“Words are an impure medium”: intermedial relations in Virginia Woolf’s “Kew Gardens”

Abstract

We aim at discussing Virginia Woolf ’s short story “Kew Gardens” from an intermedial perspective, so as to value the articulation between image and word, cinematic and literary structure. In order to achieve this objective, we support the investigation with Woolf’s own reflections on the “flirtations of the arts”, a notion which proves productive in some of her texts; and on theories of intermediality – RAJEWSKY (2012); RIPPL (2015); HALLET (2015), among others –, whose approach connects literary studies with other arts and media. The results show the intense dialogue between Woolf and the visual arts and reveal that the modern nature of her literature is also a substantial response to the interchange between different arts, being a source of aesthetic and cultural learning.