This book was hard for me to get into when I first started reading it, but once I got the hang of Woolf's style... I dunno, it _did_ something to me. That scene at the dinner party, when Mrs. Ramsay looks back on the moment and realizes it will never happen again, hit me like a cannonball. I remember immediately putting the book down so I could go call my parents and tell them I loved them. Even now just listening to you talk about this book, it makes me so emotional. It's amazing that a book where nothing much happens can still have such a big impact.
The thing I remember about To the Lighthouse is Mrs. Ramsay's statement "What passes for cookery in England is an abomination." The truth of this statement made it stand out to me.
I've always found Woolf writing unbearably beautiful. When I read To the Lighthouse it just blew me away. I didn't get Mrs. Dalloway the first time I read it, but upon rereading I just fell in love with it.
I'm going back and watching old Crash Course Literature videos and I just want to say thank you. I'm 25 years old and I feel like learning about Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath is filling a gap my high school missed. Even studying Literature at uni I missed a lot of these classics. So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for creating such an amazing resource!
I'm really happy that CC has made a video about Virginia Woolf. A great writer, sometimes forgotten as a novelist because A Room for One's Own sells better. Love her work
Kinda felt that Lily had more than simply admiration for Ms.Ramsay and her cheerfulness/nourishment. Especially when she remembers her after finishing the painting. Something like a one sided romantic feeling.
PRIDE she represented her mother. It’s more a parental/daughter live I think. She now appreciates both her father and mother for who they were. I think xD
That or she had romantic, lesbians for Mrs.Ramsay. There are other gay characters in Woolf’s novels (Neville in The Waves), and the author herself had a romance with a female journalist, Vita Sacksville West. So, I wouldn’t write off the possibility of Lily being in love with Mrs.Ramsay, or at least the possibility of her.
Chinquapin UCSC I would agree with you, but there are quotes from Woolf where she says that the book and specifically Mrs Ramsay were largely a way of understanding/coming to terms with unresolved issues concerning her parents. The text itself is open to interpretation, but as long as you don’t go full Death of the Author, it’s hard to deny the mother-daughter relationship Woolf was writing about.
In the novel" To the lighthouse" the theme I followed was the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey which I felt was key to the overall dynamic of the book. Mrs. Ramsey's demure, devoted wife and mother and overall personality (typical of women in that era) was very much responsible for the overall personality of Mr. Ramsey. She was an enabler of sorts for the domineering, controlling nature of Mr. Ramsey. ( Symbiotic relationship of interdependence on each other) This in turn was what hindered James in his own social development The death of Mrs. Ramsey later changed the dynamics of all the charact4ers in the book. Mr. Ramsey's trip to the lighthouse is where he finally finds himself and who he is as a whole person without the underlying influence of his wife
I love this series. It introduces me to new things that I never would have known about! The Handmaid's Tale was great and I never even knew there was a slightly flaky tv series based on it. I plan on reading Parable of the Sower next. Thank you people so much for making such a great educational series available to everyone for free!
I read The Lighthouse and The Sound and The Fury last year and both were the hardest books I've ever read in my life. I felt like I got very little out of them, which reinforces the idea of needing to reread modernist novels. Hopefully, this video will make my next reading of The Lighthouse more fruitful.
@@HanakochanPrincess No you don't. You don't "have" to. If you feel you "have" to that has nothing to do with artistic perspective and everything to do with peer pressure. No one wants to look dumb so they pretend they appreciate it but that in turn makes one look dumb because now you're a slave to peer pressure.
Matthew Whatshisname No. I mean that I appreciate that what she was doing was new and innovative and can imagine that it took a lot of intelligence and creative ability to produce. I just found reading it tedious. I hate sports. That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate that really good sports players work hard and have talent. I just hate the product.
While I was browsing to study about To The Lighthouse for my final exam tomorrow, I bumped into this video and after that, I watched the channel intro. The work you're doing here is amazing and I am, and forever will, be thankful for it. Exams come & go but this video, this channel will be there for those who's gonna need it after me. Crash Course, you got yourself a grateful subscriber! Go CC!
@@serenarobinson589 I don't mean to make you feel any worse but my exam sucked lol, but that's entirely on me, this video and video alone was the one and only thing I've done for the exam. Unlike mine I hope yours will be much, much better!
Thanks so much this came on time . I had studied this novel in British literature class & I didn't really understand it because it is so philosophical . Thanks thanks thanks John it is so helpful
My impression of VW is that she is very good at describing the interior monologue we all have. Apparently, Yoga teaches how to still it. Maybe she would have foregone the pocketed stones with such knowledge.
If the universe will ever end, do you think that at some point it will start again even if not the same? And maybe we'll still have something to learn? I'm asking this with the condition of one of us being immortal (like a vampire).
I've watched this video, like, 15 times this semester (damn modernists - so complicated) and now it's helping me survive exam season -- thank god for crash course
So good! Wish I'd heard things like this in school. Or university, for that matter. Don't think I ever had a teacher who could make sense of a novel for me.
i beg you guys to do videos covering An Inspector Calls and also A christmas Carol, theyre two of the gcse literature texts, and so half of england would massively appreciate you covering them
It was part of my course. But didn't made any impact metaphorically speaking. Thanks CC. Why do we have literature courses anyway to become teachers & lecturers? Let only those who have flare for writing opt for it.
John! You spoiled the effect of the beef-stew nail biter! You should've given us a spoiler alert! Haha! Also you need to do an episode on Simone de Beauvoir's All Men are Mortal. I think I understood that book, but I'd like to know if there was anything that I missed or misunderstood.
i could listen to John Green talk about any subject and find it fascinating! But of course literature and world history is where he shines... Virginia Wolf is one of those authors that i feel i "should" read but would have a lot of trouble getting through one of her books. Same thing happened with Don Quixote - 1/3 of the way through i was like "sorry this is where i have to get off"...
Hello Mr green! Well I would like to thank you for this great overview and analysis , you make things more clearer . Well, i have a request , would you please make an overview and analysis of Virginia Woolf's the waves !? I am a master student and I am literally interested in this novel to work on for my memoir ....would you please help me , I hope you will be able to answer me as soon as possible , accept my regards sir ☺
At my university, we ended to know what John is calling "Modernism" as "Postmodernism". With modernism being the aim of thought based on the enlightenment ideals of finding certainty in indisputable facts where postmodernism embraces the idea that there is no absolute truth, only relativity. Just a pushback on terms.
I had a similar experience in my college days, having first learned the term "modernism" in reference to philosophy and then later in reference to literature and art. While I found it confusing and frustrating at first, the term refers to different concepts and movements in different fields. All that's just to say, I understand where you're coming from, but he's using the term correctly in reference to literary modernism. Philosophical modernism is a completely different thing.
Regarding immortality and heat death, my thoughts on the two amount to “Huh. I exist and can make change, therefore I can prevent heat death/restart the universe”. I’d take it in a heartbeat.
It's really weird to me that "modernism" the art movement is anti-"modernism" the philosophical period. (As in the Enlightenment is the archetype of modern philosophy, but modernist art was anti-enlightenment and embraced a worldview that sounds more like postmodernism to my philosophical ear).
Interesting that this comes up today. I have been developing a character who through a pursuing of art, inadvertently achieves immortality. Then after, out lives his wife and their students and when he finds himself becoming the father figure to another group of children starts to emotionally break down. As he puts it, "I never learned how to be immortal."
the background used to be so white you could hardly notice where the video ended and the rest of the screen started, i liked that a lot. you must've changed the lighting.
Literally where was this video 5 years ago when I was told I had to write my final essay for a college course on how Faulkner was a modernist author and I had no idea what modernism was and just bullshitted the entire thing
Why do people always focus on the silly parts of immortality. Of course it is impossible to be unable to die. But by immediately jumping to that issue you ignore the fact that curing old age and possibly living for thousands or billions of years is quiet likely to happen in the lifetime of many people alive today. And not just for a single person of course, but for most of humanity. Also disappointed that I did not see any other comments mentioning this. It is sad that so few people know about SENS foundation, and the other people doing the great work of fixing the world's biggest problem. Old age.
The "immortality" of elves in Lord of the Rings is just that they can't die of old age (or maybe for a very long time). They can be killed in the traditional way, though - like getting their head chopped off.
This book was hard for me to get into when I first started reading it, but once I got the hang of Woolf's style... I dunno, it _did_ something to me. That scene at the dinner party, when Mrs. Ramsay looks back on the moment and realizes it will never happen again, hit me like a cannonball. I remember immediately putting the book down so I could go call my parents and tell them I loved them. Even now just listening to you talk about this book, it makes me so emotional. It's amazing that a book where nothing much happens can still have such a big impact.
The thing I remember about To the Lighthouse is Mrs. Ramsay's statement "What passes for cookery in England is an abomination." The truth of this statement made it stand out to me.
lmao one hundred years later and still true!
Wtf is cookery
Anthony Weiner Preparing food for eating.
"Some people talk about visiting a lighthouse. They don't. Then they do."
Well that was a short video.
I've always found Woolf writing unbearably beautiful. When I read To the Lighthouse it just blew me away. I didn't get Mrs. Dalloway the first time I read it, but upon rereading I just fell in love with it.
I'm going back and watching old Crash Course Literature videos and I just want to say thank you. I'm 25 years old and I feel like learning about Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath is filling a gap my high school missed. Even studying Literature at uni I missed a lot of these classics. So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for creating such an amazing resource!
I'm really happy that CC has made a video about Virginia Woolf. A great writer, sometimes forgotten as a novelist because A Room for One's Own sells better. Love her work
I always thought she was pretty prevalent in studying modernism.
its also sad that she killed herself in the end of her life.
What are you talking about? Mrs. Dalloway and To The Lighthouse are more popular works.
The school of life has a video on her
Please extend this to dramas too!!! I want to see a video on Waiting For Godot.
Or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Or death of a salesman or the crucible
+
No Brandon, we’re pitching an entire CrashCourse subject based on
European Absurdist Theatre, kicking off with Harold Pinter’s The Bithday Party.
Jack Holland that would be amazing 😍
Kinda felt that Lily had more than simply admiration for Ms.Ramsay and her cheerfulness/nourishment. Especially when she remembers her after finishing the painting. Something like a one sided romantic feeling.
PRIDE she represented her mother. It’s more a parental/daughter live I think.
She now appreciates both her father and mother for who they were.
I think xD
That or she had romantic, lesbians for Mrs.Ramsay. There are other gay characters in Woolf’s novels (Neville in The Waves), and the author herself had a romance with a female journalist, Vita Sacksville West. So, I wouldn’t write off the possibility of Lily being in love with Mrs.Ramsay, or at least the possibility of her.
Chinquapin UCSC I would agree with you, but there are quotes from Woolf where she says that the book and specifically Mrs Ramsay were largely a way of understanding/coming to terms with unresolved issues concerning her parents. The text itself is open to interpretation, but as long as you don’t go full Death of the Author, it’s hard to deny the mother-daughter relationship Woolf was writing about.
In the novel" To the lighthouse" the theme I followed was the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey which I felt was key to the overall dynamic of the book. Mrs. Ramsey's demure, devoted wife and mother and overall personality (typical of women in that era) was very much responsible for the overall personality of Mr. Ramsey. She was an enabler of sorts for the domineering, controlling nature of Mr. Ramsey. ( Symbiotic relationship of interdependence on each other) This in turn was what hindered James in his own social development The death of Mrs. Ramsey later changed the dynamics of all the charact4ers in the book. Mr. Ramsey's trip to the lighthouse is where he finally finds himself and who he is as a whole person without the underlying influence of his wife
love how the subtitles just stop a 2:05
Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" becomes a major reference in the second half of of the 2018 science fiction film "Annihilation."
This is my favorite book, and the way you talk about it makes me want to pick it up again right now
Emily Polson please explain the novel in-depth
I spent a full semester on just Woolf, it was such a great time to listen to my tutors and fellow students
I love this series. It introduces me to new things that I never would have known about! The Handmaid's Tale was great and I never even knew there was a slightly flaky tv series based on it. I plan on reading Parable of the Sower next. Thank you people so much for making such a great educational series available to everyone for free!
I adore these episodes. They give so much perspective. Literary criticism deserves more credit.
"Have you ever heard of Tuck Everlasting, a literary classic?!"
My heart soared. Yes John yes I have
Good to know it’s still true that if someone even says the words “Tuck Everlasting” I will start crying.
I read The Lighthouse and The Sound and The Fury last year and both were the hardest books I've ever read in my life. I felt like I got very little out of them, which reinforces the idea of needing to reread modernist novels. Hopefully, this video will make my next reading of The Lighthouse more fruitful.
Short video with full message. Conveys full meaning.
Well done .
I had to read this book for class. It was so slow. Good at parts, but "stream of consciousness" is exhausting.
It is a very tough read indeed.
I read it 10 years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday. incredible book. every word connects to every other word like a spiderweb
I agree. I really hate stream of consciousness but I have to appreciate it from an artistic perspective.
@@HanakochanPrincess No you don't. You don't "have" to. If you feel you "have" to that has nothing to do with artistic perspective and everything to do with peer pressure. No one wants to look dumb so they pretend they appreciate it but that in turn makes one look dumb because now you're a slave to peer pressure.
Matthew Whatshisname No. I mean that I appreciate that what she was doing was new and innovative and can imagine that it took a lot of intelligence and creative ability to produce. I just found reading it tedious. I hate sports. That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate that really good sports players work hard and have talent. I just hate the product.
I can honestly say that this video brought me joy, thank you.
Where can the John Green bobble-head be acquired? Patreon? Amazon? Where?
you made this just in time! currently studying this and other Modernist texts at university, these videos are a great addition to my studies :)
While I was browsing to study about To The Lighthouse for my final exam tomorrow, I bumped into this video and after that, I watched the channel intro. The work you're doing here is amazing and I am, and forever will, be thankful for it. Exams come & go but this video, this channel will be there for those who's gonna need it after me.
Crash Course, you got yourself a grateful subscriber! Go CC!
Kayahan Çalışır my exam is in 9 hours I’m here for a quick revision
@@serenarobinson589 I don't mean to make you feel any worse but my exam sucked lol, but that's entirely on me, this video and video alone was the one and only thing I've done for the exam.
Unlike mine I hope yours will be much, much better!
Kayahan Çalışır 😂😂 I feel you ,I think mine will suck too ,that’s what we get for last minute revision let me know if you pass though ?👍😂
@@serenarobinson589 Hahah, sure! I'm %70 sure that it ain't gonna be pretty but still..
You let me know too!
Kayahan Çalışır I sure will .
Thanks so much this came on time . I had studied this novel in British literature class & I didn't really understand it because it is so philosophical . Thanks thanks thanks John it is so helpful
ephemeral is in my top three favorite words. i am a happy person. thank you for doing this crash course
My impression of VW is that she is very good at describing the interior monologue we all have. Apparently, Yoga teaches how to still it. Maybe she would have foregone the pocketed stones with such knowledge.
speaking of modernist literature you should do a video(s) about heart of darkness
Per your open letter: I'd like to live forever. I don't care if there's anyone to share it with. So long as there is more time, there's more to learn.
Until there really isn't, because there is nothing.
If there's forever, there's more chance for good things to happen.
If the universe will ever end, do you think that at some point it will start again even if not the same? And maybe we'll still have something to learn? I'm asking this with the condition of one of us being immortal (like a vampire).
One of my favorite books.
I think the influence of Virgina Woolf reflects in John's character, Augustus. He dreams of being immortal through his actions.
‘...a quiz later.” pause and memorized the names 😂😂😂
😂
I've watched this video, like, 15 times this semester (damn modernists - so complicated) and now it's helping me survive exam season -- thank god for crash course
speaking of William Faulkner.. are you going to do a crash course on his works? :)
Thanks for this amazing video. I really liked the part where you defined modernism.
The true most ambitious crossover: John Green vs. CGP Grey arguing over immortality.
I have this craving for beef stew
Beautiful video, i don't think i will ever read the book, but i feel like i learned something from watching
So good! Wish I'd heard things like this in school. Or university, for that matter. Don't think I ever had a teacher who could make sense of a novel for me.
dear thought bubble: it's an impressionist, possibly even abstract painting, Mrs Ramsey is a purple triangle
Can't wait for Faulkner
John you are already Immortal because of your Books......
super! thank you for helping!
this guy is actually hilarious
i beg you guys to do videos covering An Inspector Calls and also A christmas Carol, theyre two of the gcse literature texts, and so half of england would massively appreciate you covering them
It was part of my course. But didn't made any impact metaphorically speaking. Thanks CC.
Why do we have literature courses anyway to become teachers & lecturers? Let only those who have flare for writing opt for it.
John! You spoiled the effect of the beef-stew nail biter! You should've given us a spoiler alert! Haha!
Also you need to do an episode on Simone de Beauvoir's All Men are Mortal. I think I understood that book, but I'd like to know if there was anything that I missed or misunderstood.
"Who wants to live forever? When love must die." -Freddy Mercury
I want a part 2 this was amazing 💕
I'd love to see a Breakfast of Champions video.
Love this series, thank you!
this put my fragmented views together. great video
Do Tuck Everlasting for Season 5 Literature
i could listen to John Green talk about any subject and find it fascinating! But of course literature and world history is where he shines... Virginia Wolf is one of those authors that i feel i "should" read but would have a lot of trouble getting through one of her books. Same thing happened with Don Quixote - 1/3 of the way through i was like "sorry this is where i have to get off"...
It was very hard for me to follow the narrative. the paragraphs was very long. :(
Thanks sir. It will help me better understand the novel.
This sounds like a book, I could listen to you talk about for hours, but would never ever want to read :)
Please don't watch
JOHN ISN'T DEAD!
YES
Hello Mr green! Well I would like to thank you for this great overview and analysis , you make things more clearer . Well, i have a request , would you please make an overview and analysis of Virginia Woolf's the waves !? I am a master student and I am literally interested in this novel to work on for my memoir ....would you please help me , I hope you will be able to answer me as soon as possible , accept my regards sir ☺
Jane Austin. Let’s just say I’m very hyped.
On the subject of inmortality, a much better refference is "the inmortal" by Jorge Luis Borges.
i wasn’t able to make it past the first 10 pages :( i get lost every paragraph
Do Orlando or Mrs. Dalloway! Woolf is the best!
At my university, we ended to know what John is calling "Modernism" as "Postmodernism". With modernism being the aim of thought based on the enlightenment ideals of finding certainty in indisputable facts where postmodernism embraces the idea that there is no absolute truth, only relativity.
Just a pushback on terms.
I had a similar experience in my college days, having first learned the term "modernism" in reference to philosophy and then later in reference to literature and art. While I found it confusing and frustrating at first, the term refers to different concepts and movements in different fields.
All that's just to say, I understand where you're coming from, but he's using the term correctly in reference to literary modernism. Philosophical modernism is a completely different thing.
Regarding immortality and heat death, my thoughts on the two amount to “Huh. I exist and can make change, therefore I can prevent heat death/restart the universe”. I’d take it in a heartbeat.
Now I REALLY want to see an episode on Ulysses. The Illuminatus Trilogy too.
John Green just told me to go play with metaphorical matches. :)
It's really weird to me that "modernism" the art movement is anti-"modernism" the philosophical period. (As in the Enlightenment is the archetype of modern philosophy, but modernist art was anti-enlightenment and embraced a worldview that sounds more like postmodernism to my philosophical ear).
Postmodernism was a resurgence of the same thought common in modernism, so that totally makes sense
What? Postmodernism is mostly a rejection of modernism. (Or as wiki describes it, a "departure from modernism". Either way...)
Interesting that this comes up today. I have been developing a character who through a pursuing of art, inadvertently achieves immortality. Then after, out lives his wife and their students and when he finds himself becoming the father figure to another group of children starts to emotionally break down. As he puts it, "I never learned how to be immortal."
"May you keep Crash Course alive for a long life, but not forever. Best Wishes." - Alex.
When are you are going to do Faulkner or Pynchon
thank you . you just saved my life
Wuthering heights please!
Do Heart of Darkness
the background used to be so white you could hardly notice where the video ended and the rest of the screen started, i liked that a lot. you must've changed the lighting.
I'm waiting in anticipation for the day you do Julius Caesar. Definitely my favorite Shakespeare play.
Literally where was this video 5 years ago when I was told I had to write my final essay for a college course on how Faulkner was a modernist author and I had no idea what modernism was and just bullshitted the entire thing
I hope John Green reads this.
great video on an excellent book. Thank you!
You're eternal John!!
Yaay! I love Virginia Woolf let's go!
Please do a video on Dante!
Great video
You should do a video on Catch-22 or All Quiet on the Western Front
Im surprised CC hasnt done a video on the Beats and their impact on post WW2 America. I wonder if John Green is a fan of Kerouac?
Crash Course Virginia Woolf! Awesome!
do you have any idea how cool it is to learn literature from my favorite author?!
Meg'n no, they are all dead
therabbithat uh...?
Same😅
Flowers on a battlefield
This is good. Thank you.
excellent. thankyou
Dear John Greene,
Please review Infinite Jest.
Best wishes,
Sarah McBeth
Yall should do Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier!!
Please can you make more videos about novels and poetry that are not American or English? I miss Goethe and Kafka😅
love this, thank you so much
Why do people always focus on the silly parts of immortality. Of course it is impossible to be unable to die. But by immediately jumping to that issue you ignore the fact that curing old age and possibly living for thousands or billions of years is quiet likely to happen in the lifetime of many people alive today. And not just for a single person of course, but for most of humanity.
Also disappointed that I did not see any other comments mentioning this. It is sad that so few people know about SENS foundation, and the other people doing the great work of fixing the world's biggest problem. Old age.
Beef stew! SUCH GOODNESS :o
WHERE IS CRASH COURSE ART THATS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW GIVE US ARTTT
Do Mrs Dalloway!!
John Green made this sound quite interesting, but I read it a month or two ago, and it's not.
The "immortality" of elves in Lord of the Rings is just that they can't die of old age (or maybe for a very long time). They can be killed in the traditional way, though - like getting their head chopped off.