The Romantic Tradition and the (Re)Interpretation of the Romantic Self in Boris Pasternak's and Virginia Woolf's Prose Writing

Abstract

The article makes an attempt to sound the novelty of Virginia Woolf's and Boris Pasternak's literary theory in the context of literary tradition. I argue that at least in two crucial fields, in the definition of the self and the treatment of the relationship of art and reality, it is the paradigm established by the Romantics that seems to be the most important point of reference. In order to prove this, I discuss both the authors' statements about romanticism and the romantic traits in their philosophies of art. Some of their concepts relevant to the topic (for example, Woolf's moments of being, or Pasternak's idea of creative subjectivity), expounded mainly in ‘A Sketch of the Past’ and in A Safe Conduct, and the Romantic influences on their work are in the focus of the paper.