Virginia Woolf's London. The character of a city and its people

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1.7, University of Bonn (Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie), course: Virginia Woolf. Time, Space and Memory, language: English, abstract: ¿London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets.¿ Virginia Woolf¿s home town, London, appears to be one of her greatest inspirations as it is not only setting of several of Woolf's novels but also the main topic in a number of her essays.

At first glance, Virginia Woolf's London is a perfect place of beauty and harmony. Despite mentioning them, the negative aspects of London brought up in her works always seem to be played down with the help of linguistic devices such as the use of irony in case of ¿the moralist¿ in ¿Oxford Street Tide¿ which can be made out in the following quote: ¿Even a moralist, who is, one must suppose, since he can spend the afternoon dreaming, a man with a balance in the bank ¿ even a moralist must allow [...]¿.

But is this beauty a real overall picture of Great Britain's capital as it is described by Woolf? Or do the mentioned negative aspects still have a bigger influence on the perception of London the reader gets than it appears? Or is the image, Virginia Woolf presents us, in the end even more negative than positive, and from which point of view?

To answer these questions, this paper includes a detailed analysis of two essays which address the city of London as their main issue with a special focus on the people and their perception ¿ ¿Oxford Street Tide¿, one of ¿The London Scene¿ essays which describes life in one of London's most famous shopping areas, and ¿Street Haunting: A London Adventure¿ in which the narrator takes the reader for a walk around London.