece:
>
>(a) I was shocked/saddened/disappointed/appalled that the author used Leonard Woolf’s various edns of Woolf’s essays, rather than the 6-vol. McNeillie/Clarke edn—esp. when I had gone to all the bleeding trouble of rechecking the typescripts and including textual variations for this essay.
>
>(b) Although the author must have been aware of Leonard’s warning that the essay had been takenfrom ‘a rather rough typescript heavily corrected in handwriting’, she criticises the essay for “fail[ing] in part, falling into disarray rather than being strengthened and unified …’ (p. 163), without acknowledging that it is very much a draft.
>
>(c) Dating the essay
>Fn. 1 (p. 147) reads:
>“Published in 1947, ‘Summer’s Night’ has eluded the attempts of scholars to date it. The editors of ‘Modernism’ place it ‘c.1927’ (Kolocotroni, et al. 392). Guiguet (294) and Goldman (‘Feminist’ 2) suggest ‘c.1929.’ Hussey, however, pushes this date back to 1938 with the belief that the essay is ‘related to the composition of '”Between the Acts”’ (164). I find Guiguet’s comparison of ‘Summer’s Night’ with several of Woolf’s diary entries quite compelling, especially as this would align the piece chronologically with the conclusions Reed has drawn regarding Woolf’s engagement with formalist aesthetics.”
>
>Note (1) the wish fulfilment in the last sentence; (2) the disregard of V VW Diary, p. 133, n. 3:
>‘This is the first allusion in VW’s diary to what was to develop into a new book . . . Between the Acts, the first page of the first draft of which is dated 2 April 1938 and headed “Summer Night”; see Virginia Woolf: Pointz Hall. The Earlier and Later Typescripts of BETWEEN THE ACTS, edited by Mitchell A. Leaska, New York, 1983 . . . “The Moment: Summer’s Night” . . . from the evidence of the typescript in the Berg . . . appears to be a later (1940) attempt by VW to form “a complete whole” of her idea.’
>As I had no special new knowledge, I merely quoted this in my annotation. *I* had no axe to grind.
>
>(d) The author wishes to emphasise “defamiliarisation” in Woolf’s essay. As an example, she quotes the second sentence:
>“An owl, blunt, obsolete looking, heavy weighted, crossed the fading sky with a black spot between its claws.”
>And comments:
>“The description is visually potent yet oddly puzzling; how might an owl be ‘obsolete looking’? What exactly distinguishes a ‘blunt’ owl from a non-blunt (a sharp) one?” (p. 151).
>Again, the author is pursuing her own agenda. To take the second question first, I’m sure Virginia Woolf saw more barn owls than I ever have and that she knew what she was writing about. As Oscar Wilde might have said: “Some owls are blunt, some owls are not blunt. That is a matter that surely an owl may be allowed to decide for itself.”
>http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/barn-owl.html#comp.asp?recid=58651860&xtra=
>In reply to the first question, I would like to suggest, tentatively, that a blunt barn owl may be reminding Woolf of a dirigible, while, say, a swallow would make her think of a modern aeroplane.
>
>‘Approaching the mooring mast minutes before landing on 6 May 1937, the Hindenburg burst into flames and crashed. Of the 97 people aboard, 36 died: 13 passengers, 22 aircrew, and one American ground-crewman. The disaster happened before a large crowd, was filmed and a radio news reporter was recording the arrival. This was a disaster which theater goers could see and hear the next day. The Hindenburg disaster shattered public confidence in airships, and brought a definitive end to the "golden age". The day after Hindenburg crashed, the Graf Zeppelin landed at the end of its flight from Brazil, ending intercontinental passenger airship travel.’ (Wikipedia)
>
>If I had that axe, grinded or ungrinded, I might argue that this strongly suggests that the essay was written after 1937!
>
>
>Stuart
>
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