Virginia Woolf on her contemporaries and predecessors: The dynamics of the creative process according to the writer’s diaries

Abstract

The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was the time of a search for new means of artistic expression and renewal of narrative forms in English literature. The concept of canonical aesthetics was undergoing a transformation. The article traces the search for a new method of depicting a person in Virginia Woolf’s diary entries, her justification of the “stream of consciousness” technique, and here assessment of her predecessors and contemporaries’ artistic skills. The article shows that Virginia Woolf’s diary entries served as brief summaries for future essays in “The Times” supplement and her two books “The Common Reader”. Virginia Woolf's diary can be perceived as an autobiographical space, as a means of the writer’s self-awareness, her cultural self-determination and the construction of her own personality. Our study reveals the artistic originality of Virginia Woolf’s creative individuality and her attitude to the authors in her reading circle. The article argues that despite her respectful attitude towards the literary traditions of the English classical novel in the 18th and 19th centuries, Woolf feels its certain exhaustion.