Document Type
Essay
Publication Date
12-5-2024
Abstract
Woolf and Sackville-West's relationship has been scrutinized and celebrated since its beginning. While deeply affectionate, their bond also blurred boundaries between personal intimacy and artistic exploitation. Woolf immortalized Sackville-West in her 1928 novel Orlando, a work both heralded as a groundbreaking exploration of gender fluidity and critiqued for its appropriation of Sackville-West's life and identity. Orlando, The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf, and Portrait of a Marriage serve as unique lenses to observe the relationship between Woolf and Sackville-West. Orlando is a testament to the true love between a biographer and her Orlando, but as an artist, Woolf's love carries an inherent tendency toward exploitation. The written word is the foundation of Woolf and Sackville-West's relationship, and Orlando is the most honest letter Woolf ever wrote to Sackville-West.
Recommended Citation
Sherman, Sydney '28, "The 'Biographer' and Her 'Subject': Vita Sackville-West's Influence on Virginia Woolf" (2024). Best First-Year Seminar Writing. 29, Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/student_fys/29
Comments
Completed as part of Professor Andrea Sununu's FYS "Ruin and Re-begetting"