British Literature Survey
Reference Pages: Virginia Woolf Group

The Bloomsbury Group
by Ellie LeBlond

The Bloomsbury Group, which was active from the early 1900’s until the 1930’s, originated as a group of friends who met on Thursday nights at the home of Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell to discuss a wide range of issues including politics, love, art, poetry etc. The group was made up of artists, writers, economists, historians, civil servants, and other English intellectuals, most of who had recently graduated from Cambridge. The Bloomsbury group has been praised for producing such writing talent, but the members insist that Cambridge was what helped them to develop this “magic quality”. According to Trish Wilson, Bloomsbury has also been criticized as a group of egotistical snobs who in meeting were only trying to break away from mainstream society and feed their egos. Most of the criticism was aimed at Woolf, because people saw her as a highbrow snob. Along with the criticism came a deep interest in the inter-personal relations between the members of the group with a theme being “triangular relationships with a gay twist.” For example, Vanessa Stephen, who later married Clive Bell, was in love with Duncan Grant, (all members of the group) who previously had a love affair with her brother. Virginia Woolf had an affair with Vita-Sackville West and people believe that her novel Orlando, a story about love ignoring gender, was inspired by this affair. Aside from the personal issues of the group, it is remembered for the great works that were produced by its members. “Bloomsbury” has become a word to signify a set of ideas and attitudes toward art and culture, as well as other philosophical, economical and psychological theories.

Works Cited

Hussey, Mark. Virginia Woolf A to Z. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1995.

Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. San Diego: Harvest, 1972.

Wilson, Trish. “The Bloomsbury Group: Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Snobbishness, Art and Writing, Intellectual Pursuits, and Black Beetles.” Feminista!, 1997. 29 Jan. 2006. http://www.feminista.com/archives/v1n5/wil son.html.

Randle, Denise. “The Bloomsbury Group…Artists, Writers and Thinkers.” 29 Jan. 2006. http://bloomsbury.denise-randle.co.uk/intro.htm.

Paul Marchbanks
marchban@email.unc.edu