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Madame de La Fayette
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Madame de La Fayette : La Princesse de Cleves
Tuesday 14 February 1922: 'I am reading [in convalescence, following week of illness] Moby Dick: Princesse de Cleves; Lord Salisbury; Old Mortality; Small Talk at Wreyland; with an occasional bite at the Life of Lord Tennyson, of Johnson; & anything else I find handy. But this is all dissipated & invalidish. I can only hope that like dead leaves they may fertilise my brain.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Madame de la Fayette : La Princesse de Cleves
Saturday 18 February 1922: 'I want to read Byron's Letters, but I must go on with La Princesse de Cleves. This masterpiece has long been on my conscience. Me to talk of fiction & not to have read this classic! But reading classics is generally hard going. Especially classics like this one, which are classics because of their perfect taste, shapeliness, composire, artistry [...] I think the beauty very great, but hard to appreciate [comments further on text].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Madame de la Fayette :
[from chapter entitled 'Aphra Behn'] 'One thing is certain, pure her mind was not, but tainted to the very core. She loved grossness for its own sake, because it was congenial to her [...] The noble examples of Mademoiselle de Scudery and Madame de la Fayette were lost upon her -- she read their works, she knew well their object, and she wrote not one coarse passage the less for either.'
