英华 丨 伍尔夫：生平与时代

本文翻译自哈珀柯林斯出版社2014年出版'A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas'的序言部分。这篇序言分三节，全文不长，却对伍尔夫的创作（主要是她的这两篇随笔作品）进行了精要概括，同时也提供了理解伍尔夫人生经历的一个独特视角。虽然不完全赞成文章所持有的全部观点，依然觉得是一篇值得分享的短作。文中蓝色部分为译注，原文附在最末。

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弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫：生平与时代

心理健康与创造力

弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫是一个情感激烈而复杂的形象。一部分人会用富有想象力、高度敏感和极具创造力来形容她；还有些人评价她时，会用到“过分需要关注”、“内向”和“强迫症”这样的标签。事实上，这些对伍尔夫的评价都有一定道理。这也意味着在一些人看来，她是一个成就极高的小说家；而对于另外一些人而言，她的作品完全不值一提。对于后一类人而言，他们的中心论点在于尽管伍尔夫出身颇为优越的社会上层，她却依然以相当负面的目光审视这个世界。相比于大多数人，伍尔夫完全无需为日常生活的压力担忧，因此她把大多数的时间都用于对生命本质的深刻剖析——而她的样本又主要是她自己和亲朋好友的生活。正因如此，她的作品有时难免会与一般读者的生活体验相去甚远。这是因为她过分沉浸在自己的世界中，以致她所着眼的生命细节，往往不为绝大多数人熟悉。作为人类的样本之一，伍尔夫并非一个非常坚毅的形象。她时常陷入突如其来的抑郁和精神崩溃，而造成这种现象的部分原因，又在于她无需从事任何对自己的身心健康可能有所帮助的活动。因为无需使自己的性格变得更坚强，伍尔夫始终活在一个不断缩减的人际圈中。直到有一天，这个圈子变得极度逼狭，致使她最终选择以自杀来逃避。她在自己的外套口袋中装满了石头，头也不回地走进一条小河中，就这样淹没了自己的全部悲伤。伍尔夫的生命就这样被她自己的思绪和行为打断，最终定格在59岁。伍尔夫是一个典型的艺术家的创造力给他们的健康造成影响的案例。假如她放弃写作，改为选择一个让她的大脑更少陷入近乎狂热思绪的职业，她毫无疑问可以过完更快乐、更有成就的一生。但她最终选择成为一个作者，用笔写下自己一生的毫无作为。在此，一个颇有分量的问题出现了：这些痛苦和折磨究竟有没有价值？那些与伍尔夫有相似经历和学识的人会不可避免地回答：“有”，因为他们能够理解伍尔夫对写作的渴望，也能理解她将写作作为一种精神发泄的需要。那些无法理解伍尔夫的人会不可避免地回答：“没有”，因为在他们看来，伍尔夫的作品没有任何意义，因为他们并不视写作为一种精神疗愈的方式。或许在英语文学的历史上，再没有一位小说家像伍尔夫一样拥有如此分裂的评价，而这也大概是伍尔夫最有趣的地方。伍尔夫对现代文学最主要的影响，在于她在散文中对意识流的应用。她的小说全然是她思绪的汹涌浪潮的载体，这种思绪（在她的作品中）往往毫无边界地漫溢。伍尔夫是一位美学家，是知识阶层的一员。她把自己所有的精神力量都投入对人性、人类社会、人类文化和人类境况的理解与剖析中。伍尔夫和与她同一派别的知识分子，几乎是在以自己的方式蔑视那些选择不如此深刻剖析人类存在的芸芸众生。但事实上，这也反映出潜藏在这类群体之中的对自己才华、景况和价值的不安全感。唯一可以肯定的是，伍尔夫的小说并非毫无价值——事实与此相去甚远——不过我们需要牢记作者的生活经历以探视其作品的价值。毕竟，正因伍尔夫生活在这样的社会环境中，她才能够创造出如此具有先锋性的作品。假使她出生在一个更普通的中下层或工薪阶级家庭，她或许就无法拥有如此细致入微解剖人性的必要能力了。

《一间属于自己的房间》和《三枚金几尼》

1929年发表的随笔《一间属于自己的房间》进一步奠定了伍尔夫女性主义作家的地位。这个标题反映出伍尔夫坚信一位女性作家必须实现经济自由，并且拥有自己的空间和隐私。实际上，“房间”是一个隐喻，指代容许创造力和想象力得以泉涌的自由空间。伍尔夫着重思考的问题之一是，如果社会加诸女性的限制被移除，女性作家能否创作出与莎士比亚比肩的作品。除了缺乏对财产权的掌握与缺少创作的空间，伍尔夫认为正式教育的缺失以及家务劳动的责任，同样是对女性作家创作事业的阻碍。在伍尔夫生活的战间期①，社会结构和对女性的要求与现在相比非常不同。正因如此，与伍尔夫同时代的女性作家，不仅大多出身优越的家庭环境，并且成为作家本身也被视为一种独立而大胆的人生选择。

① Inter-war period，指两次世界大战之间的1918-1939年。

为了阐释自己的观点，伍尔夫创造了朱迪斯·莎士比亚这个角色。通过“莎士比亚的妹妹”这一虚构形象，伍尔夫指出在伊丽莎白时代②，即便一位女作家再有才华，也无法获得取得成功所必须的财力或机遇。伍尔夫随后沿着自17世纪至20世纪期间的文学脉络，探讨了女性创作的文学作品与男性创作的文学作品之间的发展差异。

② Elizabethan era (1558-1603)，都铎王朝女王伊丽莎白一世统治的时期。

九年之后，伍尔夫发表了续作《三枚金几尼》，在这篇随笔中延续了对相似主题的探讨。当时二战的威胁日益迫近，伍尔夫虚构了一个她收到读者来信的情节，并以此展开了自己的论述。在这一预设中，这位男性读者来函，是为了询问伍尔夫对于避免战争的发生有何见地。伍尔夫的回信（即随笔主体部分）表明父权制是导致法西斯主义思维蔓延的本质原因，因此这篇随笔本质上是对男性所主导社会的有罪论断。在此之前，伍尔夫曾经到访过德国和意大利，亲眼见证了法西斯主义思想对社会的腐蚀性。随后，伍尔夫在随笔中展开了长篇的抨击，目的是敦促各国政府重视女性的受教育权，以保证女性能够更多地参与政治生活。

布卢姆斯伯里派

随着全家从肯辛顿搬到布卢姆斯伯里，弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫知识阶层的身份得到了进一步巩固。在那里，她成为了布卢姆斯伯里派③的一分子。这一派别的成员就像同一个鱼缸中的金鱼，透过同样的一层玻璃来观察周围的世界。

③ Bloomsbury Set，1904年至第二次世界大战期间一个英国艺术家和学者的团体，得名于他们位于伦敦北部卡姆登 （Camden）地区的聚集地布卢姆斯伯里。这个团体的成员多毕业于剑桥大学，以在文学领域的成就最为著名，并在艺术界、艺评界以及学术界也多有建树。除伍尔夫外，代表人物还有E·M·福斯特（Edward Morgan Forster，英国作家，代表作为《莫里斯》、《看得见风景的房间》）、瓦内莎·贝尔（Vanessa Bell，英国画家、室内设计师，弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫的姐姐）和约翰·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes，英国经济学家，“凯恩斯主义”的创始人）等。

这个小团体对自身价值的标榜与自信，也帮助伍尔夫实现了作为一个作家的成功。在这个团体中，她得到了充分的鼓励和自由空间，去试验自己的散文写作。简而言之，她在这个团体中得到的，是把自己标榜为作家的权利，以及他人的肯定言辞。对于伍尔夫这样持续受自我怀疑困扰的人而言，这种支持无疑是至关重要的。也正因如此，她与这些认识到并激发自己潜能的人，建立了深厚而长久的友谊。事实上，她嫁给了他们中的一员——利奥纳德·伍尔夫④——并一生钟情于他。

④ Leonard Woolf，英国作家、政论家、出版人。两人于1912年完婚，直到1941年弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫逝世。

布卢姆斯伯里派的抱负最终取得了成功，这毫无疑问是由于这些成员本身就天资聪慧，极富才华，且受过良好教育。当然，他们走向成功的过程，也要部分归功于不少为他们引来关注的噱头。在这之中，“无畏号恶作剧”因其大胆和幽默而尤为著名。这个恶作剧的目的，单纯只是为了登上无畏号战列舰，并在舰上好好参观一番。包括伍尔夫在内，几位布卢姆斯伯里派成员将自己打扮为阿比西尼亚⑤王子，穿上长袍和头巾，将自己的脸涂黑，并戴上了假胡子。在“随从”和“翻译”的护送下，他们登上贵宾车厢，搭乘火车从帕丁顿前往韦茅斯。在那里，他们受到了皇室成员一般的礼遇，并被允许检视停靠在此地的皇家海军舰队。全过程中，他们借希腊语和拉丁语胡编乱造，伪装出以外国语言交流的假象。而随行的“翻译”也相当尽责地假装工作。

⑤ Abyssinia，埃塞俄比亚于1941年之前的旧称。

回到伦敦后，布卢姆斯伯里派成员将一张他们依然一身阿比西尼亚扮相的照片寄到了《每日镜报》，这才揭穿了这场恶作剧。不出意料，这件事很快成为了一则丑闻。外交部和皇家海军成为了众矢之的，其中不乏嘲讽捉弄，也有对他们造成给国家安全带来潜在伤害的严肃指责。布卢姆斯伯里派和平主义者的身份，对于消解这种批评不仅没有帮助，反而适得其反。当皇家海军的指挥层要求惩罚恶作剧的始作俑者时，却发现自己完全无能为力。这一方面是因为这场恶作剧完全不违反任何法律，另一方面则是因为舆论普遍认为海军自身才应该受到惩罚——因为他们如此简单地就被如此蹩脚的恶作剧所蒙骗。

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著名的“无畏号恶作剧”合照，照片最左侧是弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫毋庸置疑，“无畏号恶作剧”使布卢姆斯伯里派瞬间广为人知，而他们也乐于享受这一事件带来的曝光度。这一恶作剧发生在1910年的2月7日，而伍尔夫正是在同年开始了她第一部小说的创作。不过直到1915年，伍尔夫已经小有名气时，她才正式发表了这部小说⑥。

⑥ 指《远航》（The Voyage Out）

尽管成功接踵而至，伍尔夫总是充满烦恼的灵魂和始终不觉疲倦的思维却从未真正感到满足。今天，人们很容易会将伍尔夫的病症定义为双相情感障碍，因为她的情绪总是在高涨与低落之间反复。最终，伍尔夫陷入了一段长久的低潮中，并确信自己再也无法从这样的境地中走出。如此沉重的抑郁，使她再也看不见对未来的希望，并因此最终选择结束自己的生命。1941年，伍尔夫离开人世，身后留下大量带有先锋色彩、备受推崇的随笔、文学批评和小说。

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Life & TimesMental Health and CreativityIt would be fair to say that Virginia Woolf was an intense and complex personality. Some might describe her as highly imaginative, sensitive and creative, while others might use the words high-maintenance, introspective and obsessive. In truth, she was all of the above, which meant that she was highly regarded as a novelist by many and entirely disregarded by others.The central sticking point with the latter was that she came from a highly privileged, upper-middle-class background, yet she viewed the world in a quite negative light. Untroubled by the daily pressure of most, her time was spent in deep analysis of life – or rather, her own life and that of her friends and family. Her literature, therefore, could occasionally disconnect with the lay reader, because her concerns could be seen as self-indulgent and focused on a rarified environment to which most people were not privy.As a human specimen, Woolf was not a very robust figure. She was prone to bouts of depression and breakdown, in part possibly brought on by the lack of any necessity to just get on with activities that were positive for her mental and physical constitution. In the absence of responsibilities to toughen the character, she lived in a world of ever-decreasing circles until, one day, her horizons closed in so tight that she chose suicide as a means of escape. She filled the pockets of her overcoat with pebbles and walked headlong into a river to drown her sorrows, quite literally. Her life was ended by her own thoughts and actions at the age of 59.Woolf is a classic case of an artist whose creative expression was bad for their health. Had she abandoned writing in favour of an occupation that took her mind away from her obsessive thoughts, she would undoubtedly have lived a happier and more fulfilled life, but instead she became the author of her own undoing. So, a weighty question remains: was it worth all the pain and suffering? Inevitably those with similar learnings will say yes, because they are able to identify with Woolf’s desire to commit her thoughts to the written world as a kind of catharsis. Inevitably those who cannot identify will say no, because her work offers nothing to which they can relate as they have no need of therapy. It may be that there has never been a more divisive novelist in the history of English literature, and this is probably Woolf’s most interesting aspect.Woolf’s main influence on modern literature was her stream of consciousness’ approach to prose. Her novels were really vehicles for the copious current of thoughts and emotions to flow without parameters. She was an aesthete and intelligentsium, investing all her mental capacity into understanding and disseminating the minutiae of human nature, human society, human culture and the human condition. Woolf and her set could be seen as looking down on those who chose not to analyse human existence in such microscopic detail, but realistically this was probably the result of insecurities about one’s own talent, context and significance. The one thing that is certain about belief systems is not to say that Woolf’s portfolio has no value – far from it – but that we do well to remember the context of the author. After all, it was precisely because she existed in her particular milieu that she produced her pioneering style of literature. Moreover, had she been born into a more typical, lower-middle or working class background, she would probably not have had the wherewithal to dissect humanity to such a level.A Room of One’s Own and Three GuineasWoolf’s credentials as a feminist writer were secured with the publication of an extended essay, A Room of One’s Own, in 1929. The title alludes to her assertion that a female writer needs to be financially stable and to have the space and privacy in which to write. In essence the 'room’ of the title is a metaphor for the freedom needed for creativity and imagination to flourish.In particular, Woolf wonders whether, if constraints placed on women by society were to be lifted, female writers would have the potential to produce work comparable to that of Shakespeare. In addition to lacking financial security and a space in which to work, Woolf considers other obstacles to productivity: an absence of formal education, and the presence of domestic responsibilities. Due to these constraints, female writers of Woolf’s time – the inter-war period, when societal structures and expectations on women were quite different from now – emerged from a background of privilege and independent, often bold, life choices.Woolf invents Shakespeare’s sister, in the character of Judith Shakespeare, to illustrate the point that a woman in Elizabethan England would have had neither the means nor the opportunity to succeed as a writer regardless of her talent. Woolf then embarks on a literary journey from the 1600s to the 1900s, discussing the development of women’s literature in contrast with that written by men.Nine years later, Woolf published a sequel, Three Guineas, and in this essay she explored similar themes. With the threat of World War II looming, Woolf imagines that she has received a letter from a man who seeks her advice on preventing the war. In essence her reply is a damning indictment of a male-dominated society, suggesting that the structure of patriarchy causes fascist ideas to take hold. Woolf had visited both Germany and Italy and seen, first-hand, the corrosive effects of fascist ideology. The essay then becomes something of a diatribe, urging governments to promote female education so that women can rise to the fore in public life.The Bloomsbury SetVirginia Woolf came from a background of intellectualism, however, this was largely cemented by her family’s relocation from Kensington to Bloomsbury, where she became part of an intellectual elite known as the Bloomsbury Set. Together, they were all goldfish in the same bowl, looking out at the world around them with a similar artistic palette.The pretensions of her social group actually allowed her to blossom as a writer, because she was given the encouragement and freedom she needed to experiment with her prose. In short, she was allow to think of herself as an author and she was told what she wanted to hear. This was vitally important to someone with nagging self-doubt, so she developed deep and lasting bonds with those who saw and nurtured her potential. Indeed, she married one of them – Leonard Woolf – and remained devoted to him.In time, of course, the pretentions of the Bloomsbury Set transcended into success, as they were undoubtedly intelligent, talented and well-educated. This process of ascendance was, in part, aided by a number of stunts designed to draw public attention. One stunt on particular has become famous for its daring and humour: the Dreadnought Hoax. This was an elaborate plan to gain egress to the battleship HMS Dreadnought for no other reason than to have a good look around. A number of the Bloomsbury Set, including Woolf, disguised themselves as Abyssinian princes. They wore the appropriate garb of robes and turbans, but they also 'blacked-up’ and sported fake beards. With escort and interpreter in tow, they boarded a VIP coach and took a train from Paddington to Weymouth, where they were received as genuine royalty with honour guard and allowed to inspect Royal Navy fleet. All the while, they pretended to communicate in a foreign tongue by uttering gibberish furnished with Greek and Latin, which the interpreter duly pretended to understand and translate. Having returned to London, a photograph of the Bloomsbury Set, still in character, was sent to the Daily Mirror, newspaper and the hoax was revealed. Not surprisingly, the affair turned into a scandal. The Foreign Office and the Royal Navy were the target of a great deal of finger-pointing, partly in fun and partly in seriousness for allowing such a blatant lapse in national security. The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that the Bloomsbury Set were pacifists, which only served to rub salt into the wound. When the Navy high command pushed to have the perpetrators punished, they found themselves powerless to do anything. For one thing, no laws were broken, and secondly the consensus was that they themselves should be punished for allowing themselves to be beguiled by such a lame practical joke.Needless to say, the Dreadnought Hoax planted the Bloomsbury Set in the public consensus once and for all, as the oxygen of publicity was theirs to breathe in and enjoy. The hoaxed occurred on 7 February, 1910. Woolf’s first novel was begun the same year, although she did not publish until 1915, by which time she was already a minor celebrity.Despite her subsequent success, Woolf was never particularly contented, however, for she had such a troubled soul and indefatigable mind. Today her malady would, doubtless, be described as a bipolar condition, for she oscillated from exuberant mood highs to despairing clinical lows. In the end, she was convinced that she would never come full circle again, so she decided to cut her loses while in the grip of a crushing depression that rendered her unable to see any light at the end of the tunnel. Virginia Woolf died in 1941, leaving behind a highly respected, progressive and considerable canon of essays, critique and novels.

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