“I am the field”
Nature in the Soliloquies of The Waves, by Virginia Woolf
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-2096.2025.54352Keywords:
Soliloquies, nature, ecocriticism, Virginia Woolf, The WavesAbstract
In a novel that blends the waves of the sea with the flow of thoughts, Virginia Woolf explores the existence of six characters, from childhood to adulthood. The Waves extensively uses the stream-of-consciousness technique, in the form of soliloquies presented by each character. Bernard, Neville, Louis, Susan, Rhoda and Jinny present their visions of themselves, of each other and the world around them in a highly poetic language. Beyond the title, the presence of waves and nature, in general, is essential to the plot, permeating each of the soliloquies and the interludes. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse and discuss the role of nature in the construction of meaning in the work.
Downloads
References
ALT, Christina. Virginia Woolf and the Study of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
GARRARD, Greg. Ecocrítica. Tradução de Vera Ribeiro. Brasília: Editora UNB, 2006.
GLOTFELTY, Cheryll. Introduction: Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis. In: GLOTFELTY, Cheryll; FROMM, Harold (eds.) The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1996. p. XV-XXXVII.
GOLDMAN, Jane. From Mrs Dalloway to The Waves: New Elegy and Lyric Experimentalism. In: SELLERS, Susan (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf. 2. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. p. 49-69.
HARAWAY, Donna Jeanne. The Haraway Reader. New York; London: Routledge, 2004.
HEISE, U. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Ecocriticism. PMLA, New York, v. 121, n. 2, p. 503-516, 2006. Disponível em: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/hitchhikers-guide-to-ecocriticism/39E2480A51886F52088B1CA19A2445A2. Acesso em: 04 abr. 2025.
KOSTKOWSKA, Justyna. Ecocriticism and Women Writers: Environmentalist Poetics of Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson, and Ali Smith. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
MACKAY, Carol Hanbery. Soliloquy in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. New York: MacMillan Press, 1987.
MARINO, Mariana Cristina P.; SIQUEIRA, Emanuela. Experiências, paisagens e simetria no projeto estético-ecológico de Virginia Wolf. Scripta Uniandrade, Curitiba, v. 20, n. 2, p. 01-17, 2022. Disponível em: https://revista.uniandrade.br/index.php/ScriptaUniandrade/article/view/2642. Acesso em: 04 abr. 2025.
MCNICHOL, Stella. Virginia Woolf and the Poetry of Fiction. London; New York: Routledge, 1990.
OLIVEIRA, Solange Ribeiro de. Virginia Woolf’s Silver Globe. Orientador: Abgar Renault. 1962. 139f. Tese (Doutorado em Teoria da Literatura e Literatura Comparada) – Faculdade de Letras, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 1962. Disponível em: http://hdl.handle.net/1843/53191. Acesso em: 04 abr. 2025.
SCOTT, Bonnie Kime. In the Hollow of the Wave: Virginia Woolf and Modernist Uses of Nature. University of Virginia Press, 2012.
SILVA, Reginaldo Oliveira. Da epopeia burguesa ao fluxo da consciência: a escrita literária em tempos difíceis. Revista Investigações, v. 22, n. 1, p. 11-35, 2009. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/index.php/INV/article/view/1360. Acesso em: 30 maio 2024.
SOPER, Kate. The idea of Nature. In: COUPE, Laurence (Ed.). The Green Studies Reader. London; New York: Routledge, 2000. p. 123-126.
WALKER, Charlotte Zoë. The Book “Laid Upon the Landscape”: Virginia Woolf and Nature. In: ARMBRUSTER, Karla; WALLACE, Kathleen R. (ed.) Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism. Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 2001. p. 143-161.
WESTLING, Louise. Virginia Woolf and the Flesh of the World. New Literary History, v. 30, n. 4, p. 855-875, 1999. Disponível em: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20057575. Acesso em: 29 ago. 2024.
WOOLF, Virginia. As ondas. Tradução de Tomaz Tadeu. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2021a. Edição do Kindle.
WOOLF, Virginia. Os diários de Virgínia Woolf: Uma seleção [1897-1941]. Organizado por Flora Süssekind. Tradução de Angélica Freitas. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Rocco, 2021b.
ZAPF, Hubert. Introduction. In: ZAPF, Hubert (ed.). Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Berlim: De Gruyter, 2016. p. 1-18.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Joicy Silva Ferreira, Thaïs Flores Nogueira Diniz (Autor)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).