Phenomenological Reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

• Název práce v češtině: Fenomenologická interpretace Mrs. Dalloway Virginie Woolfové
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Phenomenological Reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2023/2024
• Typ práce: bakalářská práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav filosofie a religionistiky (21-UFAR)
• Vedoucí / školitel: Mgr. Ondřej Švec, Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 29.11.2023
• Datum zadání: 29.11.2023
• Schválení administrátorem: bylo schváleno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 29.11.2023
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: ne

Zásady pro vypracování

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is generally regarded as one of the best examples of modernist literature which can be characterized by its ambition to translate the inherently fleeting nature of human consciousness into the literary fiction by abolishing the rigid structures of time, exploring the significance of space within which the characters move and exist and introducing new narrative techniques such as “stream-of-consciousness”. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf accomplishes these ambitions to the highest possible degree through her specific employment of language, literary devices and narrative techniques.
The same objective, that is, to capture the experience of human consciousness, can be also ascribed to phenomenology which investigates similar concepts as those present in Mrs. Dalloway e.g. the temporal and spatial awareness, subjectivity and fluidity of human experience etc. These two approaches could not be more contrasting in their form – Woolf’s loose literary style and the phenomenological requirement for precise terminology and rigorous scientific description– but their aims are rather similar; they are both examining the same ideas through different optics.
That is why I think that Woolf’s exceedingly original work provides a great basis for an attempt at a highly neglected strategy of literary criticism, i.e. a phenomenological approach.
The aim of my work is to discuss Woolf’s literary portrayals of consciousness, space and time through the lens of phenomenological terminology; consulting and applying philosophical structures and explorations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl and others. Firstly, I shall discuss the said three concepts – consciousness, space and time – within the scope of their original phenomenological description and subsequently implement them into the imaginary world of Mrs. Dalloway, thus illuminating the differences and similarities between the two approaches towards the uncovering of human consciousness: Woolf’s literary modernism and phenomenology.

Seznam odborné literatury

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Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of perception. Translated by Donald A. Landes. London: Routledge, 2012.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The primacy of perception: and other essays on phenomenological psychology, the philosophy of art, history, and politics. Translated by James M. Edie. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964.
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Woolf, Virginia. Essays on the Self : Selected Essays of Virginia Woolf. London: Notting Hill Editions, 2017.
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs Dalloway. London: Vintage Books, 2004.