Peter Sacks and Jahan Ramazani have sketched the arc of elegiac poetry from its origins in Greece through its modern English incarnations. The burgeoning secularism of the twentieth century presents a problem for the modern elegist: poets less confidently conclude their mourning song by finding consolation in thoughts of life beyond death. One can 'never mourn' again because the traditional modes of mourning are disintegrating.Ĭlarissa's thoughts outline a rift in the elegiac tradition, from when 'It used to be so simple,' to now, when, she thinks, 'simply one doesn't believe any more in God' (158). These traditional elegiac themes give way to concern with the difficulty of mourning in the current age as Clarissa continues her walk to the refrain of 'And now can never mourn, can never mourn' (155). These lines enable Clarissa to mourn not only her 'dear Jack Stewart' (SF 154) but also those who, like her, live to face their regrets and limitations as they age. in part in The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf 154) Dalloway in Bond Street,' Clarissa Dalloway thinks of these lines from Shelley's 'Adonais': From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain. The elegy, Woolf suggests, demands a different approach in the twentieth century, as secularism swells and the Great War leaves its mark on the living as well as on the dead.Īs she walks through London in 'Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street.' But where another author might employ poetic allusion to tie modern-day London to the past, Virginia Woolf uses bits of Shelley and Shakespeare to distinguish her character's lament from the modes of mourning available to poets of earlier eras. Dalloway, as well as its precursor, the short story 'Mrs.

Mrs dalloway in bond street