Virginia Woolf: Very famous English writer
The two women were both bisexual and had an open marriage. Indeed they both had a husband when their love affair began. Their love was not forbidden and it lasted from 1929 to 1941. The letters they exchanged are very famous and quite powerful. Even when their love affair ended, they stayed close friends...
(Vita on the left and Virginia on the right)
Here's one of the letter from Vita to Virginia:
I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn’t even feel it. And yet I believe you’ll be sensible of a little gap. But you’d clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this—But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it …
Please forgive me for writing such a miserable letter.
V.
It is true that Vita admired Virginia a lot, and that Virginia was more reserved. But the letter is still so great!
Tell me what you think about it,
Eléa
i find it sad that vita feels so sorry for writing this letter, but although it is quite simple, what she wrote to virginia feels genuine, and that’s what’s very poignant; simple but beautiful.
ReplyDeletei really liked your article, thank you for sharing! ^^
I find it very true, I feel like I can understand everything vita is writing, that's personal but universal too ! Love is a thing nobody really understands but everybody thinks he knows about it. Maybe because the consequence are the same to everybody but not the reasons... I think that vita is ashamed because she would like to be a better person to feel as great as Virginia, she actually must feel lower than her.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you it's a simple and beautiful letter !
Thanks for sharing, this article is typical of you. We can really fell her pain in the words she uses, the letter is moving and powerful.
ReplyDelete