Michaela Stolte

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,2, Utrecht University, course: Kaleidoscope Western Literature, language: English, abstract: In October 1962 Edward Albee's play "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre. The title comes from the words of the children's song "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?" and comes up as a joke at a party tying the different themes of the play together: childhood and parenthood, reality and fantasy and carreer success. One might wonder why the name was changed to "Virginia Woolf", but in fact, it is significant: Virgina Woolf's writings attempt to reveal the truth of human experience and emotion, along with the thoughts of her characters - everything that the characters in the play try to cover up. In this respect, using her name in the title demonstrates how Virginia Woolf and her novels became symbolic of a number of ideas in Western culture and literature. Born in 1882, Virginia Woolf contributed to English literature in her very own way and developed a style of writing fiction that is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying: In her fictions one can objectify sensitive personal reactions to experience . In the Victorian period, marked by Queen Victoria s reign from 1837 to 1901, most writing was concerned with contemporary social problems like the effects of the industrial revolution, the influence of the theory of evolution or movements of political and social reform. It was a period of intense and prolific activity in literature, especially by novelists and poets, and in this respect the writers attempted to produce a narrative art whose composition was determinded by a public sense of values and interests. Around the turn of the century however, a time of artistic and literary experimentation began and was immediately seen as a radical break with the traditional forms and ideologies. This period of what came to be known as modernism, is particulary concernded with language and how it should be used as well as with writing itself. In this respect, the term of modernism pertains to all the creative arts, especially poetry, fiction, drama, painting and music. Moreover, one desired to transgress the boundaries between various genres; an attempt going back to the late 19th century...