| Virginia Woolf(1882-1941)is a prominent modern writer active in the British intellectual community of the 20 th century.The greatest contribution she made in the history of literature is the introduction of her extraordinary writing device later figuratively coined as “stream of consciousness”.Her works of stream of consciousness are well known for their distinctive emphasis on the exploration of one’s spiritual world which,in Woolf’s eyes,is the truth of human life.Over the years,copious academic studies at home and abroad have long been focused on the appreciation of Woolf’s writings of stream of consciousness,with a shared goal to justify the unique writing art of this ingenuous writer,particularly to fully understand Woolfian aesthetics which gives her readers an unspeakable sense of “poetic fluidity” between lines.Recent years have witnessed an increasing tendency in the academia to incorporate perspectives from non-literary fields,like visual art,into the study of Woolf’s stream of consciousness writings.Selecting a short essay titled “Blue & Green” as the target text for a case study,using an innovative cross-field methodology,this paper intends to unlock the secret of Woolf’s writing art of creating an inimitable sense of “poetic fluidity” while unfolding her fascinating stream of consciousness.Throughout this comparative study,representative artworks of well-known painters in the age of modernity are carefully chosen to help us find the parallels between Woolf’s stream of consciousness writings and the artistic innovation at the turn of the century.Besides,special traits of literature are also taken into consideration to argue that,although being inspired by the successful cases of modern artists,Woolf still manages to exploit the advantage of literature as a lineal narrative medium to introduce a poetic gracefulness into the representation of the fluidity of life,or that of the stream of consciousness,while most modern artists fail to do so graphically. |
PDF Full Text Request