Virginia Woolf reminds us in "A Room of One's Own" that "all women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn ... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Love Aphra. Many a much-needed chortle afforded by her irreverant writings during dark days of graduate school. But if I had a bunch of daisies today, they'd fall on Woolf's grave, for it is she who helps me not lose my mind when spending long days reading academic writing about literature. Maybe I'm just being pissy. But when I read Woolf's effortless, stunningly insightful, and often hilarious essays on literary characters and authors, Ican't help but feel that the laborious, insight-poor and dusty writing which academics are required to produce -- which I produce-- is, by comparison, an unfortunate tale from the crypt. Yes, Lloyd Benson, you knew Virginia Woolf and we are no Virginia Wolves. But most English professors were, at one time, people who delighted in writing and wrote with above-average clarity and insight (otherwise we would have changed majors). Hard to find those qualities in most academic journals that we need, for professional advancement, to read. Reading feels more like translating -- indeed, the red lines of the spellcheck that run throughout the works I quote indicate that this is not-quite-English (and I did not enjoy translating, sucked at it and did, in fact, change my major from Soviet Studies). So this blog will be dedicated to reading the lit crit of Woolf (and others) to figure out what it is that we have lost and to attempting to write about literature with a recovered sense of joy.
