Rewriting the self: Virginia Woolf’s unconventional meta-life narrative
Publication Date : 20-10-2025
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Résumé :
This article investigates Woolf’s reflexive approach to autobiographical narrative as both a personal recollection and a meta-commentary on the difficulty of representing the self. Virginia Woolf’s Sketch of the Past is not merely an autobiographical account, it is also an investigation into the nature of memory, identity, and the act of life writing itself. Here, she challenges traditional autobiographical structures by privileging her impressions over chronology, introspection over event, and fragmentation over coherence. Her use of the term sketch signals an intentional rejection of rigid narrative conventions, allowing her to explore the fluidity of memory and the instability of identity. The text oscillates between autodiegetic and heterodiegetic modes of narration, revealing Woolf’s shifting position as both subject and observer. Sketch of the Past stands as a meta-life narrative, which invites readers to consider autobiography not as a fixed genre but as a space of experimentation, where the self is continually examined through language, memory, and literary form.
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Mots-clés:
autobiographical narrative, meta-commentary, memory, identity, introspection
