A weapon, a game, a kiss
Two newly discovered poems by Virginia Woolf
This week’s TLS features two newly discovered poems by Virginia Woolf. Perhaps it’s generous to call them poems. Sophie Oliver, the UK academic who found them in a folder of letters to Woolf’s niece, Angelica Garnett (née Bell) describes them as ‘doggerel’. It’s probably fair to say that they are not likely to be included in any poetry anthologies, that doesn’t mean that these scribbled verses are not significant. Oliver argues that the point of such verse for Woolf was ‘to play, poke and charm, and to help with what Angelica thought was one of her aunt’s greatest gifts, creating intimacy with people.’1
It’s evidence that Woolf wanted to enchant her niece and nephews by using her special powers: words and humour. As I wrote in my previous post on Julian Bell, shared jokes provided a way of lessening the tensions that emerged from their rivalry for Vanessa Bell’s love. ‘It was a relationship she worked at, but one riven by ambivalence,’ Oliver writes of Woolf’s relationship with her sister’s children. ‘The wordplay of “Hiccoughs” and the kissing viper in “Angelica”, the jaunty rhythm and rhymes in both poems, echo the worlds of nonsense and fairy tales that she constructed around her niece and nephews to draw them into something that was theirs alone.’
I’m fascinated by the fact that the poems might have been written in August 1932, when the family gathered at Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s farmhouse, ‘Charleston’ in East Sussex. Among the guests were Julian Bell and his girlfriend Lettice Ramsey, a widow and keen amateur photographer who was getting to know the family. On 18 March 1932 Woolf mentions in her diary that she took ‘tea with Nessa, Julian, & Mrs Ramsey’, then Vanessa invited Ramsey to Charleston, where she took a series of informal photographs, and also photographed Woolf with Angelica Bell at Monk’s House.
The playfulness of those summer days is beautifully captured in these informal snaps of Woolf and Angelica by Lettice, who seems to have been trying out her new Leica camera (see
’s Snapshots of Bloomsbury). Their lightness of tone is echoed in Woolf’s unfinished poems, which are dedicated to Angelica and Quentin (perhaps to celebrate his birthday on 19th August). In Julian Bell’s archive at King’s College there is a bundle of papers called ‘poetry games’ based on a parlour game enjoyed by the Woolfs and the Bells.But in 1932 there may have been a hint of rivalry in Virginia Woolf’s light-hearted attempts at poetry; notably, she did not dedicate a poem to Julian Bell, who was starting to gain fame in his own right as a serious poet. Later she regretted ‘the damned literary question’ and her own jealousy of him.
‘Are they good poems? It’s the wrong question,’ writes Sophie Oliver in her excellent TLS essay. Rather, this was poetry as ‘a weapon, a game, a kiss’.
There’s more about Virginia Woolf and Julian Bell below. I’ve also written about Lettice Ramsey’s 1932 visit to Charleston, and her 1956 photographs of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes here. Coming soon, my post on the 1930s photographic partnership, Ramsey & Muspratt, and how Lettice Ramsey continued her professional work until the 1970s.
The Enchanted April on film
The death of Dame Joan Plowright was announced this week. A great stage actor, she played the indomitable Mrs Fisher in the 1991 BBC adaptation of Enchanted April. Plowright was Oscar-nominated for her role in this British film, directed by Mike Newell, about four Englishwomen who venture on holiday to Italy (‘I'm a perfect sharer of your holiday, Mrs. Arbuthnot. All I wish to do is sit in the shade and remember better days and better men.’)
It was an adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel The Enchanted April (1922) and, as Isobel Maddison writes in her introduction to the 2022 Oxford World’s Classics edition, it was filmed in Castello Brown, Portofino: ‘And even if the production team needed to furnish the rooms and re-create the wonderful garden, particularly with the wisteria demanded by the original book, von Arnim’s novel provided a clear guide for the set.’2
To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine
The film did big business in the USA, probably because it was associated with Merchant-Ivory’s much loved 1985 adaptation of E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View (1908). Critical approval in the UK was less enthusiastic, strangely, though The Times reviewer noted that the best lines in the screenplay were taken from ‘a novel of 1922 by the intriguing Elizabeth von Arnim.’
Next week I’ll be writing more about why the literary reputation of von Arnim, whose novels were once world-famous, has faded since the 1930s, while that of her protégé E.M. Forster, who was once a tutor for von Arnim’s children at Nassenheide, has grown. As has, of course, the world fame of Virginia Woolf.
Meanwhile, I’m off to enjoy this wonderful BBC film – despite the puzzling DVD content warning from Miramax below – and Joan Plowright’s acting, once again.
Do you have a favourite novel that has been translated successfully to screen or stage? Or do you think it’s better to enjoy the classics as they were intended? Please let me know in the comments or by replying to this email. And do please click on the heart sign if you enjoyed this, as it helps non-subscribers to find my work. Thank you so much for reading.
Sophie Oliver, ‘Hiccoughs and Angelica’, TLS 17.1.2015. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/poetry-literature/hiccoughs-and-angelica-virginia-woolf-sophie-oliver (accessed 18.1.25)
Isobel Maddison, Introduction to Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April (Oxford World’s Classics 2022) p. xxix.
I do so love these posts of yours, Ann Kennedy Smith, so generous in nature, enough for me, a free subscriber to build a literary plateful and feel satisfied and looking forward to the next course. Recently I saw an adaptation of Orlando set to music performed by the Orchestre Métropolitain and a handful of actors, very condensed. Posts like this one really give another glimpse into Virginia Woolf's life and added to the experience.
Thanks for this interesting post. I agree with your thoughts about Virginia Woolf’s loving but sometimes complex relationship with the Bell children. It seems to me from photos that VW and Leonard Woolf both genuinely liked the children, played with them and listened to them, and were much loved. Though, as you note, VW did feel later she’d not been generous enough to Julian and his poetry in young adulthood.
Thanks also for the thoughts on Elizabeth von Arnim’s wonderful novel, The Enchanted April. We sometimes study this book on our von Arnim courses at Literature Cambridge. The recent Oxford World’s Classics edition is brilliantly edited by Isobel Maddison, who co-teaches von Arnim for us. I have not seen the film but will seek it out. Thank you.