[Vwoolf] Larks

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

I did a bit of non-scholarly Googling for "What a lark!". More recently there are some nice Woolfian parodies ("What a lark! What a gas!", and "What a lark! What a jape!"). Wallace Stevens uses the phrase in a journal entry for 1903 or 1904. And this, from T. H. Huxley suggests a lower-class association:

"I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Whitechapel is low; or why 'What a lark' should be coarse, when one hears 'How awfully jolly' drop from the most refined lips twenty times in an evening . . ." (T. H. Huxley, “Administrative Nihilism”, 1871)

I agree that Woolf is probably combining associations in MD; Clarisssa is both bird and playful child - and perhaps throwing off a few class restraints at the same time. And as others have suggested, this initial plunge is proleptic of Septimus's tragic and fatal plunge from the window later on.

Jeremy
________________________________
From: vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] on behalf of Stuart N. Clarke [stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com]
Sent: 17 September 2013 16:05
To: vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
Subject: [Vwoolf] Larks

“And now, [the aeroplane] curving up and up, straight up, like something mounting in ecstasy, in pure delight, out from behind poured white smoke looping, writing a T, an O, and F.”
Gillian Beer wrote in "The Island and the Aeroplane: The Case of Virginia Woolf":
“Toffs and toffee are lexically indistinguishable, farts in the wake of lark, of sexual rapture.”

Stuart


From: ANNE Fernald [Staff/Faculty [A&S]]<mailto:fernald at fordham.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2013 2:39 PM
To: Toni McNaron<mailto:mcnar001 at umn.edu>
Cc: woolf list<mailto:VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] larks

Here is what my OED tells me about the etymology, which is uncertain but does seem to support a link:

lark, v.2
View as:

  *   Outline<http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showfullentry/false?t:ac=Entry/105880> |
  *   Full entry<http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showfullentry/true?t:ac=Entry/105880>

Quotations:

  *   Show all<http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showallquotations/true?t:ac=Entry/105880> |
  *   Hide all<http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showallquotations/false?t:ac=Entry/105880>

Pronunciation:  /lɑːk/
Etymology:  Belongs to lark n.2<http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/105877#eid39740766>; the noun and verb appear first in 1811–3. The origin is somewhat uncertain.

Possibly it may represent the northern lake v.1<http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/105171#eid39907331>, as heard by sporting men from Yorkshire jockeys or grooms; the sound /lɛək/ /læək/ , which is written lairk in Robinson's Whitby Glossary and in dialect books, would to a southern hearer more naturally suggest ‘lark’ than ‘lake’ as its equivalent in educated pronunciation. On the other hand, it is quite as likely that the word may have originated in some allusion to lark n.1<http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/105876#eid39739718>; compare the similar use of skylark verb, which is found a few years earlier (1809).


On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Toni McNaron <mcnar001 at umn.edu<mailto:mcnar001 at umn.edu>> wrote:
I agree with Michael Davis in that both the bird and the playful gaminess is going on in the reference.  I also think about the fact that larks, when they flourished, were often the very first birds to greet the dawn, hence they were seen as excited about another day in which they could make beautiful music, fly around, eat bugs, etc.  So a imagine larks as exuberant, hence perhaps how the verb "to lark" came into existence in the first place.

Toni McNaron


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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>
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