Approaches to Teaching Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs. Dalloway is considered a central work in Virginia Woolf's oeuvre and in the modernist canon. It not only addresses historical and cultural issues such as war, colonialism, class, politics, marriage, sexuality, and psychology but also reimagines the novel form. Moreover, Mrs. Dalloway continues to grow in its influence and visibility, inspiring adaptations in film, theater, print, and other media.



Despite Mrs. Dalloway's continued popularity, many students today find the prose daunting and a barrier to their appreciation and comprehension of the novel. This volume seeks to give instructors a variety of strategies for making Woolf's work compelling and accessible to students while addressing the diverse ways it has been interpreted. Part 1, "Materials," reviews editions of Mrs. Dalloway as well as critical and historical resources related to the novel. Part 2, "Approaches," explores the task of contextualizing this key modernist text in the classroom. Some contributors situate Mrs. Dalloway in its historical time and place, namely, London in the period between the two world wars. Others discuss the novel's narrative form or interpret it using perspectives from cultural studies, feminism, or queer theory. Still others address the novel's relation to poems, films, and Victorian novels. Finally, a group of essays discusses the challenges and rewards of teaching the novel in settings both traditional and nontraditional, from a college classroom to a prison.

Eileen Barrett is professor of English and director of the Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching at California State University, East Bay. Her publications include an award-winning article on Between the Acts, a contribution to the Approaches to Teaching Woolf's To the Lighthouse volume, and essays on Mrs. Dalloway. She is coeditor of American Women Writers: Diverse Voices in Prose, three volumes of Selected Papers for the Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, and Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings. Ruth O. Saxton is professor of English and cofounder of the women's studies program at Mills College, where she has been recognized for exemplary teaching. She coedited Woolf and Lessing: Breaking the Mold (with Jean Tobin), edited The Girl: Constructions of the Girl in Contemporary Fiction by Women, and is working on a collection of essays about the aging female protagonist in contemporary fiction.