The Recorded Voice Of Virginia Woolf
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 1 дек 2007
- This is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice. It is part of a BBC radio broadcast from April 29th, 1937. The talk was called "Craftsmanship" and was part of a series entitled "Words Fail Me".
The audio is accompanied by a slideshow of photographs of Virginia Woolf.
The text was published as an essay in "The Death of the Moth and Other Essays" (1942), and I've transcribed the recorded portion here:
atthisnow.blogspot.com/2009/06...
This is exactly what I thought she'd sound like.
'Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations - naturally. They have been out and about, on people’s lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today - that they are so stored with meanings, with memories, that they have contracted so many famous marriages. The splendid word “incarnadine,” for example - who can use it without remembering also “multitudinous seas”? In the old days, of course, when English was a new language, writers could invent new words and use them. Nowadays it is easy enough to invent new words - they spring to the lips whenever we see a new sight or feel a new sensation - but we cannot use them because the language is old. You cannot use a brand new word in an old language because of the very obvious yet mysterious fact that a word is not a single and separate entity, but part of other words. It is not a word indeed until it is part of a sentence. Words belong to each other, although, of course, only a great writer knows that the word “incarnadine” belongs to “multitudinous seas.” To combine new words with old words is fatal to the constitution of the sentence. In order to use new words properly you would have to invent a new language; and that, though no doubt we shall come to it, is not at the moment our business. Our business is to see what we can do with the English language as it is. How can we combine the old words in new orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth? That is the question.' I love her, لا إله إلاَّ الله محمد رسول الله
ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chapter24.html
I know right!
I've no idea why, but that just cracks me up.
That deep contralto tone to her voice, makes her sound intelligent and thoughtful, just as she really was.
Yes
....to think that we could hear her voice at this time after all those years, we are lucky indeed.
YES
Beautiful, just beautiful. A gift, to have this record of how she spoke.
Michael Totzke Yes!
Isn't it? A blessing to be able to hear her voice.
❤😍
Simp
Jeremy Saunders Fuck. YOU.
It is wonderful to hear "the voice" that inspired so many of us, as writers and feminists. To read her diaries and letters over these many years was always such a delight. As this is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice, and she is commenting on language and words, hearing her voice has made my day!!
She wasn't feminist, She defended the rights of everybody in a world in which women didn' t have rights
@@cgfyffygugugug3552 well, she advocated for women's rights as well then. which makes her a feminist.
@@wohellcat feminists fight for the rights of women, against men or something. The others fight for the rights of everyone
@@wohellcat She was for "gender equality", not for the populist movements which lead to forms of sovereignism : that suffix "ist" Is never good
@@cgfyffygugugug3552 Just an addition, although belated, that I think pertinent to your point (which I wholly agree with): Woolf disliked the word 'feminist'. She felt it restrictive and biased, as you point out. She symbolically burns it in Three Guineas. Her goal, as Woolf explains by quoting the legendary Josephine Butler, was 'to assert the rights of all - all women and men - to the respect in their persons of the great principles of Justice and Equality and Liberty'.
Many of the most compelling women advocating for women's rights in the Georgian era disliked being called 'feminists', and exactly that seems to have ensured that they were called so in order to water down their true goal.
Isn't this exactly how we imagined she would sound?
Woolf’s nephew, Quentin Bell, felt the broadcast misrepresented his aunt’s voice: ‘the record is a very poor one,’ he wrote later: ‘her voice is deprived of depth and resonance; it seems altogether too fast and too flat; it is barely recognisable. Her speaking voice was in fact beautiful…and it is sad that it should not have been immortalised in a more satisfactory manner.’ If Bell is right, this may have been the result of Woolf’s discomfort with the medium of radio itself: ‘it could have been a good article,’ she later wrote about ‘Craftsmanship’, ‘[but] it’s the talk element that upsets it’. She promised herself in her diary that she would ‘refrain from the folly’ of broadcasting ever again.
As a French woman, i'm very glad to be able to hear Her voice.The english language has always been my enjoyment but I don't know why. i come from the lowest class of France and learned English at school.
Her voice is just familiar to me, her words also.
God bless the english female writers of that time.
One doesn't simply read Woolf; you consume her thoughts, her words, and you hunger for more.
very true
Yes. Just like Asian take out food.
@n\a humour is always funnier when it is carefully explained. So . . .
With Woolf's writing, "you consume her words, . . . and you hunger for more."
One consumes mass quantities of yummy Asian food, but 30 minutes later one is once again hungry.
@@ringodingo Asia stretches half-way round the world. "Asian" food could be pitta bread and hummus, or tarka dhal, or Mongolian khorkhog, or sushi.
@@omp199 omp199, awesome point about Asian food. I was trying to avoid simply saying Chinese food, which is what I was thinking of. I love the North American restaurant version of Chinese food.
I love everyone who has commented on this; it's so good to see people who admire real literature :)
microphone is better than mine.
Ha
I've always considered Virginia Woolf's style of writing the same as a method actor. She becomes what she is writing or it becomes her.
Gary Jones precisely.
Beautifully said
This is amazing! What a privilege to hear Virginia Woolf's voice! I listened to the unabridged "Mrs. Dalloway" last week, and "To The Lighthouse" this week. I rank her among the best ever. She should be read alongside Beckett, Proust and Joyce.
From the RUclips description: This is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice. It is part of a BBC radio broadcast from April 29th, 1937. The talk was called "Craftsmanship" and was part of a series entitled "Words Fail Me".
The audio is accompanied by a slideshow of photographs of Virginia Woolf.
The text was published as an essay in "The Death of the Moth and Other Essays"
I was Virginia's lover!
Two things: Virginia Woolf is definitely among the best modernist novelists, and that's recognized. Also, hot damn, listening to a Virginia Woolf novel is a feat--it's complicated enough to understand in text.
HogsHeadStudios You might find listening to Woolf is better, if you have a good reader. I listened to Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and The Waves in recorded books. The flow of the language with a reader who has the appropriate accent is fantastic. Same with Joyce's Ulysses. But hearing Woolf's voice in this only existing recording is both daunting and inspiring to me. There is one recording of Flannery O'Connor which you can probably find easily on RUclips. That recording of O'Connor will change the way you read her work forever. She's sharper and funnier than anyone. Wow!
I agree that she's definitely one of the best writers ever, and my personal favourite. The Waves blew me away way more than any other book I've ever read, plus Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse were pretty damn incredible as well.
What a beautiful musical voice.
Woolf’s nephew, Quentin Bell, felt the broadcast misrepresented his aunt’s voice: ‘the record is a very poor one,’ he wrote later: ‘her voice is deprived of depth and resonance; it seems altogether too fast and too flat; it is barely recognisable. Her speaking voice was in fact beautiful…and it is sad that it should not have been immortalised in a more satisfactory manner.’ If Bell is right, this may have been the result of Woolf’s discomfort with the medium of radio itself: ‘it could have been a good article,’ she later wrote about ‘Craftsmanship’, ‘[but] it’s the talk element that upsets it’. She promised herself in her diary that she would ‘refrain from the folly’ of broadcasting ever again.
@@dualblake Thank you for an interesting comment.
Yes , ofcourse it's beautiful ❤️
Her voice is so soothing. Any one can wonder behind this calm voice she was sufferring....
Apparently her voice was so much more than what we hear here.
Woolf’s nephew, Quentin Bell, felt the broadcast misrepresented his aunt’s voice: ‘the record is a very poor one,’ he wrote later: ‘her voice is deprived of depth and resonance; it seems altogether too fast and too flat; it is barely recognisable. Her speaking voice was in fact beautiful…and it is sad that it should not have been immortalised in a more satisfactory manner.’ If Bell is right, this may have been the result of Woolf’s discomfort with the medium of radio itself: ‘it could have been a good article,’ she later wrote about ‘Craftsmanship’, ‘[but] it’s the talk element that upsets it’. She promised herself in her diary that she would ‘refrain from the folly’ of broadcasting ever again.
OMG finally a recording of my favourite writer!
Finally?! It was broadcast in 1937, where yah been.
In 1937? I wasn't born, were you??
Too bad there isn't one on Oscar Wilde. That would be something, I would think.
@@waynej2608 That would have been so cool😩
Hope this is on here forever! I listen to it at least once a month...
I love how absolutely, fiercely irreverent she was. And every time I read (in this case listen to) her stuff I'm left astonished. Reading her work is a spiritual experience, or a dip in a clear pool.
Debdutta Ray
Provided, it's not the final 'dip'.
@@waynej2608 LOL NICE 😆
My God ... This is the Virginia's Voice!
Thanks for post it ...
I love Virginia Woolf. She's wonderful ... I'm speechless ... I'm in tears ...
“There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” Wonderful to hear her voice, imagine meeting her and what would she think of the world 100 years later.
Right?
She'd probably kill herself again.
this is so strange and amazing. i'm a huge fan of Virginia Woolf and her work, but to be able to hear her voice and to realise that someone can have a huge impact on you and your life without you ever hearing their voice or know how they speak.
Lovely photos and what a marvellous thing to hear her voice, even if there are decades between us. Thank you for sharing this! :)
glamourofyesterday Right? Joy!!
Fascinating , you can sense her eccentric intellect in her voice ♥️♥️ I'm glad this recording exist
No one said or ever will say "multitudinous seas" as expertly beautifully as she did.
What a wonderful, gentle voice! What a wonderful writer. Thank you so much. This woman suffered so much and gave so much. 'The Waves' alone is a masterpiece and I would love to see it filmed, if it could be done. Thank you for this post and thank you Mrs. Woolf for making such a lasting contribution to the English language and English literature.
She's a genius! A Master of Literature!
Thanks ever so much for posting this. Now when I read her works I'll just imagine them her voice and enjoy them all the more.
Me too amazing
Woolf’s nephew, Quentin Bell, felt the broadcast misrepresented his aunt’s voice: ‘the record is a very poor one,’ he wrote later: ‘her voice is deprived of depth and resonance; it seems altogether too fast and too flat; it is barely recognisable. Her speaking voice was in fact beautiful…and it is sad that it should not have been immortalised in a more satisfactory manner.’ If Bell is right, this may have been the result of Woolf’s discomfort with the medium of radio itself: ‘it could have been a good article,’ she later wrote about ‘Craftsmanship’, ‘[but] it’s the talk element that upsets it’. She promised herself in her diary that she would ‘refrain from the folly’ of broadcasting ever again.
Thank you for this. I feel so moved to have experienced this voice, her fierce words and luminous photographs together.
Besides her beautiful voice, her intonation and how she phrases the words (a feeling of: It’s Virginia Woolf!), what she has to say is invaluable.
So very beautiful. Thank you for uploading.
An amazing recording to be cherished! Thanks for this post Atthis
This is wonderful, thanks to whoever found this and shared it with all of us..what a treat to hear her talk about writing and words.
Virginia Woolf has this incredible effect on me. Any time I discover something new about her I'm mesmerized by her genius. I can't believe that there are so many people that don't worship at her altar.
I broke in tears the moment I listened to her voice. Her entonation. I believe we will not have such a well-spoken person. Her legacy will continue to live in our hearts and minds forever. Sincerely, thank you so much for uploading this.
A thrilling audio and magnificent photos of perhaps the most expressive and beautiful face that ever existed. Meltingly lovely, riveting images. Thank you.
This is so interesting. So glad to have found it. Thanks for your efforts in combining the photos, adds to the experience so much.
2022 here..utterly spellbinding. Thank you for posting this beautiful video. 🌹🌹🌹
This is an incredible piece recorded. We are so lucky to have it. Thank you.
About 15 years ago I visited Virginia Woolf's home in Sussex with a friend who was using her writing as part of her dissertation. We arrived late and I told her to run up the track to the house; I would lock the car and follow. There was one other car in the car park and I parked a few feet away. As I got out, I felt that somebody was watching me and I turned around to look into the car. There, staring out at me, eating an apple, was Virginia Woolf (or her absolute double!). I have no explanation for it. Has anybody else had a similar experience?
It was a Sending! Lucky you!
Marius Cipolla It was strange, but interesting, for sure.
+Ann TwoShoes I believe you. The sun sets everyday. The apple is a real thing.
It most definitely happened and I've never encountered anything similar since.
Ann TwoShoes
No, I'm serious. I most definitely believe you, and I'll never encounter anything similar again.
I'm absolutely shocked - Ive spent so much of my life reading her works, admiring her on a million different levels - I had no idea her voice had been recorded! This is a gift beyond gifts...thankyouthankyou!!!
she is talking about words and writing and language.This is called "Craftsmanship". I made a special trip to the British Library to listen to this same recording.
We can hear what she is speaking of. By listening to her speak.
This recording is a treasure! Woolf was one of Britain's greatest innovators, as well as the worlds!
Many thanks! Fabulous for me to find this! Superb posting!
Love it. Thanks for upload
So clear, direct, logical and knowledgeable. I wish I could hear her lectures. I like her questioning things, like when she says 'Do we write better? Do we read better? I like how she sees things in multiple dimensions. Professor you can wish for.
Thank you for the subtitles - fantastic!
I'm crying with this wonder
Absolutely brilliant! She has an understanding of language and communication that is otherworldly. The power of our words is imperative to learn. Our spirit has no bounds. I started reading Virginia when I was sixteen in literature. The teacher was on something else but I skimmed through and found "A room of one's own". I couldn't stop thinking about it. I found a story that taught me how much more I could be.
Exactly the same voice as my great-aunt, who died about 10 years ago in her mid 90s.
Thanks for posting it. I have just read a biography on her and it mentioned this recording. I never Imagined I would actually find it.
WOOOOW !!! I didn't know these magical minutes existed !!! What a priceless recording !!! Thank you so much for this amazing discovery !!!! :)
What an extraordinary experience! Thank you. I'm reading " Moments of being", a collection of autobiographic writings...from now her words will resound .
Thank you for uploading this video, it has single-handedly (is this the right term? I am suddenly self-conscious about my words!) raised my estimation of her and her great mind... in a modern Britain filled with people (critics, scholars and the like) who seem against new terms, to hear an old Georgian voice speaking out for the liberty of words is a breath of fresh air... even though it is a very old recording she still sounds completely relevant.
No wonder both men and women fell in love with her.
Speak for yourself, missie.
Agree!
Yep, Vita is one of the proof
Completely agree
True
Très émouvant et impressionnant d'entendre CETTE voix . Merci !
I think I'm going to write down what she says so that I can study it more closely.
Very nice selection of photographs. I had necer seen so many of her! She had a fascinating presence, elegance and intelligence from head to toe.
You are so right. We live in an age where delicacy in all things is too often neglected. Virginia, at once the most delicate and strongest voice of her time, is a prime example of the power of mind, intelligence and sensitivity. How she did this is beyond me. But did it she did (forgive the appalling diction!) A thousand pities her life was not happier. You are so right her 'long shining sentences' will never be forgotten. Your insights are splendid. Thank you.
I only just found out a recording existed, it's great to hear Virginia's voice.
🎉😂❤
Long ago , I had a deep experience while teaching her novel "to the light house" , I went through the text deeply .. it gave a great admiration of Novel as a genre
Thanks for transcript on your blog.
A beautiful mind - wonderful to actually hear her voice. A real treat.
Woolf’s nephew, Quentin Bell, felt the broadcast misrepresented his aunt’s voice: ‘the record is a very poor one,’ he wrote later: ‘her voice is deprived of depth and resonance; it seems altogether too fast and too flat; it is barely recognisable. Her speaking voice was in fact beautiful…and it is sad that it should not have been immortalised in a more satisfactory manner.’ If Bell is right, this may have been the result of Woolf’s discomfort with the medium of radio itself: ‘it could have been a good article,’ she later wrote about ‘Craftsmanship’, ‘[but] it’s the talk element that upsets it’. She promised herself in her diary that she would ‘refrain from the folly’ of broadcasting ever again.
Man, she really was formidable. Who else could think up something so brilliant as 'the famous marriages' contracted by words before
Amazing , legendary
Thank you so much. Hearing her speaking.... almost an introduction.
About 20 years ago I went to a day of lectures on Virginia Woolf at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Nigel Nicholson came and did a fairly brief talk and brought along with him his own recording of Virginia Woolf. I know 20 years is a long time but I remember being very taken aback by her very low voice. I just don't recall her sounding like this at all.What's taken me aback here is that this sounds nothing like what I remember hearing all those years back.This is very BBC
Thanks for sharing that! It confirms my idea of her possibly formal discussion, vs a more informal tone. Nicholson would be personally a good source. I envy you getting to hear him speak of her!
By reading her books and listening to her voice i feel like someone in life get what i feel. Thats the best feeling.
She is indeed a great woman, the way I learned alot because of her is simply amazing.
Not just me but almost everybody here.
She's amazing and inspired me alot of things 😌
Thank you for posting this. Virginia Woolf, for me, is among the most important writers of the 20th century if not the whole english language along with Edmund Spencer, James Joyce and Shakespear
Its means a lot to me that you posted this. I guess it's from her, where I get my writing spirit from.
Omg , her voice is so gentle...great, she wa the biggest from big writers.
Almost finished To the Lighthouse, the first book by her that I've read. All I can say is... what a revelation. I knew it would be my favourite book by the time I was 30 pages in.
You made my day ⚘️thank you. She was beyond her time.
Suze, I love this! I have always been intrigued by her and the Bloomsbury Group...I have even hung out at her old house in London, which is now part of the University of London.
"For she has gone aroving " Wonderful. A great writer giving us pointers on how to see and use, words. Powerful.
Thank you so very very much 🌹
"Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refuse to allow words their liberty. We pin them down to one meaning, their useful meaning, the meaning which makes us catch the train, the meaning which makes us pass the examination…"
I haven't read any of Woolf's books, but that is a really good quote.
Could never imagine how her voice would sound like.
so beautiful, so captivating
thank you for the enjoyment of hearing this recording of Ms Woolf, I'm gonna try to learn that essay of by heart,. it is gripping x
how beautifully spoken, how sober and without any pathos!
Thank you very much ,you're very kind !
Wow. I clicked just to hear her voice for a few seconds, but Woolf's reflections on language mesmerized me entirely
what an honor to be able to listen and enjoy her voice.
This is her genius alive for this new generation.
I am moved in ways that I have not the words to describe.
This is beautiful.
Strong voice. Such a commanding yet humble voice.
I have recently have finished reading: "To The Lighthouse".
I felt like standing on a hill with the characters of the book beside me. We were not moving AT ALL, just staring at the sea. No sounds, no moves just a small breathe of air from time to time. Nothing! This feeling of watching life is AMAZING.
Such a remarkable woman, a pioneer during her own lifetime period. Inquiring about her a couple of years ago, I came across this terminology regarding her mental illness and her bipolar depression, something that she was referring to, about that through her madness she was enable to compose one of the greatests variety of articles and essays whilst her ailment was taken over her. ''A genius during agony might give creation to a master piece, after achieve it, the mortality it's welcome''.
She' endured quite a bit of tragedy & abuse. When the second WW hit, it send her over the edge, it seems.
i'm glad i found this video. this is incredible but quite disturbing honestly, to finally hear her voice after so long, a voice that you've kind of always knew, but didn't at the same time.
wonderful to listen to the English spoken by VW,the English I heard spoken as a small child,she has a true Edwardian voice.
This is great :) I like the way she pointed out about the "WORDS."
Well , beautiful voice of beautiful woman writer ❤ I love her writing.❤
This is gold for my ears as her words are for my spirit.
This just made my life...I have read all of Virginia's works and always imagined what such a soul-stirring writer might have sounded. Now I know, and I am in love with her voice. There is such strength here, such integrity. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
It is truly so enlightening to listen to Woolf and her how she understands the gravity of how much the humanistic nature to add singular meanings to things will deter us from a path of artistic liberty. To have someone from that time - especially Virginia - see the broader issue at hand with society and the lack of liberty with things; it reassures that the modern ideals aren't so radical as others pay put it out to be. I always thought that the need to find meaning in such things like art is so mundane because meaning is a variety of things. To put such limit and to confine such beautiful work - grammar, structure - is to restrain us of liberty. Let the words and the mind run free in fruition.
amazing be able to heard her voice in 2023. I m going to Monk´s house on June. I feel inspired.😊
It's incredible how calm and self-confident it is that voice from this woman here, in this situation (even within her stormy soul). What she said is not but the encounter with own truth (the own mind); "Words do not live in dictionaries, they live in the mind", (...)
Her voice and that of Same Edith Sitwell are eerily similar! We are indeed lucky to hear them as well as access their works on the touch of a button!
They are indeed!!
So nice to hear a proper accent. How beautiful it sounds!
She was amazing...
The creativity , the beauty, the common sense, she displays in just in these few minutes is truly astonishing. She was a genius
Absolutely incredible! If words live in the mind, as Virginia Woolf eloquently argued, then the words living in her mind must have been among the happiest words to take up a most luxurious and comfortable abode. Our U.S. Supreme Court Justices -- and anyone else who cares about the art of interpretation -- would be well served by carefully considering her words.