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Virginia Woolf was extraordinarily important to the development of early twentieth century modernist literature, and she is perhaps best known for her unique and innovative approaches to prose narrative, many of which are revealed in “Kew Gardens.”
She was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on January 25, 1882, in London, England, and grew up among intellectuals and artists. Deaths of family and friends led to depressive episodes that haunted her throughout her life, yet she became a literary pioneer, flaunting rules of literature inherited from her Victorian predecessors. As one of the founders of the Bloomsbury Group, a gathering of writers, artists, and intellectuals, Woolf began developing her Modernist ideas among others interested in the same ends, and she went on to co-found the Hogarth Press with her husband Leonard Woolf.
In 1925, after publishing multiple works and suffering periods of struggle with mental illness, Woolf published Mrs. Dalloway. The novel is considered her magnum opus, forever cementing her legacy as a writer of renown. Like “Kew Gardens,” Mrs. Dalloway employs a stream-of-consciousness narrative style and offers a deep analysis of its characters. The novel honestly explores the lives of its characters, using a non-linear technique in depicting the protagonist Clarissa Dalloway. Readers, despite the novel’s experimental aspects, engaged emotionally with the work, bringing Woolf a great deal of acclaim.
Woolf continued to explore the inner lives of her characters, revealing issues of gender and the nature of art, in many other novels, such as To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando: A Biography (1928). She continued with what might be termed a “literary rebellion” in another exceptional work, her extended essay based on lectures called A Room of One's Own (1929), in which she argued for the financial independence and equality of women and offered a critique of male dominance in the economic world.
On March 28, 1941, after a lifetime filled with the successful publication of countless, influential novels, essays, and other works, Virginia Woolf drowned herself, suffering from a sense of self-doubt and debilitating depression. Her death came as a shock to literary enthusiasts worldwide. Still, her legacy and ideas continue to fascinate readers today.
