[Vwoolf] Woolf and Thoreau: no plot, no comedy, no tragedy

[Michael Schrimper]

Currently working on a nineteenth-century American essay, and I wanted to
share a journal entry from Thoreau, dated 5 September 1841, which reminds
one of a famous Woolf passage in “Modern Fiction” (“no plot, no comedy, no
tragedy […]”):



“But there are times when we feel a vigor in our limbs—and our thoughts are
like a flowing morning light—and the stream of our life without reflection
shows long reaches of serene ripples. And if we were to sing at such an
hour, There would be no catastrophe contemplated in our verse—no tragic
element in it—nor yet a comic—for the life of the gods is not in any
dramatic—nor can be the subject of drama— It is epic without beginning or
end—an eternal interlude without plot.— not subordinate one part to
another, but supreme as a whole—at once—leaf and flower—and fruit.”



(Journal 1, p. 331)



How Woolf diverges from this passage is interesting, too. For her essay I'm
looking at McNeille, Andrew, Ed. *The Essays of Virginia Woolf. Volume
4, *1984,
page 160.



Michael


Michael R. Schrimper
Ph.D. Student, Department of English
University of Colorado Boulder
Traditional Territories of the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Ute Nations
https://www.colorado.edu/english/michael-schrimper
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