CRITICISM

Barr, Tina. “Divine Politics: Virginia Woolf’s Journey toward Eleusis in To the Lighthouse.” Boundary 2 20, No. 1 (Spring 1993): 125–45.

Discusses To the Lighthousein terms of the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone in order to locate the novel’s full political and feminist implications.

Barzilai, Shula. “The Politics of Quotation in To the Lighthouse: Mrs. Woolf Recites Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Cowper.” Literature and Psychology XLI, No. 3 (1995): 22–43.

Considers the significance of Woolf’s repetition of passages from Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and Cowper’s “The Castaway” throughout To the Lighthouse.

Beer, Gillian. “Hume, Stephen, and Elegy in To the Lighthouse.” Essays in Criticism XXXIV, No. 1 (January 1984): 33–55.

Examines the meaning of absence in To the Lighthouse and its relation to the elegiac stance of mourning and coming to terms with loss.

Beja, Morris, ed. Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse. London: Macmillan, 1970, 256 p.

Collection of essays on To the Lighthouse; includes background information and first reviews of the novel.

Clark, Miriam Marty. “Consciousness, Stream and Quanta, in To the Lighthouse.” Studies in the Novel 21, No. 4 (Winter 1989): 413–23.

Examines the place of quantum physics in To the Lighthouse.

Daugherty, Beth Rigel. “‘There She Sat’: The Power of the Feminist Imagination in To the Lighthouse.” Twentieth Century Literature 37, No. 3 (Fall 1991): 289–308.

Connects the image of Mrs. Ramsay resurrected at the end of To the Lighthouse with Woolf’s attempts to symbolically release her own mother from the bonds of patriarchy.

Davenport, W. A. To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969, 93 p.

Brief overview of major themes in and background for To the Lighthouse.

Donaldson, Sandra M. “Where Does Q Leave Mr. Ramsay?” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 37 (Fall 1992): 329–36.

Examines the place of symbolic logic in To the Lighthouse.

Ellman, Maud. “The Woolf Woman.” Critical Quarterly 35, No. 3 (Autumn 1993): 86–100.

Attempts to examine the connection between Sigmund Freud’s study of infantile neurosis in the “Wolf Man” and Woolf’s fictionalized study of her childhood in To the Lighthouse.

Fokkema, Douwe W. “An Interpretation of To the Lighthouse with Reference to the Code of Modernism.” PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 4 (1980): 475–500.

Examines the place of To the Lighthouse in the larger Modernist movement.

Hankins, Leslie Kathleen. “A Splice of Reel Life in Virginia Woolf’s ‘Time Passes’: Censorship, Cinema, and ‘the Usual Battlefield of Emotions.’” Criticism XXXV, No. 1 (Winter 1993): 91–114.

Notes the possible influence of film theory on To the Lighthouse, which Woolf wrote at the same time she wrote her essay “The Cinema.”

Henke, Suzette. “Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse: In Defense of the Woman Artist.” Virginia Woolf Quarterly 2 (1975): 39–47.

Explores the artistic sensibilities of both Lily Briscoe and Mrs. Ramsay.

Hyman, Virginia R. “The Metamorphosis of Leslie Stephen.” Virginia Woolf Quarterly 2 (1975): 48–65.

Examines the connection between To the Lighthouse and the philosophy of Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephen, in his book The Science of Ethics.

Leaska, Mitchell A. Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse”: A Study in Critical Method. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970, 221 pp.

Examines all the major elements of To the Lighthouse—style, point of view, and rhetoric—and includes a foreword by Leonard Woolf.

Lidoff, Joan. “Virginia Woolf’s Feminine Sentence: The Mother-Daughter World of To the Lighthouse.” Literature and Psychology XXXII, No. 3 (1986): 43–57.

Discusses the “distinctly feminine tone” of To the Lighthouse and its connection to the psychological implications of the mother-daughter relationship.

Little, Judith. “Heroism in To the Lighthouse.” In Images of Women in Fiction: Feminist Perspectives, edited by Susan Koppelman Cornillon, pp. 237–42. Bowling Green, Oh: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972.

Explores the ways in which Mrs. Ramsay qualifies as a hero in the traditional sense of male literary heroism.

Lund, Roger D. “We Perished Each Alone: ‘The Castaway’ and To the Lighthouse.” Journal of Modern Literature XVI, No. 1 (Summer 1989): 75–92.

Explains the reasons Woolf may have chosen lines and images from Cowper’s poem “The Castaway” as her “central poetic leitmotif” in To the Lighthouse.

McNichol, Stella. Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse. London: Edward Arnold, 1971, 64 p.

Examines the structure, characters, symbolism, and philosophical framework of To the Lighthouse.

Minogue, Sally. “Was It a Vision? Structuring Emptiness in To the Lighthouse.” Journal of Modern Literature 21, No. 2 (Winter 1997-98): 281–94.

Analyzes To the Lighthouseto find keys to Woolf’s beliefs about death and the “brutality” of life.

Pratt, Annis. “Sexual Imagery in To the Lighthouse: A New Feminist Approach.” Modern Fiction Studies 18, No. 3 (Autumn 1972): 417–31.

Examines “The Window” section of To the Lighthouse, providing an overview of critical interpretation of it, in order to develop an innovative feminist reading of the text.

Raitt, Suzanne. Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990, 129 p.

Provides cultural and historical perspectives, an analysis of the text, and primary and secondary bibliographies.

Rosenthal, Michael. “To the Lighthouse.” In Virginia Woolf, pp. 103–27. London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.

Provides an overview of major themes in To the Lighthouse.

Vogler, Thomas A., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of To the Lighthouse: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970, 144 p.

Collects essays on To the Lighthouseby a number of important literary figures and critics.

Additional coverage of Woolf’s life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Contemporary Authors, Vols. 104, 130; Contemporary Dictionary of British Literary Biography, 1914–1945; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 36, 100, 162; Dictionary of Literary Biography Documentary Series, Vol. 10; DISCovering Authors; DISCovering Authors: British; DISCovering Authors: Canadian; DISCovering Authors Modules: Most-Studied Authors, Novelists; Major 20th-Century Writers, Vol. 1; Short Story Criticism, Vol. 7; and World Literature Criticism.