La voz de Virginia Wolf

Gracias a la Revista Arcadia (click here) por revelarme este link que ahora comparto con mis desprevenidos lectores (lo digo porque es un blog al que solo se llega por accidente). Se trata de Virginia Wolf reflexionando sobre el devenir y porvenir de las palabras.

Posdata: "Our business is to see what we can do with the old English language as it is. How can we combined the old words in new orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth. That is the question.".

She was aware that there was a time for invention and another for recombination. Moreover she was able to identify some of the preconditions for these two processes of change in language: "(old English words) they are stored with other meanings, with other memories [...] You cannot use a brand new word in an old language because of the very obvious yet always mysterious fact that a word is not a single and separate entity, but part of other words." I compare this insight with the notion of epigenetic –as opposed to genetic– differentiation between biological entities. She calls for an epigenetic approach to English literature, a way of reformism as opposed to revolutionary approach; yet, a subjective reformism because as she claims, words can survive as they are able to have different and interconnected meanings.