More about Woolf [Kew Gardens and the similarities between Woolf and Eliot]

Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, as discussed in the seminar, is a resonant text, with concealed layers that need to be excavated to uncover the rich meaning within. 

Due to Woolf's stream-of-consciousness style, and the difficulty this brings in the fluidity of the narrative, the same unpicking of ideas is needed in order to smooth out the texture of her ideas.

Another similarity, a prime characteristic of modernism, is the internal nature of the two texts. This inwardness is one of the hallmarks of modernism, and can be seen in TTL, as the events take place mainly within the characters heads, making them private, and giving us an access that we would not otherwise have. This is slightly intrusive in the part of the reader however to the disjointed and fragmented style require interpretation that must come from the mind of the reader himself. To see this shift to the internal, we can look at Matthew Arnold's 'Dover Beach'- a typical Victorian poem- 

"The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world"

The format of this poem is as one uttered to someone else, whereas in contrast 'Lovesong' its dramatic monologue style displays an inability to communicate with others (other than the reader). 

Another similarity would be the writers sense of continuity with the past- as we saw in Eliots 'Tradition and the Individual talent' preoccupies his poetry, as it does also with Woolf. Time is a complex theme in her writing- as is clear when we read Kew Gardens.
This short story is written through the perspective of a snail as it journeys along. It shows a man and woman walk past, lost in reveries of the past, then returns to ground level, where we witness more of the snails slow progression. We witness a range of other human interactions then return to see the busy life of London as a whole. One thing that we previously mentioned, that is done very well here, is the authors absence from the text, a strong characteristic of modernism, as the modernist authors believed that authors should not intrude into their own text, letting the story speak for itself.
From this we can see that a lot is left to our own interpretation, but on the other hand it also can make it difficult to interpret, its hard to get to know and to relate to the characters when they move in and out of the text in such a disjointed way.

So why does the text work so well, given its fragmented nature?

• strong elements of pattern, repetition and shape (which strengthen)
• all characters share one thing- a failure in communication
• flicking from human interaction to the flower bed gives the story, this links the separate narratives and provides a sense of familiarity in the text.
• Humans are stressed as purposeless, opposite to the snail- making a a contrast between the two.
• balance at the end of the 1st paragraph- ‘Then the breeze stirred rather more briskly overhead and the colour was flashed into the air above’- which is similar to the final line- ‘and the petals of myriads of flowers flashed their colours into the air’.

'I feel certain that I am going mad again'

This is an animation I found on Youtube- (cheers for that) its quite a nice portrayal of Woolf's 'Kew Gardens'