Religion Around Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was not a religious person in any traditional sense, yet she lived and worked in an environment rich with religious thought, imagination, and debate. From her agnostic parents to her evangelical grandparents, an aunt who was a Quaker theologian, and her friendship with T. S. Eliot, Woolf's personal circle was filled with atheists, agnostics, religious scholars, and Christian converts. In this book, Stephanie Paulsell considers how the religious milieu that Woolf inhabited shaped her writing in unexpected and innovative ways.
Beginning with the religious forms and ideas that Woolf encountered in her family, friendships, travels, and reading, Paulsell explores the religious contexts of Woolf's life. She shows that Woolf engaged with religion in many ways, by studying, reading, talking and debating, following controversies, and thinking about the relationship between religion and her own work. Paulsell examines the ideas about God that hover around Woolf's writings and in the minds of her characters. She also considers how Woolf, drawing from religious language and themes in her novels and in her reflections on the practices of reading and writing, created a literature that did, and continues to do, a particular kind of religious work.
A thought-provoking contribution to the literature on Woolf and religion, this book highlights Woolf's relevance to our post-secular age. In addition to fans of Woolf, scholars and general readers interested in religious and literary studies will especially enjoy Paulsell's well-researched narrative.

About the author

Stephanie Paulsell is Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies at Harvard Divinity School.

Summary

An exploration of the religious contexts of Virginia Woolf’s life and work, her religious practices, her ideas about God, and the new forms of community she imagined.

Product details

• Authors: Stephanie Paulsell, Stephanie (Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies Paulsell, Paulsell Stephanie
• Publisher: University Presses
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 17.09.2019
• EAN: 9780271084879
• ISBN: 978-0-271-08487-9
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 23 mm
• Weight: 499 g
• Illustrations: Illustrationen, nicht spezifiziert
• Series: Religion Around
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; English, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Women, RELIGION / Christianity / Literature & the Arts, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, RELIGION / Agnosticism, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000