Nick

On January 12, our class visited The Keep Archives. I was impressed by the operational ergonomics of this archive; they had a deliberate system and modern technology that made it seem like it would be easy to find and request documents. They were incredibly organized, and the building was specifically designed for an archive.

I chose to analyze a correspondence of letters between Virginia Woolf (Stephens at the time) and Leonard Woolf. These letters were handwritten on faded, brown, fragile paper. These letters were dated between January 11 and January 13, 1912. They seemingly occur after a rejected marriage proposal from Leonard to Virginia.  Despite this, Leonard displays his unconditional love for Virginia as he states, “I will do absolutely whatever you want. I don’t think you want me to go away, but if you did, I would at once.”1 While I had been aware of the dynamic of Virginia and Leonard’s relationship, it was shocking to see Leonard’s passion for Virginia despite the rejection.  Leonard’s support for Virginia allows her to be artistically free in her writing. This is seen in Mrs. Dalloway in which the writing style is very modern and experimental in nature. This is evident when she explores the death of Septimus through the lens of Clarissa in stating, “Death was an attempt to communicate, people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them…”2

It was even more interesting to see Virginia’s response and her disinterest in Leonard. She describes how she appreciates him but is not physically attracted to him. Reading about these intricacies in their relationship felt incredibly intrusive as these letters were meant to be secret. However, I feel that through this process, I have a greater appreciation for their humanity.