Bridging generations: Virginia Woolf and Quentin Bell's intergenerational collaboration in ‘A life of Vanessa Bell’

Guilherme Magri da  Rocha; Diana  Navas

doi:10.4025/actascilangcult.v48i1.71827

Authors

Guilherme Magri da Rocha Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul
Diana Navas Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4025/actascilangcult.v48i1.71827

Keywords:

Child agency; crossover literature; intergenerational collaboration; modernist aesthetics; Virginia Woolf.

Abstract

This article examines the collaborative authorship of ‘A Life of Vanessa Bell’ within the Charleston Bulletin Supplements, an intergenerational project by Virginia Woolf and her nephew Quentin Bell. Situated at the crossroads of modernist aesthetics, family literary traditions, and children’s literature, this study explores how their partnership redefines traditional ideas of childhood, authorship, and literary form. The research looks at the interaction between Woolf’s fragmented, playful narrative and Bell’s illustrations, highlighting how their collaboration represents modernist experimentation and questions hierarchical structures of adult authority. The findings show how text and image come together to create a crossover cultural artifact.

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