Abstract

This paper highlights parallels and differences between Woolf’s philosophy of sight and that of Ralph Waldo Emerson in order to advance understanding of Woolf’s epistemology and, collaterally, to offer new perspectives on To the Lighthouse. The argument thus diverges from recent Woolf scholarship that focuses primarily on her move from Impressionism to Post-Impressionism. Emerson’s metaphors of vision rest on the claim that in the natural world we are afforded glimpses of universal laws. To the Lighthouse similarly implies that manipulating distance and vision in observing the external world will provide “illuminations” of something (161), but Woolf teases us with the ambiguity of what that something is. Through this framework, a reading of Mrs. Ramsay is developed that moves beyond the more traditional take on her character as a domestic artist or mystic; she provides, additionally, a paradigm of visionary illumination resonant with Lily Briscoe’s project of negotiating space to create art.

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