his wit, and his way with words?

機智幽默、滿有文采的妹妹，會是什麼樣子呢？

Would she have gone to school and set the stage alight?

她能夠讀書、讓劇作在舞台上搬演嗎？

In her essay "A Room of One's Own,"

在維吉尼亞‧吳爾芙的文章─「自己的房間」中

Virginia Woolf argues that this would have been impossible.

她表示上述事情不可能發生

She concocts a fictional sister who's stuck at home,

她編出一個虛擬人物─莎士比亞的妹妹，只能待在家中

snatching time to scribble a few pages

攫取零碎時間零散的書寫

before she finds herself betrothed and runs away.

直到發現父母為她訂下婚事後，她就逃家了

While her brother finds fame and fortune, she remains abandoned and anonymous.

她的哥哥莎士比亞有名聲有財富，但是她卻沒沒無聞也無家可歸

In this thought experiment,

在這樣的思想實驗中

Woolf demonstrates the tragedy of genius restricted,

吳爾芙充分展現天才遭受埋沒的悲劇

and looks back through time for hints of these hidden histories.

並且帶領人們從歷史中找出相關的蛛絲馬跡

She wrote, "When one reads of a witch being ducked,

她寫道：「人們讀到女巫受絞刑、

of a woman possessed by devils,

被邪靈侵擾的女性、

of a wise woman selling herbs,

賣藥草的聰明女人、

or even a very remarkable man who had a mother,

甚至是有母親的傑出男人時，

then I think we're on the track of a lost novelist,

我想我們讀到的是這個世界失去了一個小說家，

a suppressed poet,

一個壓抑的詩人，

of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen."

或者是一些沉默無聲的珍‧奧斯汀」

"A Room of One's Own" considers a world denied great works of art

「自己的房間」認為這個世界之所以否認某些傑出的藝術作品

due to exclusion and inequality.

是源於既定的偏見和不平等的觀念

How best can we understand the internal experience of alienation?

我們可以多細緻地理解「異化」的內在經驗？

In both her essays and fiction,

在吳爾芙的文章與小說中

Virginia Woolf shapes the slippery nature of subjective experience into words.

她將個人的主觀經驗，從模糊的印象轉為實質的文字

Her characters frequently lead inner lives that are deeply at odds

她書寫的角色常常呈現內在生命

with their external existence.

與外在世界的衝突

To help make sense of these disparities, the next time you read Woolf,

如果想理解這些衝突點，下次閱讀吳爾芙的著作時

here are some aspects of her life and work to consider.

你可以從下列她生活與工作的角度來閱讀

She was born Adeline Virginia Stephen in 1882 to a large and wealthy family,

她於 1882 年出生在一個富裕的大家庭，出生時名為艾德琳·維吉尼亞·史蒂芬

which enabled her to pursue a life in the arts.

因為家庭富裕，所以她可以在藝術領域深造

The death of her mother in 1895 was followed by that of her half-sister,

1895 年她的母親去世，接下來十年間，她同母異父的姊姊、

father, and brother within the next ten years.

爸爸、兄弟相繼離世

These losses led to Woolf's first depressive episode

喪失親人的痛楚讓吳爾芙十分沮喪

and subsequent institutionalization.

但她仍持續接受制度化教育

As a young woman, she purchased a house

年輕的時候，吳爾芙在倫敦的布魯姆斯伯里

in the Bloomsbury area of London with her siblings.

和她的姊妹買了一間房子

This brought her into contact with a circle of creatives,

這使她得以和一群有創意思想的文學藝術大師來往

including E.M. Forster,

包含愛德華‧摩根‧福斯特、

Clive Bell,

克萊夫貝爾、

Roger Fry,

羅傑弗萊、

and Leonard Woolf.

還有倫納德吳爾芙

These friends became known as the Bloomsbury Group,

這些朋友後來成為知名的布魯姆斯伯里學派

and Virginia and Leonard married in 1912.

維吉尼亞和倫納德更於 1912 年結婚

The members of this group were prominent figures in Modernism,

此學派的成員是現代主義的代表

a cultural movement that sought to push the boundaries

他們帶來的文化風潮試圖運用更真實的方式描摹

of how reality is represented.

現實世界與實際感受

Key features of Modernist writing include the use of stream of consciousness,

現代主義文學的特色有意識流手法的運用、

interior monologue,

內在獨白、

distortions in time,

時空的扭曲與交錯、

and multiple or shifting perspectives.

還有多元或是不停轉換的人稱觀點

These appear in the work of Ezra Pound,

上述特色可見於多位文學家的作品中，包含艾茲拉‧龐德、

Gertrude Stein,

葛楚·史坦、

James Joyce,

詹姆斯‧喬伊斯、

and Woolf herself.

還有吳爾芙本人

While reading Joyce's "Ulysses," Woolf began writing "Mrs. Dalloway."

讀了喬伊斯的《尤利西斯》後，吳爾芙開始撰寫《戴洛維夫人》

Like "Ulysses," the text takes place over the course of a single day

就像《尤利西斯》，所有書寫內容都發生在同一天

and opens under seemingly mundane circumstances.

並且透過生活細節呈現

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

「戴洛維夫人說她會自己買花」

But the novel dives deeply into the characters' traumatic pasts,

但是這本小說更深刻的挖掘出角色背後的創傷經驗

weaving the inner world of numbed socialite Clarissa Dalloway,

將社交名媛克拉麗莎‧戴洛維的內心世界

with that of the shell-shocked veteran Septimus Warren Smith.

和退休軍人塞普蒂默斯·史密斯的內心世界相互交述、跨度

Woolf uses interior monologue to contrast the rich world of the mind

吳爾芙運用內心獨白和角色身處華麗的外在世界

against her characters' external existences.

呈現強烈對比

In her novel "To the Lighthouse,"

在她另一本小說《到燈塔去》裡

mundane moments, like a dinner party, or losing a necklace

描述了許多生活瑣事，像是晚餐派對或是遺失項鍊

trigger psychological revelations in the lives of the Ramsay's,

揭露 Ramsay 心理層次的生活

a fictionalized version of Woolf's family growing up.

有點像是吳爾芙家族的小說版本

"To the Lighthouse" also contains one of the most famous examples

《到燈塔去》同時包含一個非常有名的例子

of Woolf's radical representation of time.

呈現吳爾芙對「時間」有著極端現代主義的概念

In the Time Passes section,

在「Time Passes」這個章節

ten years are distilled into about 20 pages.

吳爾芙運用 20 頁的篇幅寫出了 10 年間發生的事情

Here, the lack of human presence in the Ramsays' beach house

Ramsay 的房子在杳無人煙的海邊

allows Woolf to reimagine time in flashes and fragments of prose.

讓吳爾芙可以在片刻的瞬間與散文的片段之間重新構思「時間」的概念

"The house was left. The house was deserted.

「房子無人居住，在荒蕪之地。

It was left like a shell on a sand hill to fill with dry salt grains

就像是在沙丘上的殼，裡面塞滿了乾燥的鹽穀

now that life had left it."

生命都已逝去。」

In her novel "The Waves,"

在《海浪》這本小說中

there is little distinction between the narratives of the six main characters.

六個主要角色和旁白敘述之間並沒有顯著差異

Woolf experiments with collective consciousness,

吳爾芙實驗性質地運用集體意識

at times collapsing the six voices into one.

時不時讓六個聲音合而為一

"It is not one life that I look back upon:

「我並不只回顧一個人的生活：

I am not one person: I am many people:

因為我不是一個人，我有不同的自我

I do not altogether know who I am,

我不太清楚所有的我合在一起是什麼樣的我

Jinny, Susan, Neville, Rhoda or Louis,

到底是 Jinny 、 Susan 、 Neville 、 Rhoda 還是 Louis，

or how to distinguish my life from their's."

也實在不知道該如何區辨我和他們的生活。」

In "The Waves," six become one, but in the gender-bending "Orlando,"

在《海浪》一書中，六個角色合而為一，組成性別界線模糊的「Orlando」

a single character inhabits multiple identities.

一個擁有多重性格的單一角色

The protagonist is a poet who switches between genders and lives for 300 years.

主角是個詩人，可以自由變換性別，而且已經生活了 300 年

With its fluid language and approach to identity,

這樣流動的語言還有談論人格的方法

"Orlando" is considered a key text in gender studies.

「Orlando」被認為是性別研究的主要角色

The mind can only fly so far from the body

意識可以飛離身體

before it returns to the constraints of life.

再回到生活、身體的框架中

Like many of her characters, Woolf's life ended in tragedy

吳爾芙悲劇性的生命終點和她筆下的許多角色一樣

when she drowned herself at the age of 59.

59 歲的時候她就投河自盡

Yet, she expressed hope beyond suffering.

然而，她透過苦痛表達希望

Through deep thought, Woolf's characters are shown

藉由深厚的思想，吳爾芙藉由展現個人特質

to temporarily transcend their material reality,

來短暫地勝於現實的物質世界

and in its careful consideration of the complexity of the mind,

而她對於意識、精神的細微解讀

her work charts the importance of making our inner lives known to each other.

更使得她的作品充分展現認識自我內在生命的重要性