Back to Virginia Woolf Seminar Home Page
Updated July 31, 1998
Created July 31, 1998
What is the current critical status of Orlando?
The MLA bibliography lists 92 items, from 1963 through Feb. 1997 (not counting dissertations and foreign language pubs). Some modern scholars regard it as merely a literary joke and dismiss it, while others pursue the Freudian significance of jokes as "the truth of the unconscious" (qtd. Hussey 204). Some books on Woolf (e.g., Kelley, 1973; Leaska, 1977; Ruotolo, 1986) discuss all the novels except Orlando. Woolf herself wrote of it in 1928: "Orlando is of course a very quick brilliant book. Yes, but I did not try to explore. And must I always explore? Yes I think so still. Because my reaction is not the usual. Nor can I even after all these years run it off lightly. Orlando taught me continuity and narrative, & how to keep the realities at bay. But I purposely avoided of course any other difficulty. I never got down to my depths & made shapes square up, as I did in The Lighthouse" (Diary, Wednesday 7 November 1928).