Authorial Presence in Orlando: A Biography
“WHAT AN ACHIEVEMENT A BOOK IS, A MAGIC BOX SIMULTANEOUSLY HOLDING THE PRESENCE OF THE AUTHOR AND THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD.” -IVAN DOIG
Introduction:
Authorial presence is the author's positionality and objective articulation in text in relation to other authors and textual resources.
New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American Literary can literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. The New Criticism emphasises "close reading," of "the work itself." It rejects old criticism's attention to biographical and sociological matters that are external forces.
“Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry”
-T.S. Eliot
A poet and literary Critic T.S. Eliot in his Essay ‘Traditional and Individual Talent’ (1919) has given a ‘Depersonalization Theory’. Depersonalization is an action of detaching the personal self from something. And Eliot pointed writers to staying detached from their work.
“ Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”
But if we read the major twentieth-century text we find the presence of authors in their work, which can be known through the autobiographical reading of the writer. Autobiographical elements mean the description of life, what life really means to one, and the vision of one's future. The texts present the author's life, his/her mental state, thoughts, observations, emotions, and feelings.
In the twentieth century in which the new criticism evolved, various texts like Orlando and The Wasteland which can be said an esoteric literary work has the presence of the writer in it. In this paper, we are going to discuss their presence and will find their autobiographical elements which are not directly read but reading their biographies and their letters helps to know about them.
Orlando:
Orlando: A Biography, is a biographical novel, it was first published on 11 October 1928. This novel was inspired by the tumultuous family history of the aristocratic poet and novelist Vita Sackville- West. She was a lover as well as a close friend of Virginia Woolf. The book describes the adventures of a poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeting the key figures of English literary history. It is also considered a feminist classic, It also presents the themes like women’s writing. Gender roles.
This novel has a very confusing and weird plot. The story line begins with the rule of Queen Elizabeth and ends in the reign of Queen Victoria, the story is of about 300-400 years of life, and the protagonist, Orlando turns to the age of around 30. The plot satirises various literary writers and critics in his work as well as indicates the changes taking place in various regimens.
As the title itself says that the novel is ‘a biography’, it becomes difficult to read it as a biography, it does not directly tell about Vita Sackville but it gives signs about his life and nature.
It is a biography of Vita Sackville can be confirmed by Woolf herself, who noted in her diary the idea of Orlando on 5 October 1927: "And instantly the usual exciting devices enter my mind: a biography beginning in the year 1500 and continuing to the present day, called Orlando: Vita; only with a change about from one sex to the other".
Vita and Virginia both belonged to a Bloomsbury Group and they both belonged to a completely different class. They both were married to males but still have a most intense romantic relationship, which is an inspiration o Orlando. Virginia had a love for arts and literature running through her family. Her sister Vanessa was an artist. In 1912, Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a politically active left-wing writer. Vita Sackville was 10 years younger than Virginia and belonged to an aristocratic family. Vita couldn't inherit her ancestral Knole home because of her gender which is highlighted in the essay A Room Of One’s Own. Vita married Harold Nicholas who loved her wife but still had same-sex affairs. Vita caused a scandal in high society by eloping with her love and spending two years together. Vita and Virginia met at a costume party and Vita was immediately attracted to Woolf’s intellect, eloquence, and genius.
Virginia’s. Soon after their first meeting, she wrote to her husband Harold Nicholson: “I simply adore Virginia Woolf, and so would you … Mrs. Woolf is so simple…At first, you think she is plain, then a sort of spiritual beauty imposes itself on you, and you find a fascination in watching her…I’ve rarely taken such a fancy to anyone”.
Vita and Virginia were soon in a love relationship that was very passionate and sexual. Both women were open about their relationship too. They were in this relationship when British society was socially conservative. Male homosexuality was a criminal offense and in that period both women had a homosexual relationship. In Chanya Button’s movie, we see Virginia was hesitant about their sexual relationship and it was because she was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by her male family members. Even their relationship was not objected to by her husband, Leonard.
Later, vita started publishing her books from Woolf’s press, and Hogarth Press. Vita‘s books were very successful in comparison to Virginia and the reason is Woolf’s language was not easily understandable. Virginia and Leonard had a happy married life. We note in the movie that Woolf was Jealous of Vita but it was not of her writing but of her ability to be all these other things: to be a mother, to be beautiful, to have this sense of confidence that Woolf lacked at times about her being in the world, versus her writing.
Woolf’ wanted children but her husband thought it would be determined because of her mental health. Throughout her life, Woolf struggled with her mental health, experiencing episodes of depression and symptoms of bipolar disorder died by suicide in 1941. Her suicide is considered to be the most artistic suicide. She filled her coat’s pocket with stones and drowned herself in the water after being tired of her own mental health.
Nigel Nicolson, Sackville-West's son, wrote, "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace, and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her.”
From the discussion above done, on the life of Virginia and her homosexual relation with Vita we can easily read Orlando as a Biography. The change in the gender of a protagonist Orlando and his/ her relation with their gender or the same gender signifies Vita’s changing love interest. She has been in relationships with males and females, both genders.
Virginia Wolf was the one who was fighting for women’s place in society, gaining equality in society. That has also been depicted in the novel. How the victorian period changed for women in comparison to the Elizabethan period. Being a woman when she went out in the Victorian period she realized now no women are allowed to be on road the alone without a man. The novel prominently gives an image of was changing world. At the end of the novel, Orlando's husband is a pilot, hot water is there on a switch, etc which is throwing light on the modernized world, and the rise of technology.
It is impossible to talk about Orlando without bringing in Vita Sackville-West. Orlando being a Man had many love affairs and turned into a woman had afraid of adding to it and also got married. Here we can read Orlando As a transgender figure who falls in love with both genders. That is significantly seen in Vita, Vita was not a transgender but was in love with both genders. Vita’s father had no sons, and because Knole was entailed on a male heir, Vita could not inherit it when her father died in 1928. In Orlando, Woolf works it so that Orlando does get to keep the estate when the court finds for her and she is in undisturbed possession of her titles, her house, and her estate . . . infinitely noble again [but because of the lawsuits] she was also excessively poor. The impoverishment of the estate through lawsuits (all those illegitimate sons) is about what happened to Knole, which has been owned by the National Trust since 1947.
Vita replied, “My God Virginia if ever I was thrilled and terrified it is at the prospect of being projected into the shape of Orlando.” this reply of Vita to Virginia proves Orlando is a biography of Vita.
"To give a truthful account of London society at that or indeed at any other time, is beyond the powers of the biographer or the historian. Only those who have little need of the truth, and no respect for it the poets and the novelists can be trusted to do it, for this is one of the cases where truth does not exist." (Orlando 192)
Work Cited:
Blamires, Harry, editor. A Guide to Twentieth Century Literature in English. Methuen, 1983. Accessed 8 May 2022.
Haynes, Suyin. “The True Story of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.” TIME, 23 August 2019, https://time.com/5655270/virginia-woolf-vita-sackville-west-relationship/. Accessed 8 May 2022.
Karbo, Karen. In Praise of Difficult Women. National Geographic Society, 2018. Accessed 8 May 2022.
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