Rhythm In Eternity

As an acknowledged master of western modernist literature and a key member of the Bloomsbury Group of the 20th century, Virginia Woolf, along with her contemporaries James Joyce, William Faulkner, Marcel Proust, etc., pushes forward the development of the stream-of-consciousness literature in the world, which greatly changes the conventional writing techniques and forms the watershed between traditional literature and modernist literature. She discards the traditional pattern of realist novels and advocates completely new aesthetics in a bold, exploring spirit, creating a "significant form" for modern novels and promoting the innovation and development of modern novels in her own way. In her most obscure and experimental novel The Waves, Woolf gains a perfect mastery of thoughts and techniques, which shows that her literary creation has entered a new stage. The novel records modern people's fear of solitude, perplexity of life, and inquiry into the meaning of birth and death in poetical language. In this novel she challenges traditional aesthetic views instead of confining herself to the conventional creation pattern and stereotyped thoughts. She puts great emphasis on the description of character's inner life in order to reflect all human beings' life in general. This thesis, therefore, attempts to study Woolf's aesthetics and its manifestation on the artistic techniques in her masterpiece The Waves. The conclusion reached is that Woolf is not only a great writer, but also an outstanding artist.The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction.The second chapter aims to explain Virginia Woolf's aesthetics as embodied in her idea of a novel as an independent art form, her rendering of characters' inner life, and her technique of impersonal narration shaped in literary creation and experiment. At the same time, the forming of Woolf's stream-of-consciousnessnovels and poetic novels based on her aesthetics will also be discussed. The thesis points out that the poetic novel is in essence the stream-of-consciousness novel, but not the same, for it has its unique aesthetic features.The third chapter traces back to the genesis and growth of Woolfs aesthetics with particular emphasis on her aesthetic edification. Then, the chapter gives a summary of the development of her aesthetics and makes a comparison between Woolf and other modernist writers.The fourth chapter tries to make a deep analysis of and a comment on Woolf's artistic techniques influenced by her aesthetics. It will discuss her artistic techniques of time and space shifting, multiple points of view, and dramatic soliloquies from the perspective of impressionistic narrative method. The aim is to identify the unique artistic techniques of the poetic novel as well as Woolfs novel aesthetics in general.The last part of the thesis aims at an overall evaluation of Woolfs aesthetics and the artistic techniques in The Waves based on the discussion in the previous chapters. The thesis contends that, essentially speaking, being a great writer and an outstanding artist, Woolf skillfully applies all kinds of artistic techniques of the poetic novel to the revealing of modern people's psychological activities and their inquiry into the meaning of life. The novel reflects her aesthetics and experimental courage to the highest degree, for she pursues her artistic purpose by breaking through with tradition and by creating a new novel aesthetics. The completely new aesthetics and unique artistic techniques endow the poetic novel with beauty and harmony. Just as the title indicates, it is like a perpetual melody forever echoing through the reader's mind.