‘On not Knowing English’: Woolfian Encounters With The Other

• Main Author: Angeliki Spiropoulou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2015-03-01
• Series: Études Britanniques Contemporaines
• Subjects: Woolf (Virginia); Greek; Freud (Sigmund); questioning power; women and democracy; relational (self)knowledge
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/2217
• ISSN: 1168-4917; 2271-5444

This paper discusses the relational procedure of (self)knowledge as it appears in Woolf's writing, with special reference to her piece ‘Why?’ (1924), her model essay, ‘On Not Knowing Greek’ (1925) and also to her novel, Jacob's Room (1922) in which references to Greece are concentrated. The production of any (necessarily non-definitive) knowledge of oneself, of one's own culture for Woolf seems to be premised on a comparative and relational basis throughout, translation and dialogue with the other always mediating this knowledge. By questioning the possibility of knowing another language or culture, Woolf points not only to how power is inter-articulated with knowledge and educational hierarchies, but she also brings into relief how knowledge of the other really points back to oneself.