Abstract
This article aims to insert Freshwater: a Comedy (1923/1935), the only theatrical experiment penned by the English writer Virginia Woolf, into the debates around the modernist scene, which are mobilized by critical readings of her broad literary project. It is a consensus among scholars that Woolf’s oeuvre aligns aesthetics with politics, and that her modernist writings, as well as hoaxes and experimental performances, call into question absolute truths of Western thought, especially when it comes to imbrications of genre and gender in the critical transitions between terms such as “avant-garde”, “modernist” and “postmodernist” (GOLDMAN, 2004; WHITWORTH, 2010). However, Freshwater does not appear as an object of critical analysis in many of the studies dedicated to the works of Woolf. Thus, this article will show that the mentioned play can contribute to contemporary rereadings of modernism, especially if read as one of her avant-garde interventions, marked by the post-Victorianism (ELLIS, 2007) of her literary project.
Keywords
Virginia Woolf;
Freshwater
; Modernism; Theatre; Comedy