A Very Sincere Performance: Woolf, Byron, and Fame

Abstract

As the above epigraphs show, Byron represented not just one thing to Virginia Woolf. She read him critically and carefully, ready to detect either greatness or cant. But the very contradiction we find in her judgment of Byron—he was alternately sincere and insincere—speaks to something central to Woolf’s aesthetic. She had a long-standing interest in the attraction of opposites, in friendships and within one’s own personality. Her interest in androgyny itself represents an attempt to reconcile the apparently incompatible. Here is how she describes one such unlikely pairing:

As they gazed at each other each felt: Here am I—and then each felt: But how different! Hers was the pale worn face of an invalid, cut off from air, light, freedom. His was the warm ruddy face of a young animal; instinct with health and energy. Broken asunder, yet made in the same mould, could it be that each completed what was dormant in the other? She might have been—all that; and he—But no. (F, 23)

The vast differences between Elizabeth Barrett (later Browning) and her dog Flush only increase their intimacy and mutual admiration. Eventually, in Woolf’s retelling of the story—based heavily on Browning’s correspondence—Browning teaches Flush patience and, by living with her, he becomes less of a snob.

When he is serious, he is sincere.

Virginia Woolf

Yet, suddenly, between the acts, the figure of Byron appears, how tawdry, insincere and theatrical!

Virginia Woolf