Atmosphere, Character, and Scale in Virginia Woolf

Abstract: This essay examines the use of atmosphere in Woolf's fiction as a way of mediating between the representation of particular individuals and the delineation of historical structures of feeling. As a concept whose literal and metaphorical senses have been subject, since the Romantic era, to ambiguous intermixture, atmosphere tends to erode the distinction between personal moods and the ineffable historical ambience of an epoch. Focusing on works that span a transitional moment in Woolf's career, I trace the ways in which atmosphere operates in her work as an impersonal medium of emotion and a figure for collective historical experience.