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Wagner or Beethoven?

Shifts in the Musical Taste of Virginia Woolf

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Abstract

The essay focuses on the role music played in Virginia Woolf’s life and writings. By relying on information gleaned from her diaries, correspondence, essays, and fiction, on Leonard Woolf’s autobiography and his reviews of gramophone recordings, as well as on the critical and autobiographical works of their contemporaries, the author gives a detailed analysis of Virginia Woolf’s musical background and education. He sees continuity between her early opera-going experiences and her later interest in the string quartets and piano sonatas of Beethoven, arguing that a major artist never forgets the inspiration of early, formative years. Furthermore, this essay addresses complex questions of whether and how a comparison of music and literature can lead to a better understanding of Virginia Woolf’s works.

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  1. Department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Múzeum krt. 4/A, Budapest, 1088, Hungary

    Mihály Szegedy-Maszák

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  1. Mihály Szegedy-Maszák
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Correspondence to Mihály Szegedy-Maszák.

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Szegedy-Maszák, M. Wagner or Beethoven?. Neohelicon 39, 89–103 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-012-0134-0

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