Modernist Palgrave Macmillan Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies- Modernist Waterscapes

This book identifies water as the key element of Virginia Woolf’s modernist poetics.

“This deeply thoughtful phenomenological study makes a welcome move frompsychology to poetics in its original and illuminating account of Woolf’simaginative engagement with ‘waterscapes’. Ranging over all the forms of Woolf’swriting, Dirschauer contributes significantly to recent ecocritical readings ofWoolf, beautifully mapping a network which encompasses English Romanticpoets and Woolf’s contemporaries.”— Mark Hussey, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Pace University, USA“In Modernist Waterscapes Marlene Dirschauer has captured the complexity,fullness, wonder, and fluid power of Woolf’s writing….This is a profound anddelightfully illuminating study of Woolf’s immersion in the literary past as shecreates radically new aesthetic forms that shape human connections with thevast web of the biosphere and its natural forces. A necessary new book foranyone interested in Virginia Woolf.”— Louise Westling, Professor Emerita of English and Environmental Studies atthe University of Oregon, USAThis book identifies water as the key element of Virginia Woolf’s modernistpoetics. The various forms, movements, and properties of water inspired Woolf’swriting of reality, time, and bodies and offered her an apt medium to reflect onthe possibilities as well as on the exhaustion of her art. As a deeply intertextualwriter, Woolf recognised how profoundly water has shaped human imaginationand the landscape of the literary past. In line with recent ecocritical andecofeminist assessments of her works, this book also shows Woolf’s attraction towater as part of an indifferent nature that exists prior to and beyond the symbolic.Through close analyses that span the whole of Woolf’s oeuvre, and that centre onthe metaphorical and the material voices of water in her works, ModernistWaterscapes offers a fresh perspective on a writing that is as versatile as theelement from which it draws. The monograph addresses students and scholarsworking in modernist studies and Woolf studies in particular.
Marlene Dirschauer holds a PhD in Comparative Literature. Currently, she worksas Research Fellow at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Her research interestsare English modernism as well as religious writings of the early modern era.


This book identifies water as the key element of Virginia Woolf’s modernist poetics. The various forms, movements, and properties of water inspired Woolf’s writing of reality, time, and bodies and offered her an apt medium to reflect on the possibilities as well as on the exhaustion of her art. As a deeply intertextual writer, Woolf recognised how profoundly water has shaped human imagination and the landscape of the literary past. In line with recent ecocritical and ecofeminist assessments of her works, this book also shows Woolf’s attraction to water as part of an indifferent nature that exists prior to and beyond the symbolic. Through close analyses that span the whole of Woolf’s oeuvre, and that centre on the metaphorical and the material voices of water in her works, Modernist Waterscapes offers a fresh perspective on a writing that is as versatile as the element from which it draws. The monograph addresses postgraduate students and scholars working in modernist studies andWoolf studies in particular.