Virginia Woolf, Hippolyte Taine and a Neuroscientific Approach

AbstractIn this paper, by bridging the gap between neuroscience and literary study, HippolyteAdolphe Taine’s historical method, revitalized by neuroscientific studies, would be obtainedto investigate Virginia Woolf’s style of writing. Specifically, Taine’s theory — it is throughrace, surroundings, epoch that the life of an author and his/her literary productions are shaped— would be conjoined with the neuroscientific notion of epigenetics inherent in the theorywhich asserts that the character of an individual is the result of the mixture of the individual'scircumstances of birth and his/her sociocultural environment to illuminate the shaping powersbeneath Woolf’s style of writing. As a result of Taine’s updated theory, Woolf’s worldviewwas shaped by, first, the race; the second, the surroundings, which investigates childhoodcondition, which acted upon Woolf’s predisposition to bipolar disorder to lead to her mentalillness because of her experience as a sexually abused child. The epoch or socioculturalenvironment, the third force, affected Woolf’s worldview through the dominant ideas (ofWilliam James) and major events (such as two great wars as well as scientific andtechnologic progress). Thus, this study would seek a collaboration between neuroscience andTaine’s historical approach to literary productions with the aim of updating and invigoratingthis literary theory in order to scrutinize Woolf’s style of writing.