Today is also the 136th birthday of Virginia Woolf -- a female author who was one of the first to use the stream of consciousness writing form. She was a modernist and an early feminist, who would have been a young adult during the time of women's suffrage in England. She also became a member of one of the major groups of intellectuals and artists of the early 20th century -- the Bloomsbury Group, which included Rupert Brook, Clive Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachy and others. The members were mainly men -- something common at the time, yet Virginia Woolf fit well into the group of modernists, many of whom lived on the same block in the Bloomsbury district of London. While there for research work a few years ago, I spent time in Gordon Square walking and thinking of the many ideas that rose from that spot. If only the ground and houses could speak of what they had witnessed.
A quote of Woolf's that I like --
For masterpieces are not single solitary births; they are the outcome of many years thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.
In honour of Woolf's birthday, I share a song that was recorded about 25 years ago. The lyrics were inspired by a reading of her published diary. It uses imagery and lines from her writing and notes how the songwriter felt linked to this writer despite the many decades between them. Enjoy!
Virginia Woolf -- Indigo Girls
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