The Reading of Silence - (Virginia Woolf in the English Tradition) by Patricia Ondek Laurence (Paperback)

About the Book

This is a study of Virginia Woolf's lifelong preoccupation with silence and the barrier between the sayable and the unsayable.

Book Synopsis

A Stanford University Press classic.

From the Back Cover

"Laurence's groundbreaking study teaches us how to read Virginia Woolf's psychological, social, historical, philosophical, rhythmic, and structural silences as it weaves multi-colored threads into a shimmering whole: Woolf's novels; the major works in Woolf criticism; the English literary tradition, male and female; surrealist painting and contemporary music; philosophy, psychoanalysis, and linguistics; and structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, reader response, and feminism. It suggests new directions for Woolf criticism. . . . Lawrence's writing style is remarkably readable, clear, and careful."--English Language Notes
"Using a wide range of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Kristeva and Derrida, Laurence demonstrates convincingly that Woolf was the ¹rst modern woman novelist to practice silence in her writing and that, in so doing, she created a new language of the mind . . . and changed the metaphor of silence from one of absence or oppression to one of presence and strength."--Belles Lettres

Review Quotes

"Laurence's groundbreaking study teaches us how to read Virginia Woolf's psychological, social, historical, philosophical, rhythmic, and structural silences as it weaves multi-colored threads into a shimmering whole: Woolf's novels; the major works in Woolf criticism; the English literary tradition, male and female; surrealist painting and contemporary music; philosophy, psychoanalysis, and linguistics; and structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, reader response, and feminism. It suggests new directions for Woolf criticism . . . Lawrence's writing style is remarkably readable, clear, and careful."--English Language Notes

"Using a wide range of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Kristeva and Derrida, Laurence demonstrates convincingly that Woolf was the rst modern woman novelist to practice silence in her writing and that, in so doing, she created a new language of the mind . . . and changed the metaphor of silence from one of absence or oppression to one of presence and strength."--Belles Lettres