A Secret Love Affair: Virginia Woolf & Vita Sackville-West

4:12AM Feb 7, 2022

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vita

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virginia

virginia woolf

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orlando

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romance

campbell

ephemeral nature

story

english

Hi there. I'm Sarah Wendell.

And I'm Alisha Rai. Welcome back to lovestruck daily, the show 100% Guaranteed to bring you all the fields I'm in love with that I'm in love with you. Are you ready for today's love story, Sara,

I am ready for today's love story. And I have a question for you.

Yeah, ask me.

How many love letters have you written or received?

Do texts or sexts count?

Out? Thank God, you know, I would say yes, except that I had to wipe my phone earlier last year, and I lost all of my text history. I was so bummed about it. So I feel like the intimacy is there. But the ephemeral nature of it is very, very dangerous. You'll lose those things. Can

I pluck my can I plug my my apple environment now? Because I have texts backed up on my iPad.

But that means your sexts are backed up.

Yeah, that's true. Wow. I mean, I go through and I manually delete those.

Just picture it off into the future. Yeah, someday. Oh, look, it's an archive of Auntie Alisha's text messages. Let's read though. God,

that was terrifying for me. I don't know. I don't know how he's these, you know, historical figures with this trove of letters. How do they feel about that? I don't know. Like, I feel like they're while they're gone. Right. So part of it is like what does it matter? Did

you know that one of the world's most famous novelist had a relationship that was so secret that the remnants of it are only found in her letters. Our guest today is Professor Leslie Hankins, who is the chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing at Cornell College and former president of the International Virginia Woolf society. Imagine having such a literary heritage. Do you have an international society? International Alicia rice society someday?

Yeah, someday, it'll be in my it'll be attached to my museum.

I think I'm right. Professor Hankins is going to tell us more about the romance between these two women as well as the cultural impact that Wolf's novel Orlando had on the literary world. For those of you who aren't familiar, Virginia Woolf was an English novelist active in the early 1900s. She wrote some of the most popular novels of the 20th century that are still studied today, including the hours a room of one zone and Mrs. Dalloway. One of her most fascinating books is Orlando, a book that was way ahead of its time following a poet who changes gender and romps through English literary history. Virginia didn't just push the envelope in her books, but in her personal life as well. Enter Vita Sackville West Vita was a novelist in her own right and throughout her life was romantically linked with many people. When she met Virginia Woolf, the two fell deeply in love and Vita became Virginia's Muse serving as inspiration for much of her work. To help us tell the story of Virginia and Vito, we would like to welcome Dr. Leslie Hankins. Well,

I think the love story of Vita and Virginia's fascinating one, and when it's particularly compelling, across time, for a lot of reasons, I mean, many love stories are rather dull when you're on the outside of them. But when you have two writers writing love letters to each other, you get this added extra bonus that you wouldn't have expected. And these two writers were both icons of their cultural moment, at the time that they first met 1922 data was the more famous one, Virginia was just on the cusp of writing what would be her landslide of fabulous, breathtaking books, main books, and Vita was 10 years younger. So both of those things were factors. Virginia was actually surprised that feeded heard of her, we tend to think, Oh, my, how could that possibly be right? And, and it was just amazing that well, their relationship was not one of those love at first sight. They were intrigued at first sight, but the relationship built slowly through time and partly through the letters. And I think really, when writers fall in love, the letters they write, are doubly wonderful. They're in love with words, really, you're always in a Minaj at 12 When you have writers in love, because they're in love with their words. They're in love with each other's words, and the lovers words in require their own words to become that much more eloquent. And they also, they both are so aware of the nuances of language and feeling they're pretty mature at that time, at least in terms of words. Vita had had a lot more relationships than Virginia had had. Virginia had. Her marriage, which was not a sexual success is one way of putting it. So she had not been awakened sexually. And that was vidas job, I think in some ways, and the relationship had its ups and downs. There was one point where Aveda was attracted or involved with another woman, and Virginia was chagrined to put it mildly. But I think because she was a writer, the letter she wrote to express her jealousy was brilliant. I mean, usually if someone tells you they're jealous, it's irritating. But But this letter, she writes, look, dearest, what a lovely page this is, and think how we're not for the screen and the Campbell. It might be all filled to the brim with love making unbelievable indiscretions incredible instead of which nothing shall be said. But what a Campbell behind the screen might hear. Campbell is the the other lover so what Virginia's withholding here is not her affection, but her words. Yeah. Which. And that's so exciting because her word she knows will endlessly entice Vita. And in fact, it's later in that same letter that Virginia proposes the concept of Orlando, she wrote that lesson. Suppose Orlando turns out to be Vita. And it's all about you. And the lusts of your flesh and the lore of your mind. Heart, you have none who go the galavanting down lanes with ample so and of course, Vita fell in love with that. Right? Okay.

So I love the idea that through their letters, they're basically playing literary 4d chess with each other. Their communication is on a completely different level than all the other humans around them. When they were writing letters to each other, was there a presumption that someday someone might read

them? Well, that brings up a fascinating point, partly because Vita was so shall we say, skilled and having all sorts of relationships. The letters were both private, and and certainly very, very intimate. But also, there's one letter, it's one of my favorites, that Virginia writes to Vita saying, You are a miracle of discretion. I mean, one letter in another. I never thought of that. I'll answer when I see you. The invitation. I mean, oh, my God, I thought that is brilliant. Because it Virginia would read the letter. Oh, I get a letter from Vita, Leonard. Here's what she says. Right, but the letter within the letter. And not only is that a sneaky way to carry on an affair? Yeah, well, it protects the ego of the other in some ways, but also, I think that Virginia was so fascinated by that as a concept that she took that and that is, I think, the premise of Orlando, because you have Virginia sending a secret letter within that text to Vita, sometimes I think she's sending Vita and elopement invitation. The Wild Goose that people have wondered what is in Orlando, is that the Flying V, which would be Vita and Virginia flying away eloping, or at any rate, it certainly there are certainly lots of secret messages in Orlando to Vita she gave her the manuscripts, and one of which is veto. The veto was it pronounced sapphist as the term was back then? And Virginia writes at one point, I think she has her eye on me early on in the relationship, but she wasn't a particular feminist. And Virginia, as we all know, is profoundly feminist. It was at the core of her identity. And so I think she wanted to convert Lita to feminism. They have long discussions about this. There's a scene in the in Orlando where Vita has just changed. And she's now a woman and trying to figure out what she has to do in VSD woman. And I think the lesson plan that's embedded within that chapter is is about feminism about how how being a woman is restrictive. And so I think wolf was sending that message to Vita in the novel as well. When you

read over Virginia and vetus letters, what do you think of the romance in them?

Oh, it's just amazing. It's it. The pet names that passion, that teasing, it's just exquisite. I would love to come out with some addition of the full letters of each side by side. Because it's not just the romantic portions. It's the way the romance weaves in and out of their daily lives, especially the letters when they're apart from each other. They're just dripping with longing and desire, but also creating that artfully. So it's not just an issue or an issue, which again, incredibly dull, very quickly, but I would recommend to everyone that they read the letters and the whole letters, not just the distilled ones that are in various ways you can read them. I guess

I studied English in college. This is so very different from the heteronormative lessons about Virginia Woolf. Oh, yes. Yeah,

I mean, I think, for me, I feel like I'm in class right now. I was also an English major. And this is the class I wish I'd had because I never learned anything about Virginia Woolf. I never. I have like a big gap in my history. And because the reason for that, I think, is because the only thing I didn't know about her was that she was just tragic.

That image of her is tragic and fragile, and virginal. It was constructed partly by the family, Quentin Belle's first biography, and a lot of people have fought that ever since Jane Marcus was one who really exploded that myth. And certainly the letters when they came out, made it harder to pretend that she wasn't this vital force

just has been such a treat, like surely I could listen to you talk for an hour, I could listen to you for a full lecture.

Well, I really love having the opportunity to go back and dip in the letters. It's given me whole new ideas and things to work on. So thank you

so much. This was exquisite. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this.

Oh, thank you. I loved it. I loved it. I think I'll go write a love letter.

Now, as always, we want to give you a little something to carry the good feelings with you into your day. So I think as our love to go for this episode, I have a perfect suggestion for you. And for me and for everyone listening this week is international send a card to a friend day. And so my suggestion is that you take a moment and a stamp and write a love note. It doesn't have to be a romantic note. There are relationships of all kinds, but send a paper greeting to someone you know and care about letting them know how wonderful they are.

Yeah, let's send some love letters. I mean, platonic, familial, romantic, whatever kind of love you're feeling. Let's send a love letter out. And I know I know people are out of practice with going to the post office so girl I

barely have the hand stamina to write a check. Writing a note is a big commitment.

Right, the stamp goes in the upper right hand corner. Right here. Center.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of lovestruck daily we hope you are feeling as ah as we are. We'll be back with another fresh love story tomorrow. A new episodes are up every day Monday through Friday.

If you have a love story to share, send an email to lovestruck daily at frolic dot media and follow us on Instagram and Twitter at lovestruck daily for extra content. Please leave a review subscribe, spread the word about our show. We want to get love to everybody.

And we have some love letters to send right now. Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. Thank you Jen. Our producer is Abigail Steckler and little Scorpion studios. Our behind the scenes Hatcher of plans is Gillian Davis and we are executive produced by Frolik media and we wish you a happily ever after. I'm in love with love with you. I'm in love with you