On The Aesthetic Features In Orlando

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is reputed as one of the most outstanding women writers in the world. Orlando (1928) is the most fanciful novel among her entire works. Though there are some academic articles concerning the aesthetic characteristic of Virginia Woolf and her other novels—Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931), the interpretation of Orlando (1928) from this perspective is still a blank. Mainly by adopting Virginia Woolf's most important aesthetic manifestos of modernism on fiction as the theoretical point of departure to further elucidate this thesis, the aesthetic attributes, namely, impression & sensation, imagination, and poetry displayed in the text of Orlando will be intensively analyzed.Apart from Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis consists of three chapters.Introduction comprises a presentation to Virginia Woolf's life experience and literary achievements, plot of Orlando and a systematic literature review on the novel.The first chapter traces back Woolf's journey to search for reality in"Modern Fiction"(1919) and discerns that her reality resides in the myriad impressions. Then, some basic theories of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism are employed to sketch out the impressionistic paintings thrived in Orlando. All these impressions constitute the"important moments"of life and reveal Woolf's search for reality. Reality is registered as nuanced sensations in A Room of One's Own (1929). After exhibiting Woolf's fascination with sensations in her essays, we discover that, the language of Orlando is a feast of visual senses, auditory sensations and olfactory perceptions. This feast still illustrates Woolf's preoccupation with reality, because human existence and the world for her are finally justified only as aesthetic phenomena and reality flickers and wavers with every fresh perception and sensation.The second chapter analyzes her essays"The Art of Fiction"(1927) and"Modern Fiction". We see that Woolf's refusal attitude toward realism and experimental spirit lead her acclamation for imagination, which is reflected in the novel as the characterization of the hero/heroine Orlando, who assumes multiple identities and transcends the restraint of time, space, physiology and finally becomes the incarnation of aesthetic position: immortal youth and beauty and Paterian aestheticism. Orlando's typical androgynous feature manifests as the aesthetics of unity. All these fanciful and aesthetic elements not only indicate Woolf's creative imagination but also embody views of art central to Virginia Woolf and her endeavour to chase for the"wild goose", which refers to her pursuit for reality through artistic creation.The last chapter surveys Woolf's idea on poetry in"The Narrow Bridge of Art"(1927) and"Women and Fiction"(1928). The poetic language, the harmonious relationship between nature and human beings, and the impersonal perspective of the novel demonstrate Woolf's thoughts on the meaning of existence.Finally, the thesis concludes that, beneath Woolf's permanent aesthetic concerns, the profound expression remains to be her metaphysical reflection upon the universalized theme such as life, art, reality and selfhood. Furthermore, her unique aesthetic value is unfolded. It is bipolar, one polarity points to the reality of art, the other to the reality of life. Orlando turns out to be a successful outcome of Woolf's experiment to fuse her aesthetic ideas with her literary practice.