“Imaginations of the Strangest Kind”: The Vital Materialism of Virginia Woolf

This article argues that Virginia Woolf brings the nonhuman world to the forefront of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse in order to challenge the primacy of human agency in her decentering of the human and her recognition of the vitality of all matter. Focusing on the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs. Dalloway and the “Time Passes” section of To the Lighthouse, this article demonstrates how Woolf’s rendering of the relationships between the human and the nonhuman worlds embodies Jane Bennett’s theory of “vital materialism.” Moving beyond traditional ecocritical approaches to literature, Bennett’s vital materialism considers the agencies of inorganic, nonhuman materialities and objects—as well as organic, natural materialities and human beings—and their roles in shaping the world. Reading Woolf’s works through the lens of vital materialism brings a deeper understanding to Woolf’s vision of the world in which all life and matter are connected and intermeshed.