UNVEILING THE CONTEMPORARY IN VIRGINIA WOOLF

Abstract This article aims to discuss Virginia Woolf’s critical appraisal of the contemporariness of her contemporaries’ production while also probing the very idea of what constitutes “the contemporary”. “The Modern Essay (1921) serves as the frame for what Woolf dubbed “the contemporary dilemma”, which this article then traces in “How it Strikes a Contemporary” (1923). Resorting to other major essays, this article contextualizes Woolf’s publication of The Common Reader – First Series (1925) so as to explore its conversational quality as a philosophical principle inheren...