Task on Virginia Woolf for Nov 3
Autor: carlos | Publicado: 2009-10-15T06:00:00-07:00

Dear allTASK for Nov 3Last class I introduced the following task:The death of the Moth (A morte da mariposa)  An Essay by Virginia Woolf Text of  “Death of the Moth” was distributed in class and is also  available here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=25662238087Task for Nov 3:  Write a 1-2-1 Essay  about The Death of the Moth.  You may quote from the following materials : a)Introduction for "The Death of the Moth  (roll down the page until you find it)http://www.moonstar.com/~acpjr/Blackboard/Common/Glossary/ExIntroductions.html b)Conclusion for "The Death of the Moth": http://www.moonstar.com/~acpjr/Blackboard/Common/Glossary/ExConclusions.html To contextualize the times of Virginia Woolf (a series of videos on her life):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN8RAm8_JHghttp://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=25662238087Voice of Virginia Woolf in the only recording available:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8czs8v6PuIMaterials for further study (we have examined it in class):Woolf uses irony, metaphor, and symbolism to dramatize her story and make the reader connect with the piece. Her sentences are long and laden with vivid details and descriptive, “feeling” words. She uses synaesthesia in “feel a sense of darkness,” and she often mixes literal and figurative terms, such as when she says that the moth was “humped and bossed and garnishes and cumbered.” These types of literary techniques contribute to the metahorical qualities of the piece. The moth wasn’t literally bossed, just as the rooks at the beginning didn’t really form a net, but using this wording helps the reader to see the situation more vividly. Words like this one, which are not literal but emit strong physical sensations, are similar to the use of synaesthesia. While we picture the moth stumbling about, we also get the feeling that the moth is being shaken around or “bossed” by an outside source (death).Irony is seen in many parts of this piece. There are many contradictory phrases seen throughout, such as “marvellous as well as pathetic.” It is ironic when Woolfe refers to the dying moth as a moth that is “dancing.” And then the whol piece is ironic in that one would not expect the death of an insignificant moth to be capable of having such an impact on the writer. She shows this in her piece by saying, “The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life. . .appeared a hard fate.” However, the seeming irony of this story makes more sense when one understands that the moth serves merely as a symbol for all life. The moth representing humans and other creatures is an example of metonymy. Synecdoche is also used in “The Death of a Moth,” an example being the use of a pen to symbolize the writer, Woolf.Vocabulary  The Death of the Moth: moth = mariposa, ivy = hera, rouse = awaken, hay= feno, fringed= decorated, tassel= short piece of smt tied together at one end of smt as decoration(borla), keener = more intense, plough= (arado), score= mark with lines, share= (lamina do arado), gleamed = shined,  rook= black bird (gralha), soar= going quickly up, cast= thrown,  utmost= greatest, (3) lean= slim, flutter = move through the air with small, fast movements, queer= strange, zest= enthusiasm, meager= small, downs= low grassy hills in the south of England, steamer = ship, thrust= pushed with force into  (4) driving= forcing, bead = small piece of round glass, decking= decorating, down  and feathers = penugem e penas, humped= deformity on the back, bossed= told to do things, garnish = decorate (gastronomy semantic field), cumbered= burdened, (5) ledge= small narrow shelf at the end of a wall (saliencia), resume=start again, sill= (peitoril da janela), rouse= awaken, laid= put down (past of lay),(6) brook= small stream (regato), doom= terrible future event, token = (symbol), minute= very small, wayside (fall by the wayside)= stop for lack of strength.To review Virginia Woolf’s life, as we saw in the videos in class: Born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London to Sir Leslie Stephen, considered the father of the Bloomsbury Group, and Julia Prinsep Stephen (born Jackson) (1846–1895), she was educated by her parents in their literate and well-connected household at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington. Virginia's parents had each been married previously, and their spouses had died. Consequently, the household contained the children of three marriages.Sir Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray (he was the widower of Thackeray's eldest daughter) meant that Woolf was raised in an environment filled with the influences of Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, Julia Margaret Cameron (an aunt of Julia Stephen), and James Russell Lowell, who was made Virginia's godfather, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Descended from an attendant of Marie Antoinette, she came from a family of renowned beauties who left their mark on Victorian society as models for Pre-Raphaelite artists and early photographers. Supplementing these influences was the immense library at 22 Hyde Park Gate, from which Virginia (unlike her brothers, who were formally educated) was taught the classics and English literature.According to her memoirs her most vivid childhood memories, however, were not of London but of St Ives in Cornwall, where the family spent every summer until 1895. The family stayed in their home called the Talland House, which looked out over the Porthminster Bay. The sudden death of her mother in 1895, when Virginia was 13, and that of her half sister Stella two years later, led to the first of Virginia's several nervous breakdowns. The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse and she was briefly institutionalized.Her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods, modern scholars have claimed,[1] were also induced by the sexual abuse she and Vanessa were subject to by their half-brothers George and Gerald.Throughout her life, Woolf was plagued by drastic mood swings. Though these recurring mental breakdowns greatly affected her social functioning, her literary abilities remained intact. Modern diagnostic techniques have led to a posthumous diagnosis of bipolar disorder, an illness which coloured her work, relationships, and life, and eventually led to her suicide. Following the death of her father in 1904 and her second serious nervous breakdown, Virginia, Vanessa, and Adrian sold 22 Hyde Park Gate, and bought a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury.Following studies at King's College London, Woolf came to know Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Saxon Sydney-Turner, Duncan Grant, and Leonard Woolf, who together formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle known as the Bloomsbury Group which came to notorious fame in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax Virginia Woolf participated in, dressed as a male Abyssinian royalty.Personal life: Virginia Stephen married writer Leonard Woolf in 1912, referring to him during their engagement as a "penniless Jew." The couple shared a close bond, and in 1937 Woolf wrote in her diary "Love-making — after 25 years can’t be attained by my unattractive countenance ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted, a pleasure that I have never felt." They also collaborated professionally, in 1917 founding the Hogarth Press, which subsequently published most of Woolf's work.The ethos of Bloomsbury discouraged sexual exclusivity, and in 1922, Woolf met Vita Sackville-West. After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death.Death:After completing the manuscript of her last (posthumously published) novel Between the Acts, Woolf fell victim to a depression similar to that which she had earlier experienced. The war, the Luftwaffe's destruction of her London homes, as well as the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry, worsened her condition until she was unable to work.On 28 March 1941, rather than having another nervous breakdown, Woolf drowned herself by weighing her pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until April 18. Her husband buried her cremated remains under a tree in the garden of their house in Rodmell, Sussex.