A Study Of The Presentational Methods In To The Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf (1882?941) is one of the most important English novelists as well as the most celebrated English woman writer of the 20th century. Her experimental techniques known as 'the stream of consciousness' has been absorbed into the mainstream of fiction. Even after her death, the interest of the intellectual world in her has never faded away.Exemplifying through Woolf's masterpiece To the Lighthouse, with New Criticism as the principal criterion in theory, the paper intends to explore the unique fictional style of Woolf which significantly marks her identity in modern literature by analysing such ingenious literary devices as symbolism, miniaturism, imagery and metaphor. The study comes to the conclusion that it is with these highly aesthetic presentational methods that the theme of the novel about art and life is best reflected, thus making the fiction itself become an enduring piece of art.