Virginia Woolf documentary

[Music] 19th century london society was wonderfully rich and varied terrible poverty rubbed shoulders with great riches and in between were the newly emerging professional and business people tradesmen factory and office workers who were the mainspring of the nation's wealth [Music] in the quiet and respectable streets of kensington lived the stephen's family not rich but comfortably near the upper end of society virginia stephen was born here on january 25th 1882 and it was to be her home for the next 22 years her father leslie stephen he was later sir leslie had been married to a daughter of the novelist william thackery she died leaving him with one child laura both his father and grandfather had been writers and he had considerable literary skills he edited the cornhill magazine for a number of years and then the huge dictionary of national biography the first of its kind covering everyone of note in british history [Music] stephen's second wife was julia duckworth her husband herbert duckworth had died leaving her with three children george stella and gerald julia was the first cousin of the duchess of bedford and came from an artistic background she had close family ties with the pre-raphaelite painters hulman hunt and edward byrne jones her sister julia margaret cameron who took this picture was a famous photographer with leslie stephen she went on to have four more children vanessa and toby were the first two followed by virginia and adrian so there were eight children in all with the first four about ten years ahead of the others they were looked after by seven women servants quite a normal number for such a family as the stevens at the end of the 19th century when modern household gadgetry and social revolution had not yet had an effect on the way we live a short walk from home were the kensington gardens and hyde park [Music] so they had room to play and even skate in the winter on the serpentine otherwise in her childhood she knew the calm streets of kensington in the next street lived the novelist henry james a great friend of her fathers his capacity for talk was legendary and in his excitement his chair tipped further and further back on one occasion to the children's delight he finally hit the floor from where he continued talking the novelist george eliot they also knew and the poet tennyson books writing publishing editing it was a rich background for a future novelist the family had its traditions and one of these was their annual holiday in synthe's cornwall from childhood to the age of 14 virginia spent several weeks of summer with her family friends and relations at talland house on a hillside overlooking corby's bay and the harbour in the distance they could see the god reevy lighthouse as with all of us the secure and happy memories of this part of her growing up were of great importance to her [Music] she was to use it in several of her novels jacob's room and the waves and most particularly to the lighthouse her sister vanessa was to recall that into the lighthouse not only the setting but the characters of their parents were perfectly recalled their father trying to dominate but basically insecure and their mother always ready to give way to him [Music] in the garden of tallant house they played crooked and cricket four-year-old virginia is the wicked keeper here and her younger brother adrian the batsman she developed her bowling talent until by the age of 10 she was known as the demon bowler and thoroughly approved of by her elder brother toby who thought she was better than anyone at his prep school maybe visitors like henry james and the novelist george meredith didn't play cricket with them but the poet rupert brooke certainly did they saw little of the local people preferring their own company but the dramatic scenery around them made a huge impression on virginia back in london where her father added two stories to the tall narrow house to make room for everyone she spent most of her time at home the boys toby and adrian went away to school but the girls vanessa and virginia did not boys went to school in university but even in such an enlightened and thoughtful home as theirs girls did not they had to pick up what they could and then marry for two very bright children it was not a great prospect of course it was always intended that they should be educated by their parents but both parents found it hard to understand that things simple to them might not be so simple for children they also had short tempers so in the end the girls fell to educating themselves in later years the sensitive virginia felt the lack of a formal education but the course of reading she set herself and the extraordinary facilities she soon developed with words was probably of more use to her in the course her life was to take as a writer in temperament the junior was excitable even to the point of wildness she was prone to accidents and would fall into what her family referred to as her purple rages but the two sisters early on decided that virginia would write and vanessa paint goals they both achieved in 1891 they started writing a weekly magazine the hyde park gate news which reported incidents in the household sadly they were to have much to report in 1895 at the age of 49 their mother julia suddenly died it was a terrible blow but instead of trying to reassure his daughters and come to terms with his loss their father seemed to give way completely as a result of this the over-sensitive virginia had a nervous breakdown and her half-sister stella began to run the house not long afterwards stella announced she was getting engaged the prospects of losing her sis soon after julia's death drove the father to demand that she live with them all after her marriage for three months stella was gloriously happy and then suddenly she caught a fever and died medical care at the time was still extremely limited even for the well-off for virginia this second abrupt loss was more devastating than the first her happy childhood was gone her father lost in self-pity was no help to her her brothers were away at school her half-brothers at work and even vanessa seemed to have found another life for herself outside the home social life was always difficult for virginia she could talk forever of course but that was not what was needed she had no small talk meanwhile at this time according to later biographical notes her half-brother george duckworth's sympathetic embraces sometimes turned into direct sexual advances with no female adult in the family to turn to it's easy to see how this may have contributed to virginia's sexual fragility and mental instability in later years where he might have helped her father only made things worse by making emotional demands she still respected his intellectual worth but she found herself turning to a friend of the family violet dickinson with whom she remained emotionally close for some years [Music] in 1904 when virginia was 22 celezzly steven died she was full of feelings of guilt she hadn't loved him enough she had forgotten his good qualities the tensions within her rose to such a peak that it became quite clear that she was approaching madness she claimed to hear bert singing in greek and finally attempted suicide by jumping out of the window it was a turning point in her life somehow the family got her through it but they determined to leave their house in hyde park gate the house of all the deaths henry james called it they moved to an area of leafy squares and sound 19th century houses called bloomsbury centered around the british museum their relatives thought it was not a good enough address but they felt that it got them away from exactly those people who had disapproved of their upbringing now they would be free from strict conventional and class restrictions and virginia in particular would have a better chance to be herself in 1899 toby had gone up to cambridge and become friendly with people who had formed a sort of philosophical society called the apostles entry was strictly limited and only by invitation to the very bright members who included the novelist e.m foster and the philosopher bertrand russell were members for life they met weekly and were expected to discuss things with complete intellectual honesty only the very brightest undergraduates ever made it into the group in 1902 a young man called leonard wolff was invited to join and other undergraduate members of this time were lytton strachey later to become famous as a biographer and may not keens whose economic theories were to change the world toby was not invited to become an apostle nor was his great friend clive bell however the unusual household of young people at 46 gordon square was just the place to meet after they all left cambridge on thursday evenings lytton strategy was odd to look at but witty and cultured clyde bell eventually to be something of an arbiter of english cultural taste through his books and articles was not seen as a great intellectual but a true amateur of art and literature as well as having the heir of a country squire another apostle who came was saxon sydney turner everyone thought he was brilliant but in the end it seems he achieved nothing at all although you might call that an achievement in itself the philosopher g e moore was the leader of the pack in his great work principia ethica he had laid down the tenets of rationalistic thought and action which they all struggled to meet the junior was an accepted part of all this and she must have felt that at last she was beginning to have a place in the sun virginia and vanessa were highly regarded for their beauty and had most of the men who gathered at the gordon square house not been homosexual their beauty might have led to other developments it did lead to lit and strategy actually proposing to virginia she didn't immediately turn him down but he thought better of it and they remained friends instead meanwhile her writing began to take practical form in the shape of articles and reviews published in a weekly newspaper she began teaching literature at morley college an evening institute for working men and women what we might now term adult education here she was with people who had to work for a living and who had had little education it was an important three years in her life as she began to realize how intelligence and worth had little to do with social background she came to care about her students and to understand their needs in 1906 toby died of typhoid fever caught on a holiday in greece not long after this vanessa became engaged to clyde bell one of the heterosexual habituates of gordon square she and clive stayed there while the junior and adrian moved to a house in nearby fitzroy square they were still together a great deal of course and about a year after the marriage clive and virginia began a sort of casual flirtation which was to last some years she doesn't seem to have been in love with him just lonely and jealous of her sister's happiness naturally all this didn't appeal to vanessa and relations became quite strained for a time [Music] virginia in her end circles had become a sparkling talker with an almost uncontrollable imagination newcomers were introduced with descriptions of their lives and characters invented on the spot in letters and conversation she would happily describe things rather more as she wanted them to be than they actually were she was the center of much fun and laughter by 1910 the bloomsbury group had split into two distinct parts vanessa and clive were the center of the arts set who included roger frye responsible for the first post-impressionist exhibition in london literally bloomsbury met in virginia's house in fitzroy square and included lytton strategy and e.m foster virginia was already at work on her first novel around this time too occurred what was known as the dreadnought hoax the navy had a new and most secret ship of this name and somehow adrian and a friend convinced the naval authorities that the emperor of abyssinia would like to visit it with virginia in the lead role their successful hoax made the front pages of the national newspapers as her first novel neared completion her first public test as it were virginia suffered a nervous breakdown it was to be a pattern repeated in some degree with all her novels providentially however in june 1911 leonard wolff an old apostle friend of toby's at cambridge suddenly returned from ceylon where he had worked for some years as a civil servant within a few months he had proposed to virginia and been accepted one of nine children in a barrister's family at cambridge leonard wolff had impressed people with his intelligence but although he had been a good school student he got a poor degree at university and in the civil service exams he failed to shine however he was posted to the civil service in ceylon where he was unusually successful a real sensitivity towards others was his strong point [Music] in the hope that virginia would marry him he gave up his ceylon job and proposed that he should earn his living as a writer with nothing to start off with he could not be considered a very safe match but virginia had 9 000 pounds capital and 400 pounds a year income it was a lot better than the 260 pounds which had been his civil service salary she wrote to violet dickinson with her usual self mockery that she was about to marry a penniless jew she never saw herself as rich certainly compared with her friends but her income made their life possible she was 30 and leonard 31 and they married in august 1912. after the honeymoon they went to live in rooms in clifford's inn leonard had his first novel published about his salon life and though he made no money it was well received virginia worked on at the voyage out as she got near the end her health began to be affected it was the beginning of a pattern it's not uncommon for creative people to be nervous when their work is about to be put to the test but for virginia woolf the experience was extreme she couldn't eat and began to have delusions she spent time in a nursing home but on returning home attempted suicide it was a huge shock for leonard he hadn't been sufficiently warned of the extent of a junior's instability and depression and the awful consequences however with the care and sensitivity to her that he showed throughout their life together he worked out that if he kept her away from excitement and pressure making sure she ate well then she could remain balanced both mentally and physically to this end they moved out of central london to the calm of richmond they also found a refuge in the country virginia had already spent some time on the south downs near brighton in the village of ferl this house still bears the name she gave it in memory of her cornwall days [Music] together leonard and virginia found asham house which was to be her favorite home to ash of course came all their friends her first novel the voyage out was published in 1915 right in the middle of the war critics liked it and e.m foster the most successful writer in the bloomsbury group admired it so she was happy under leonard's eye she was to enjoy 20 years with no major breakdowns and the steadying experience of married life and her writing so successful was leonard's care that many of the people she met throughout this time knew nothing of her background of mental illness to the outside world she always appeared lively and balanced her marriage to leonard had turned out to be the key to a successful run of creativity it's quite likely that without leonard's insights and patience she would not have been able to write the books she did in 1917 they embarked on a new project they bought a small printing press and published a book [Music] it was hard and time-consuming work but they made a small profit and over the next few years the hogarth press expanded into a major publishing company [Music] they were the first publishers of the poet t.s eliot and the writer catherine mansfield she was very important to virginia woolf as the first other woman she knew who was utterly committed to writing [Music] for many years virginia spent her afternoons setting type sowing bindings and packaging up orders it was salutary work for a writer as the business prospered the press was able to take on more staff and they did less actual printing sadly they had to give up ashram house in 1919 but they bought a new home at nearby rodmill monk's house was to be their country home for the rest of her life at first there was no gas or electricity but her increasing success meant they could afford improvements as she became more assured in her writing through the sheer quality of her work and her power to innovate she began to have an effect on the writing of her day and to give the novel new directions with to the lighthouse in 1926 she had a major success and from then on they were well enough off to stop worrying about money now they could buy a london house again in 1923 the junior met vita sackville west her family home was the wonderful null castle in kent the 16th century home of the sackvilles the two writers became very close and began what amounted to a love affair virginia wrote a rather astonishing novel orlando which described vita's life as if she aged from 16 to 60 between the years 1586 to the present not only that but she started life as a boy and changed to a woman the novel has psychological dimensions and overtones which were startling at the time at a pleasant farmhouse called charleston not far from rodmell lived vanessa and her children vanessa had left quentin bell and lived with the artist duncan grant long a part of their lives her doctors had recommended that virginia should not have children so her sister's children were very important to her they all remember how easy she was to relate to joining in their games and readily accepting their fantasies she had a natural affinity with children and delighted them with her company with people who saw her as a celebrity she could be rather terrifying uncompromising and easily scornful of the limitations of others her own youthful experience had not softened her through her witty and polished comparison of the lot of men and women a room of one's own published in 1928 virginia was assured of place in the forefront of the feminist movement she became famous and lots of people wanted to know her one such was dame ethel smythe a composer with a powerful and demanding character she caught you like a giant crabs at virginia 1939 brought the start of the second world war in the early air raids their house in london was bombed so they had to live all the time at monk's house they were on the route for german planes flying to london so it was not much of an escape it seemed to the wolves that it was only a matter of time before hitler came and that could only mean death for leonard with his jewish background the pressure of finishing between the acts was on her proper food was becoming scarce and the whole idea of war numbed and depressed her it was all too much for her in march 1941 while leonard was away lecturing she drowned herself in the nearby river ooze few writers have such skill in turning a sentence and even fewer the imagination to draw us into a web of such riches

Channel: Author Documentaries

Views: 239,358

Keywords: virginia woolf documentary, virginia woolf, virginia woolf bio, virginia woolf biography, mrs dalloway, to the lighthouse, the voyage out, night and day, a room of one's own, between the acts, the waves, the years, orlando a biography, jacob's room

Id: L7sq6pvXfDU

Length: 28min 1sec (1681 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2022