“The Journey is Everything”1

Abstract

Virginia Woolf had a European sensibility and a sense of Europe as an intellectual sphere. She was writing at a time when a syncretic European consciousness was emerging, as epitomized by Gide who hailed nomadism as a lifestyle. Woolf regarded the concept of nationality as obsolete and decried the ‘insularity’, ‘domesticity’ and ‘homeliness’ of England for which she produced a number of satirical metonyms. Possessing ‘the zest of travelling’, she found in France a ‘congenial civilisation’, where she could experience new trends of thought and sensory impressions, which would fuel her creativity. It was not just the blend of intellectuality and sensuality, but also the sheer strangeness of a foreign language and landscape that spurred her spirit of experimentation.