Across the widest gulf: nonhuman subjectivity in Virginia Woolf's Flush

Twentieth Century Literature, Fall, 2002 by Craig Smith

Notes

(1.) For readings of Flush as anthropocentric feminist allegory, see DeSalvo, Eberly, Squier, and Vanita.

(2.) As an instance of Woolf's prescience, it is worth noting that this did not become a formal medical practice until 1964. See Serpell 89-107.

Works cited

Ackerley, J. R. My Dog Tulip. 1965. NewYork: Poseidon, 1987.

Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. Vol. 2. NewYork: Harcourt, 1972.

DeSalvo, Louise. Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work. New York: Balantine, 1990.

Eberly, David. "Housebroken: The Domesticated Relations in Flush. "Virginia Woolf: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Beth Rigel Daughtery and Eileen Barrett. New York: Pace UP, 1996. 21-25.

Griffin, Donald R. The Question of Animal Awareness: Evolutionary Continuity of Mental Experience. Rev. ed. Los Altos: Kaufaman, 1981.

Hussey, Mark. Virginia Woolf A to Z: A Comprehensive Reference for Students, Teachers, and Common Readers to Her Life, Work, and Critical Reception. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.

Isherwood, Christopher. Christopher and His Kind. New York: Farrar, 1976.

Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf. New York: Knopf, 1997.

Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff. Dogs Never Lie About Love: Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs. New York: Crown, 1997.

Serpell, James. In the Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.

Squier, Susan M. Virginia Woolf and London: Sexual Politics of the City. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1985.

Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall. The Hidden Life of Dogs. Boston: Houghton, 1993.

Thurston, Mary Elizabeth. The Lost History of the Canine Race: Our 15,000-Year Love Affair with Dogs. Kansas City: Andrews, 1996.

Vanita, Ruth. "'Love Unspeakable': The Uses of Allusion in Flush." Virginia Woolf: Themes and Variations. Ed. Vara Neverow-Turk and Mark Hussey. New York: Pace UP, 1993.248-57.

Woolf, Leonard. Down hill All the Way:An Autobiography of the Years 1919 to 1939. NewYork: Harcourt, 1967.

Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf. Ed. Anne Olivier Bell and Andrew McNellie. Vol. 4. NewYork: Harcourt, 1982.

-----. Flush:A Biography. New York: Harcourt, 1933.

-----. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Ed. Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann. Vol. 5. NewYork: Harcourt, 1979.

I wish to thank Dr. Anca Viasopolos for her guidance in the development of this essay.

Craig Smith is a doctoral candidate at Wayne State University. His dissertation is entitled Eustace Tilley's Closet: Gay and Lesbian Writers at The New Yorker, 1925-1992. His fiction has appeared in Christopher Street and in the anthology Discontents (ed. Dennis Cooper).