Study Group Details

While opinions of Bloomsbury artists, writers, and critics range from adoration to derision, we can honor the impact that the rebellious British movement had at the time, as well as its lasting influence.

From the turn of the 20^th century through the 1930s, the coterie of friends self-identified as "Bloomsberries" challenged the mores of Victorian England, introducing a new, more human and humane existence that championed “free” love, the creation and enjoyment of beautiful objects, the pursuit of knowledge, and the telling of "truth" as they saw it. Among the creators were Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, John Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant, and Leonard Woolf.  Novelist E.M. Forster, an important member of the men’s secret society “The Apostles” at Cambridge, led the way for the young men and women. 

In this course, we will examine the Bloomsbury revolt against the artistic, social, and sexual restrictions of the Victorian era; the ways in which it spurred the avant-garde in Britain; and its legacy in the 21st century. Through the lens of literature, we will examine its influence on the arts, critiques, and society. We will read and discuss two novels, E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”