Virginia Woolf and The Lesbian Literary Tradition

Author

Hunter Candrian-VelezFollow

Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Senior Thesis

Degree

Bachelor of Arts

Primary Major

English Literature

Second Major

History

Thesis Advisor

Jordan Lieser, PhD

Abstract

Modernist English authors, such as Virginia Woolf in her novel Orlando: A Biography, built upon a pre-existing and long tradition of underground lesbian literature dating back to Sappho in Ancient Greece. Before Woolf, female writers of the 19th century continued this tradition by establishing the literary trope of the “Victorian Romantic Female Friendship,” which would later take on different shapes and connotations with discoveries made in the early 1900s related to sexology and homosexual inversion. These discoveries would lead writers to code their work in the hopes of avoiding censorship and government punishment. Writers such as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Djuna Barnes all used different creative techniques to avoid censorship while also telling queer stories. Works by these authors are integral to the lesbian literary tradition and have created a unique style incorporating imaginative elements to tell these stories in the mainstream. Since their publications, the works by these authors have caused a cultural stir especially for queer subcultures in women’s colleges, all-female boarding houses, and other same-sex communities throughout America and England. Authors like Virginia Woolf experienced a resurgence in cultural relevance in the 1970s during the gay liberation movement. Feminist scholars such as Bonnie Zimmerman, Lillian Faderman, and several others were fundamental in legitimizing lesbian studies and literature in the academic sphere. Through the use of comparative literary analysis, historiographic research, and historical contextualization using primary and secondary sources, this research aims to explain the evolution of sapphic dynamics within the historical context of these novels’ authorship: Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, and Nightwood by Djuna Barnes.