Materiality of Modernism in Virginia Woolf's Essays

It is acknowledged that Virginia Woolf’s influential modernist novels primarily focus on self and spirituality. Although her emphasis on the materiality of life and literature, which is closely intertwined with spirituality, was a fundamental aspect of Virginia Woolf’s works, it was partially overlooked by critics. However, recent studies on the subject of materiality in literature have provided new insights into how objects are portrayed in Woolf’s fiction, which suggests that Woolf’s emphasis on the material world deserves more consideration. This paper asserts that Virginia Woolf’s emphasis on the material world as an integral aspect of life and literature is evident in several of her essays, particularly in “Modern Fiction” (1921), “Mr Bennet and Mrs Brown” (1924) “Robinson Crusoe” (1925) and “The New Biography” (1927). By examining Woolf’s defense of the Georgian writers’ techniques, which focus on the portrayal of human life connected with materiality, as opposed to the Edwardians’ emphasis on social and material details as bare facts with no connection to spirituality, this research highlights the significance of materiality in literature for Woolf.