DHUM 27A53 - Feminism & Literature:To the Lighthouse by V.Woolf & The Garden Party & other stories by K.Mansfield

Shunned by the Bloomsbury group, Katherine Mansfield was nevertheless one of the 20th century major writers. She admired Virginia Woolf's writings without being at awe and she was involved in the freedoms she claimed. Both writers were modernist, interested in psychological insights and caught in the anxieties of an age. Their feminism differed in the representations of interiority but they definitely charted the lives of women and the subjectivity of their experiences. They explored female identity and sexuality and revealed their psychological states. Power and alienation, gender lenses, and the feminist thought emerged in the works of these major writers of the XXth century who unveiled the obstacles that limited the emancipation of women. Both Woolf and Mansfield put radically into question the image of “the angel in the house” in Coventry Patmore's poem and brought a reflection on the very act of writing which reshaped the role of women in society. The course will be focused on the study of extracts from To the Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf and The Garden Party and other stories (1922) by Katherine Mansfield, with presentations related to both novels. The last four classes will focus on the study of movie adaptations (To the Lighthouse (1983) starring Kenneth Branagh and Rosemary Harris and The Garden Party (two adaptations: 1973 and 1983). Academic expectations The students are required to read the novels and be able to make literary commentaries.

Laurence CHAMLOU

Séminaire

English

Spring 2024-2025

The students will be assessed through oral and written works: a presentation (oral), a comparative commentary and an essay (written).