Introduction: This second to last day of our tour will take place in the years between the Victorian and the Postmodernist Periods. This time brings to mind the greats of our language: T.S Eliot, Yeats, Orwell, Forster, and (perhaps one of the most famous manic-depressives and suicides in literature) Virginia Woolf. In this period, we see what is easily recognisable as the ascendance of literature as we know it now. But we must forego the introduction to immediately delve into the lives of Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway... and their premature deaths.
Locations: The Life and Death of Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Our first location will be the Talland House, St Ives, Cornwall: Adeline Virginia Woolf spent every summer here until she was thirteen, and this is the place of her most vivid memories. So vivid, in fact, that the impressions and landscapes found here can also be found littered in her works (The Lighthouse, in particular.) After repeated sexual abuse by her half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth, and the deaths of both parents and a sister which led to two consequent nervous breakdowns, Virginia moved to 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury: our second location. While she stayed there, she attended King's College, Cambridge. It was there that she found a group of friends, and one close friend in particular: a man called Leondard Woolf. She married him two years after meeting him, and they shared a close and intimate marriage. They even started a publishing company together. But the encouragement of her husband couldn't save this talented woman from her inner demons: her periodic depression and hypermania drove her to frequent breakdowns...and a lot of writing. Our final destination in her life will be her home in Rodmell, Sussex. It was here on the morning of 28 March 1941 that Virginia Woolf filled her overcoat pockets with stones, left a letter to her husband, and then drowned herself in the River Ouse. Here, while sitting on the green banks of the river, we can eat lunch and imagine the depths of despair into which this genius of literature plummeted.
Locations: The Life and Death of Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Our first location will be the Talland House, St Ives, Cornwall: Adeline Virginia Woolf spent every summer here until she was thirteen, and this is the place of her most vivid memories. So vivid, in fact, that the impressions and landscapes found here can also be found littered in her works (The Lighthouse, in particular.) After repeated sexual abuse by her half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth, and the deaths of both parents and a sister which led to two consequent nervous breakdowns, Virginia moved to 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury: our second location. While she stayed there, she attended King's College, Cambridge. It was there that she found a group of friends, and one close friend in particular: a man called Leondard Woolf. She married him two years after meeting him, and they shared a close and intimate marriage. They even started a publishing company together. But the encouragement of her husband couldn't save this talented woman from her inner demons: her periodic depression and hypermania drove her to frequent breakdowns...and a lot of writing. Our final destination in her life will be her home in Rodmell, Sussex. It was here on the morning of 28 March 1941 that Virginia Woolf filled her overcoat pockets with stones, left a letter to her husband, and then drowned herself in the River Ouse. Here, while sitting on the green banks of the river, we can eat lunch and imagine the depths of despair into which this genius of literature plummeted.
Above: Virginia Woolf
Above: A map of the area that Virginia Woolf must've once explored
Above: Virginia and Leonard Woolf
2. The Life and Death of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) This writer was born in Oak Park, Illonois (Chicago): this upper-class, strictly Protestant suburb will be our first location. As a young boy, and all through his long life, Hemingway had an eye for adventure... always in some scrape or other. This spirit led him all over the globe: New York, Italy, Paris, Toronto, Chicago, Kansas City, Nairobi, Kenya, the Bahamas, Cuba, Spain and finally Idaho. So many locations that his presence was felt... so many memorials left where his heavy foot trod... why not visit all of 'em? We will go on a wild, wacky and wonderful worldwide tour of every strange place that Ernest Hemingway visited, wrote and got (greviously) injured! This will undoubtedly exhaust us... but perhaps we can handle one more location: where he committed suicide. Two days after being released from hospital after his first attempt, and five bouts of EST (Electroshock Therapy), he grabbed a gun from the cabinet in his home in Ketchum, Idaho and shot himself. So ended the eventful life of Ernest Hemingway: alcoholic, writer, American, adventurer, and sorely missed by his fans.
Above: Ernest Hemingway with his favourite shotgun that he used for hunting... and to kill himself.
Mrs W
ReplyDeleteI wanted know if you think I should keep the link to Virginia Woolf's suicide note to her husband? I think it might be neccessary, because it mentions things that directly link to the topic at hand, but somehow... it seems a little distasteful. The note is on Wikepedia for anyone to see, but that doesn't really mean that I should promote it, for want of a better term. I doubt she'd want it published. Whatever your advice, I can't help but wonder: what sort of person would put her note in the public eye in the first place, after her death? Sometimes I don't understand people.
Best
E
Hi Emma, these two entries are really relevant: you have sustained your theme amazingly well, and managed to be entertaining. I love the way you have nonchalantly appended meal arrangements on to some of the most gruesome aspects of the tour! Very wry. I would definitely leave the link in to VW's letter. It is a bit 'out there', but I think that by now, if anybody were offended (remaining relatives) they would have complained. As you know, there were no children, so, perhaps not an issue (ha! ha! pardon the pun.) I have been to St Ives, but, unfortunately it was before I knew VW spent so much time there. I think the Hemingway insert is delightful 'masculine' addition to your tour. Again, very well done. When do you think I can show your blog to the class?
ReplyDeleteMrs W
Hi Mrs W, thank you for your kind comments, as always. I think I will keep VW's note... Not because it may or may not offend, but because it IS relevant. And about Hemingway... blah. I seriously considered leaving him out of my blog entirely, since I just don't like him or his writing. Still, his 'masculinity' throws into glad relief Virginia Woolf's story, so I let the man stay.
ReplyDeleteYou may of course show the class my project when it's done, which should be by Friday. I'm vaguely interested what their reactions will be.
E
P.S: You're so lucky to have travelled, I'd kill to go to St Ives.
Well, killing to go to St Ives might be a bit extreme but yes, it is very, very beautiful. I can understand how it might have inspired 'The Lighthouse'. Did you know that, apparently, the Woolfs had a celibate marriage? He must have been a truly remarkable man. Looking at some of your links, I really am intrigued by the book reviewed in the fifth link. I think I might like to read it. Emma, did you know that the prize for winning the English Olympiad is a real Literary Tour of England? Remind me to tell the class about it and to encourage you all to enter. of course, I am assuming you will not hesitate to enter? 'Til next time. Mrs W
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to Day 7. What WILL you find in Post-Modernity, I wonder?
ReplyDeleteMrs W
ReplyDeleteDidn't know about the English Olympiad: I've never entered it before (I'm not really a "competition" sort of person), but now I think I will. What will it entail?
Hmm, the Woolf's marriage was a rather strange one, but a beautiful one nonetheless. A meeting of minds, of equals. It's difficult to live with someone with a mental disorder, but Leonard did it for a long time. He must've really loved her, poor man. Poor Virginia. Poor both of them.
Hope that my last day of the Seven Days of Suicide Tour meets your expectations (if it doesn't, I can and will redo!) E