The Haunted House in St. Ives: Ghostly Presences and Sensuous Memories in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch Of The Past”
This article explores how Virginia Woolf’s memories as worked into her piece of life writing “A Sketch of the Past” (1939-1940) can be perceived as haunted. Employing the tropes of the “haunted house” and “ghostly presences,” we examine Woolf’s “colour-and-sound memories” (Woolf 66) of her childhoo...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Ilha do Desterro |
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| Online Access: | https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/103755 |
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| author | Gabriela Zetehaku Araujo Maria Rita Drumond Viana |
| author_facet | Gabriela Zetehaku Araujo Maria Rita Drumond Viana |
| author_sort | Gabriela Zetehaku Araujo |
| collection | DOAJ |
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This article explores how Virginia Woolf’s memories as worked into her piece of life writing “A Sketch of the Past” (1939-1940) can be perceived as haunted. Employing the tropes of the “haunted house” and “ghostly presences,” we examine Woolf’s “colour-and-sound memories” (Woolf 66) of her childhood summer home—Talland House in St. Ives—and its central spectral figure: her mother, Julia Stephen. To develop this, we situate “Sketch” within the broader field of life writing, emphasizing its fragmented and sensorial nature while discussing the hybrid and liminal characteristics of auto/biography. We then delve into the relationship between houses and memory (Lee 2020; Bachelard 1964) and the concept of hauntology (Derrida 1994; Rahimi 2021) to highlight the inextricable link between memory, space, and haunting as well as how Talland House emerges as a site of spectral memory, with Julia Stephen as its abiding ghost.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a4600cbaaa58443bab84320d06f2f89d |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 0101-4846 2175-8026 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ilha do Desterro |
| spelling | doaj-art-a4600cbaaa58443bab84320d06f2f89d2025-08-20T03:20:47ZengUniversidade Federal de Santa CatarinaIlha do Desterro0101-48462175-80262025-06-0178110.5007/2175-8026.2025.e103755The Haunted House in St. Ives: Ghostly Presences and Sensuous Memories in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch Of The Past” Gabriela Zetehaku Araujohttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-6630-8951Maria Rita Drumond Viana0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1985-3375Federal University of Ouro Preto This article explores how Virginia Woolf’s memories as worked into her piece of life writing “A Sketch of the Past” (1939-1940) can be perceived as haunted. Employing the tropes of the “haunted house” and “ghostly presences,” we examine Woolf’s “colour-and-sound memories” (Woolf 66) of her childhood summer home—Talland House in St. Ives—and its central spectral figure: her mother, Julia Stephen. To develop this, we situate “Sketch” within the broader field of life writing, emphasizing its fragmented and sensorial nature while discussing the hybrid and liminal characteristics of auto/biography. We then delve into the relationship between houses and memory (Lee 2020; Bachelard 1964) and the concept of hauntology (Derrida 1994; Rahimi 2021) to highlight the inextricable link between memory, space, and haunting as well as how Talland House emerges as a site of spectral memory, with Julia Stephen as its abiding ghost. https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/103755Virginia WoolfA Sketch of the PastLife WritingMemoryHaunted House |
| spellingShingle | Gabriela Zetehaku Araujo Maria Rita Drumond Viana The Haunted House in St. Ives: Ghostly Presences and Sensuous Memories in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch Of The Past” Ilha do Desterro Virginia Woolf A Sketch of the Past Life Writing Memory Haunted House |
| title | The Haunted House in St. Ives: Ghostly Presences and Sensuous Memories in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch Of The Past” |
| title_full | The Haunted House in St. Ives: Ghostly Presences and Sensuous Memories in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch Of The Past” |
| title_fullStr | The Haunted House in St. Ives: Ghostly Presences and Sensuous Memories in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch Of The Past” |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Haunted House in St. Ives: Ghostly Presences and Sensuous Memories in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch Of The Past” |
| title_short | The Haunted House in St. Ives: Ghostly Presences and Sensuous Memories in Virginia Woolf’s “A Sketch Of The Past” |
| title_sort | haunted house in st ives ghostly presences and sensuous memories in virginia woolf s a sketch of the past |
| topic | Virginia Woolf A Sketch of the Past Life Writing Memory Haunted House |
| url | https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/103755 |
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