llk's blog

SSCS member Emily Griesinger reviews Paulsell’s book in the Woolf Studies Annual, vol. 26, 2020, 158-160. In the review’s opening paragraph, Griesinger writes

Stephanie Paulsell’s Religion Around Virginia Woolf refuses “aggressive agnosticism” as the “only lens” through which we might legitimately read the life and writing of Virginia Woolf. . . . Indeed Paulsell casts a remarkably wide net, drawing together seemingly incongruous materials, everything from the mysticism of Teresa of Avila to the process theology of Alfred North Whitehead, to prove her thesis that, despite her disbelief in...

by Jonas

In her essay, Emily Griesinger agrees with those who say Virginia Woolf should not be considered purely a secularist despite her rejection of traditional Christianity. Indeed, in a careful reading of Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse, Griesinger argues that there’s evidence of a particular stream of spirituality. Griesinger writes:

While others have studied Woolf and mysticism, few have interpreted her work through the lens of Quaker mysticism with its emphasis on “Divine Radiance” and “Inner Light.” Such an approach is warranted, however, when reading To the Lighthouse, a...