[Vwoolf] A Semi-Transparent Envelope

Tue Aug 27 12:22:17 EDT 2024

Dear Claire, Edward, and Woolfians,

I wish I could put my finger on it, but I can't. I would look to Dora
Zhang's work on the stream of consciousness, but her chapter in the Oxford
Handbook does not seem to be the place, and a quick google book search of
her book doesn't either, so maybe I'm misremembering.

In the Ox. Handbook, though, there is a nice meditation on "gig lamps" from
Kathryn Simpson's chapter that feels rich:

Her recognition of her reliance on her friends and lovers to satisfy her
need for experience and an ever-expanded vision seems encapsulated in her
assertion that ‘I use my friends rather as giglamps; Theres [sic] another
field I see: by your light. Over there’s a hill. I widen my landscape’ (*D*3
316). While, as she asserts in ‘Modern Fiction’, our life experiences are
not ordered into a neat series of discrete events—‘gig lamps, symmetrically
arranged’—but are rather ‘a luminous halo; a semi-transparent envelope’ (*E*4
160), so her gig lamps of friendship create an expansive network of
interconnections that support her as a writer, respond to her complex and
contradictory needs, and sustain her as a woman. (33)

Gig lamps of friendship. That's beautiful. Maybe that helps?

Yours,

Anne

Anne E. Fernald <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.fordham.edu/info/24101/anne_fernald__;!!KGKeukY!2hzYfQL7rR5hPDYdMXjOwBAuPZE540oojqBGepCMm4O59ZEFSbUmZ-iEeLXN9aVKJ6ZSrntg--UiBklEp_juYxs$ > (she/her)
Professor of English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
*The Norton Critical Edition of *Mrs. Dalloway
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393655995__;!!KGKeukY!2hzYfQL7rR5hPDYdMXjOwBAuPZE540oojqBGepCMm4O59ZEFSbUmZ-iEeLXN9aVKJ6ZSrntg--UiBklEMO8MGhY$ >
*The Oxford Handbook to Virginia Woolf
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-virginia-woolf-9780198811589?resultsPerPage=2700&lang=en&cc=us__;!!KGKeukY!2hzYfQL7rR5hPDYdMXjOwBAuPZE540oojqBGepCMm4O59ZEFSbUmZ-iEeLXN9aVKJ6ZSrntg--UiBklE1AYXggw$ >*
fernald at fordham.edu

On Tue, Aug 27, 2024 at 12:04 PM Edward Mendelson via Vwoolf <
vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> I have’t read any of the discussions or debates, but probably they all
> quote the 3 September 1928 (I haven’t checked the date, possibly wrong)
> diary entry, possibly relevant as a way of saying the same thing (in the
> sentence that begins “How
> I have’t read any of the discussions or debates, but probably they all
> quote the 3 September 1928 (I haven’t checked the date, possibly wrong)
> diary entry, possibly relevant as a way of saying the same thing (in the
> sentence that begins “How dificult…”):
>
> "That is one of the experiences I have had here in some Augusts; & got
> then to a consciousness of what I call 'reality': a thing I see before me;
> something abstract; but residing in the downs or sky; beside which nothing
> matters; in which I shall rest & continue to exist. Reality I call it. And
> I fancy sometimes this is the most necessary thing to me: that which I
> seek. But who knows—once one takes a pen & writes? How difficult not to go
> making 'reality' this & that, whereas it is one thing. Now perhaps this is
> my gift; this perhaps is what distinguishes me from other people; I think
> it may be rare to have so acute a sense of something like that—but again,
> who knows? I would like to express it too."
>
> On Aug 27, 2024, at 10:38 AM, Claire Battershill via Vwoolf <
> vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
>
> Dearest Woolfians,
>
> I hope this finds you well and enjoying the last days of August.
>
> I'm writing to ask if anyone could point me to some discussions and
> debates about the meaning of Woolf's frequently quoted passage about "life"
> from "Modern Fiction" (“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically
> arranged’ but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us
> from the beginning of consciousness to the end”)? I know the 'gig lamps'
> have been variously defined (as spectacles by Julia Briggs, for instance);
> and this little bit is frequently quoted in relation to broader writings on
> consciousness, but I'd love to be pointed in the direction of further
> discussion and interpretation of this fascinating passage. I love for
> instance Jane Goldman's connection of the landscape of Skye to the image
> and the re-appearance of the phrase "semi-transparent" in her piece on the
> two postcards in the Miscellany.
>
> The halo, the gig lamps, the envelope...a lot going on!
>
> Thanks so much for your thoughts and any references you might share,
> Claire
>
> Dr. Claire Battershill (she/her)
> Assistant Professor
> Faculty of Information & Department of English
> Wendy M. Cecil Professor at Victoria College
> University of Toronto
>
> *The University of Toronto operates on the traditional land of the
> Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this
> meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across
> Turtle Island and I am grateful to have the opportunity to work on this
> land.*
> Book time with Claire Battershill
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/da0e7588e2f04045916dd0f5dc142641@utoronto.ca?anonymous&ep=pcard__;!!KGKeukY!327U0RX5Q3tFGBWAsJpaCqoBnyx7H8feyYl3J1yb9kTioc2tJGEpsF1ZhKH_y0N1WmQtEkxvVeDKxun-c476cjVwjjZ7nPdsXg$>
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