123042 PS Literary Studies / Proseminar Literature (2019W)

“(Design) is in some ways a discourse communicated non-verbally (…); through form and function an object provides a particular insight into the character and thinking of the designer, as well as his or her attitude to the relationship between object and user, the role of design in society” (Charlotte and Peter Fiell, The Story of Design 10-11).

In this course we will analyze a range of Virginia Woolf’s texts via a focus on design. Woolf’s development as a modern writer was gradual and it was very much the product of her entourage - of the influential discussions she was having within the Bloomsbury group on art and literature as well as on modern fashion, style and design. In Woolf’s private life, to design meant very much to ‘re-design’. She passionately re-designed her houses (Monk's House & Charlestone) while her sister Vanessa designed the covers of her books, painted and decorated the walls of her houses as well as objects such as tea pots and plates. Indeed, for modern writers and artists, design meant more than ‘style’ or ‘decoration’. It meant breaking away from the Victorian tendency to over-embellish and over-decorate; it entailed combining conception with planning and creativity – function with aesthetic and art. Changes in design obviously mirror changes in and of the social. In Woolf's London, class and gender emancipation, more fluid and liberating forms of identities and sexualities clearly demanded, and at the same time, were a product of design reformations.
‘Design’ – implicitly or explicitly - is a motif which recurs often in Woolf’s diaries, letters and essays whenever she reflects on the possibility of modernizing the novel. The aim of this course is not only to collect and explore Woolf’s theorisations on the notion of design – both in real life and in literature; the aim is also to investigate questions of ‘decoration’ vs. ‘conception’, ‘form’ vs. ‘content’. How are Woolf’s private, passionate practices of modern home ‘design’ reflected in her texts? How does she design spaces, rooms, houses as well as objects and things in her novels? Which patterns and lines does she choose? How do they impact on readers? And what are their larger ethical and political implications?

Students will become familiar with important design reformers of the time – Henry Cole, the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Glasgow School, Mackintosh and others. As far as theory is concerned, we will read a range of texts by Bachelard, de Botton and Ahmed.
We’ll peer into Woolf’s many houses, we’ll explore the relationship that exists between design and writing, the interior decoration of real vs. fictional houses, the interior design of modern sensibilities vs. the interior design of characters.