Today I heard the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice. I was so floored to be hearing her speak that I was completely unable to listen to what she was actually saying. I just kept thinking… “That’s Virginia Woolf. That’s what she sounded like. Holy shit. That’s Virginia Woolf.”
Goosebumps, you know?
And then I listened to it again, and still got so distracted by the idea of what I was hearing that I couldn’t absorb the words. When I was finally able to settle down and pay attention on the third listen, that proved rather ironic.
Enjoy, fellow lit nerds. Enjoy.
WORDS! Yes, I blame them entirely.
I love her so much. Did you ever read her essays? On the importance on not knowing Greek is my favorite. I read when I was taking years of Greek. And she is right. It is important to Not Know Greek, but give it a shot anyway.
Her accent is so odd and interesting. I will need to reread her soon I think. I’d sort of like to run through a spate of early 20th century female novelists. And I’ve been putting off reading Suite Francaise by Nermirovksy. My aunt sent me a lovely hardback when it first came out in London.
Oh, the bourbon is making me verbose. I left you a comment over at my post. Should I email them to you? I wonder if you could comment using openid?
Thanks for the link, I’m going to check it out now! -And I feel the same way about hearing Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton’s voices. Amazing. And odd, how it makes them more human.
It’s so wonderful to hear these voices. How I wish we could have heard voices like the Brontes, Jane Austen, Byron…
What an incredible accent. And an incredible mind, where words lived indeed.
Yes, I would love to have the opportunity to hear earlier voices, too. What do you suppose Dickinson sounded like?
Speaking of words…I have none.
I got a little choked up there.
Thank you for this.
(maybe next time I’ll remember to spell my name correctly? Sheesh.)
“Hither and thither.” I’m going to try to use that phrase more often.
Lord, I had the same reaction you did. It’s funny, too, because her words as written on a page (I mean, her words in general, not the specific ones she’s speaking here) are always so lush that I imagined them being spoken in a very plain voice.
But the voice is what my Yiddish grandmother would call ongepatchkit (I have no idea how to spell that) – completely overdone and ornate.
Breathe, dear, breathe. It’s just a recording of . . . HOLY CRAP. Virginia Woolf’s voice!!!
One thing though – the BBC site announces that it’s the only extant recording of her voice. Keep in mind that this is an unprovable assertion; it’s entirely possible that there are still as yet undiscovered recordings of her voice. Something to look forward to, perhaps.
She sounds so calm. Also, I’d bet her scansion of a poem was totally different from ours now…her pronunciation of the word “dictionary” alone put her in a completely different syllabic universe.
Thank you for this. It made my day.
Brilliant what she said, an unexpected voice! very English!