A Study On Virginia Woolf’s Poetic Novels

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) has been known as a renowned English novelist and critic in20th century. As a vant-garde in western modern literature, she explores ways to break through the traditional novel model of realism and implants her poetic spirit and techniques to novel writing. She adopts more deeply method to reveal the chaos in modern western world, in particular, the meditation and struggle in human being’s mind. On the way of exploring literary style, Virginia Woolf forecasts the tendency of future novel in "The Narrow Bridge of Art". Though the name of the future novel is not given clearly, it is obvious that a certain poetic spirit is expected. She proposes that the novelist possesses the impersonal perspective and focuses on the characters’inner world, and fuses the poetic language and emotion to novel writing.Mrs. Dalloway (1925) is a prose more than a novel because it is full of poetic imagination. It is Woolf s first mature work with poetic spirit. To the Lighthouse (1927) is more like a poem. The characters in the novel are rounded by a feeling of poetry and the language is full of poetic sense. Woolf’s most mature poetic novel is The Waves (1931) which depicts six characters’ soliloquies. Connecting with the three novels, the thesis aims to explore the application of poetic theory and the poetic features in Wool’s novels. This thesis will analyze the practice and presentation of poetic spirit in her novels in the aspects of inner reality, narration and natural environment.Chapter one makes an introduction of Virginia Woolf and previous study. Then it explains the purpose and significance of the study. Chapter two introduces the construction and content of Virginia Woolfs poetic theory. Chapter three deals with characters’ inner world. Virginia Woolf explores into characters’ mind with the perspective of poetry. Chapter four investigates poetic quality produced in her narration. She fuses musical elements such as polyphony, rhythm and leitmotif to unfold her narration. And a kind of poetic sense is produced. Chapter five explores the poetic spirit inspired by the natural environment, mainly in the angles of metaphor and symbols. Virginia Woolf expresses her abstract emotion through those specific objects; therefore a certain poetic spirit is performed.