Virginia Woolf (7 page)

This was the first of the three letters that in 2004 turned up in one of my filing cabinets. It was written on June 21,1935 from VW’s home in Sussex. I never found out who the “excellent critic” was that found my book so sympathetic. Virginia Woolf mailed this letter on June 21 but I had left for Europe on June 22. My mother tucked it away in a file drawer for safekeeping. I did not see it until I returned home from traveling across Europe and the Soviet Arctic.

This was the second letter Virginia Woolf wrote me. It answered a letter I wrote her from Amsterdam for which I have no copy. It had its own strange odyssey. I had sent my letter to her from Amsterdam where I was visiting the Herz family with whom I had lived in Cologne. Virginia Woolf sent her answer to the Herz family in Amsterdam. They in turn had crossed out their address and redirected it to my address in Brooklyn. My mother stored it with the first letter in the same file drawer.

I wrote this letter to Virginia Woolf after she apparently sent me a letter I no longer have, saying she would read my book after Christmas. She hoped by then she would have finished the book she was writing; it was
The Years.

The last of the three letters seems to have been typed by Virginia Woolf herself with eighteen corrections. In this letter she reveals her agony in writing
The Years
, a book of frustrations for her.

To supplement my income during the Depression I began giving public lectures. This brochure was printed by a company that was helping me arrange bookings.

There were many topics I was prepared to speak on, especially “Virginia Woolf and the Will to Create as a Woman.”

The brochure quoted from several articles that appeared after I returned home from Cologne, dubbed “the youngest Ph. D. in the world.” Notwithstanding the publicity, I still couldn’t find much work as the Depression took hold.

I was pleased that the brochure quoted the comments of the professors in Germany who had read my dissertation on Virginia Woolf, and other scholars and writers, such as the great novelist Lion Feuchtwanger.

In this letter Nigel Nicolson explained the phrase Virginia Woolf had used before we met—“A pure have yer.”

In this letter I thanked Nigel Nicolson for writing to me.

Here Nigel Nicolson describes his feelings about Virginia Woolf. He is the sort of male critic that Virginia Woolf feared would dismiss her writing.

HERAUSGEGEBEN VON

O. Ö. PROFESSOR AN DER UNIVERSITÄT KÖLN

24. BAND:

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Druck von Heinr. Pöppinghaus o. H.-G., Bochum-Langendreer

Chapter One: The Poet versus the Critic

Chapter Two: The Struggle for a Style

Chapter Three: Literary Influences: The Formation of a Style

Chapter Four: The Style Completed and The Thought Implied

Chapter Five: “The Waves”: the Rhythm of Conflicts

Chapter Six: The Will to Create as a Woman

V
IRGINIA
W
OOLF IS DETERMINED
to write as a woman. Through the eyes of her sex, she seeks to penetrate life and describe it. Her will to explore her femininity is bitterly opposed by the critics, who guard the traditions of men, who dictate to her or denounce her feminine reactions to art and life.

Seen through the struggle between poet and critic, a history of literature would appear as an endless conflict between two forces, one creating and one destroying. Dislocated by the War, modern literature is facing this conflict with desperate intensity. The literary world is torn between tradition and experiment. Poets defend themselves, critics their standards. Absolute values, in thought or style, become more than ever, esoteric and diffuse.