A CITY OF ONE’S OWN: APPROPRIATING LONDON IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S PORTRAIT OF A LONDONER

The article focuses on the anti-modernist representation of London, as revealed by Mrs. Crowe, the protagonist of Virginia Woolf’s essay “Portrait of a Londoner”. Despite being sketchy and highly descriptive, the essay foregrounds London not only as a setting, but also as a symbolic image, constructed by the female heroine, who maps out the city through gossip and anecdotes related by the guests she welcomes in her Victorian home. I claim that Mrs. Crowe creates a mental cityscape which enables her to act metaphorically both as an urban historian and as a biographer of London who makes the fragmented and discontinuous modernist city comprehensible.