This is an absolutely incredible lecture, very accessible, I found it incredibly insightful and I always find it so helpful and interesting when I have a similar thought to a lecturer whilst reading a novel, and when they then take a simple idea which I have had in passing and expand on it in a more sophisticated way
Professor Mount offers a superb analysis that understands the book as an epic - but on an intimate level, and his insights will enrich any reader’s experience of this great work.
Rarely have I come across a Lecturer as amazing as you. Thank you for your passion and true love for the English Literature. I am a final year student at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and we do not have Lecturers in my opinion who take literature in such depth as you. I love your way of teaching and would love to attend one of your lectures one day. Regards
Many thanks, Carmen--glad you enjoyed it. By chance I just read a great novel by one of your countrymen, Deon Meyer's Fever. Dark, but ultimately hopeful...check it out over the summer.
Nick Mount I actually read all of his novels. And buy them as soon as they come out. I read Fever a month ago and loved it. All of his novels are quite dark and surprising but I love his writing style. It's easy reading as well which is different from Classics like To the Lighthouse. Do you do open lectures for public members often or is it strictly members of the University?
An insightful interpretation to "To the Lighthouse"! My favourite literary work from the twentieth-century. Woolf's work is symbolic. It brings out the extraordinary ordinariness of everyday mundane life. A novel about life, art and time
Thank you, Kay, glad it connected. And belated thanks to all else who've commented on this over the years, for your kindness & thoughtfulness. And your disagreements. :)
This is such a unique captivating lecture. I have been teaching Dramatic Arts on secondary level for over 20 years and tonight, your lecture rekindled the reason why I love teaching. Thank you for reminding me. I needed that.
EXCELLENT. I will read this novel again and now truly understand and love all the work that Mr Mount put into this great novel. Thank you for your analysis that has helped me to better understand Virginia Woolf novel. Phenomenal job and so well spoken. ❤
Outstanding lecture. This is my first time reading To the Lighthouse, as it was assigned reading for a PhD seminar in the Subject-Object dialectic. The parallels drawn between epic poetry/Iliad and the novel were particularly enlightening as was the view of Mrs. Ramsay as Woolf's feminist Penelope. Thank you, Professor Mount.
Thank you Nick Mount for putting in the hard work analysing To The Lighthouse and sharing it with the public. We all benefit from your clever insights, you turned a brilliant novel into an epic. Fantastic well put together lecture . You’re a genius.
this was fucking incredible i never thought a lecture could give me jitters there was real intimacy in your voice, your cadence, your emotion, thank you for passing it to me
Wonderful talk on MY favorite novel...what's missing is this - alternately the lighthouse SEEMS close but then far...the lighthouse itself is a character as it sheds light and deprives or flashes explicitly in the novel, much like consciousness itself....In Lily's vision of the final landing, what matters is the end, the work of art (not necessarily a MASTERPIECE) to be hung in an attic, appreciated by a few in her day but possibly discovered in a ransack to be something of value. It's fantastic that what isn't really a GREAT VOYAGE Woolf was certainly able to turn into a crossing of immeasurable distances! What is truly Mr Ramsay's character at the landing, with his children on board, when the narrator suggests his thoughts - "We perished each alone" which is the scenario of drowning OR "I have reached it. I have found it," emphasizing the "I" did it alone in FINDING but the WE in drowning with his own children. So Mr Ramsay achieves his vision as Lily does, but in such radically different ways!
Your knowledge and analysis is commendable. Really enjoyable lecture, professor. Even your pauses are graceful and provide a certain deserving mood to Woolf.
Thank u so much.. I feel like I too have had my vision though it might be less lasting than the color of the butterfly's wings...such a pleasure to listen to u..
thank you so much for this. i have graduated from school but have recently been craving to do some guided deep reading of books so i started watching some book reviews on virginia woolf but they are all not as thick and full and deep as this lecture is :)
I agree with the enthusiastic comments. I was also delighted to learn that Woolf did not like feminist categorization. I have never understood why the Room of your own should be called feminist when it argues against such art that interprets the world from a restricted feminine perspective.
Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” (1927) is a landmark achievement of the twentieth century fiction. When Mrs Ramsay tells her guests at her summer house on the Isle of Skye that they will be able to visit the nearby lighthouse the following day, little does she know that this trip will only be completed ten years later by her husband and her son. During those ten years, death and misery haunt the Ramsay family. Mrs Ramsay dies. In a sense, the quest to the lighthouse symbolises the inner journey of the characters towards self-realisation and fulfilment of their hopes. It is a symbolic quest or an epic quest of a father and son to realise the “spirituality” and beauty of Mrs Ramsay’s soul. At the same time, Lily Briscoe completes her painting that she has started ten years ago, and her painting becomes an emblem of the immortality of art - Mrs Ramsay lives within Lily’s painting. “To the Lighthouse” which is described as the finest fiction of the twentieth century depicts the inner lives of the characters - the emotional universe of men and women. Woolf’s narrative is fragmented, and her novel is unconventional in its narrative structure. Woolf gives the fragmented, rather disjointed facts about the Ramsay family and allows the reader to build up the story. Besides, it is a novel about feminist spirituality where women are depicted as spiritual, creative and artistic while men possess higher grounds of culture and education.
Thanks. I would just like to mention, that I think it is over-looked how traumatised Wolfe was by the bombing of her home in Bloomsbury. Half the house still stood, and she remarks on seeing the half burned furniture in the living-room. All their memorabilia and books ruined etc. That whole life of theirs was taken away and they had only their memories left, of the gatherings and parties etc. It would have been hard for anyone to bear...but for her, with her fragile mental health, perhaps too much. This could have triggered off her demise ?
New recording: www.audible.co.uk/pd/To-the-Lighthouse-Audiobook/1908671173?qid=1567693965&sr=1-2&pf_rd_p=c6e316b8-14da-418d-8f91-b3cad83c5183&pf_rd_r=8PNR2WTDF3C393JKZE6S&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_2
I found this an absolutely impossible read. The grammar is just ridiculous. There are a hundred commas and bracketed sections within paragrahps making it difficult to remember what the first part of the paragraph was even about.
Stream of consciousness might be a fascination with the avant-garde, but if story has purpose then it must be accessable to the average reader else it falls on deaf ears.
![ILLSLICK - WINTER IS COMING [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dwTMeM1zIhQ/mqdefault.jpg)
This is an absolutely incredible lecture, very accessible, I found it incredibly insightful and I always find it so helpful and interesting when I have a similar thought to a lecturer whilst reading a novel, and when they then take a simple idea which I have had in passing and expand on it in a more sophisticated way
Absolutely brilliant insight
Thank you so much!!
Professor Mount offers a superb analysis that understands the book as an epic - but on an intimate level, and his insights will enrich any reader’s experience of this great work.
That was so good, wish I had him as my teacher cause it's the first time I got really interested in that story.
Yes sheer brilliance insightful thank you!!!
Rarely have I come across a Lecturer as amazing as you. Thank you for your passion and true love for the English Literature. I am a final year student at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and we do not have Lecturers in my opinion who take literature in such depth as you. I love your way of teaching and would love to attend one of your lectures one day. Regards
Many thanks, Carmen--glad you enjoyed it.
By chance I just read a great novel by one of your countrymen, Deon Meyer's Fever. Dark, but ultimately hopeful...check it out over the summer.
Nick Mount I actually read all of his novels. And buy them as soon as they come out. I read Fever a month ago and loved it. All of his novels are quite dark and surprising but I love his writing style. It's easy reading as well which is different from Classics like To the Lighthouse. Do you do open lectures for public members often or is it strictly members of the University?
Depends on the class: auditors are generally welcome in big lecture classes, harder in seminars
hlo
Yes I agree 100 percent. I love and admire your passion.
An insightful interpretation to "To the Lighthouse"! My favourite literary work from the twentieth-century. Woolf's work is symbolic. It brings out the extraordinary ordinariness of everyday mundane life. A novel about life, art and time
Absolutely!
Dear Dr Mount. 2021 Pandemic. I cannot thank you enough. This is positively brilliant. I am really at a loss to say anything else. Beautiful
Thank you, Kay, glad it connected. And belated thanks to all else who've commented on this over the years, for your kindness & thoughtfulness. And your disagreements. :)
Thank you, Nick. Woolf's novel comes alive for me via your lecture --- all the way to tropical Philippines. Brilliant.
You're most welcome!
Thank you for making this public. It's helping to deepen my reading of TTLH.
Brilliant insights into one of my favourite novels of all time. Thank you for sharing this!
This is such a unique captivating lecture. I have been teaching Dramatic Arts on secondary level for over 20 years and tonight, your lecture rekindled the reason why I love teaching. Thank you for reminding me. I needed that.
EXCELLENT. I will read this novel again and now truly understand and love all the work that Mr Mount put into this great novel.
Thank you for your analysis that has helped me to better understand Virginia Woolf novel. Phenomenal job and so well spoken. ❤
Outstanding lecture. This is my first time reading To the Lighthouse, as it was assigned reading for a PhD seminar in the Subject-Object dialectic. The parallels drawn between epic poetry/Iliad and the novel were particularly enlightening as was the view of Mrs. Ramsay as Woolf's feminist Penelope. Thank you, Professor Mount.
You are most welcome, glad to help.
Amazing lecture. No words to describe it!! Thank you.
Beautiful lecture. Thank you very much for making this public.
Thank you Nick Mount for putting in the hard work analysing To The Lighthouse and sharing it with the public. We all benefit from your clever insights, you turned a brilliant novel into an epic. Fantastic well put together lecture . You’re a genius.
this was fucking incredible
i never thought a lecture could give me jitters
there was real intimacy in your voice, your cadence, your emotion, thank you for passing it to me
Wonderful talk on MY favorite novel...what's missing is this - alternately the lighthouse SEEMS close but then far...the lighthouse itself is a character as it sheds light and deprives or flashes explicitly in the novel, much like consciousness itself....In Lily's vision of the final landing, what matters is the end, the work of art (not necessarily a MASTERPIECE) to be hung in an attic, appreciated by a few in her day but possibly discovered in a ransack to be something of value. It's fantastic that what isn't really a GREAT VOYAGE Woolf was certainly able to turn into a crossing of immeasurable distances! What is truly Mr Ramsay's character at the landing, with his children on board, when the narrator suggests his thoughts - "We perished each alone" which is the scenario of drowning OR "I have reached it. I have found it," emphasizing the "I" did it alone in FINDING but the WE in drowning with his own children. So Mr Ramsay achieves his vision as Lily does, but in such radically different ways!
Brilliant!! LITERATURE at its best!
Your knowledge and analysis is commendable. Really enjoyable lecture, professor. Even your pauses are graceful and provide a certain deserving mood to Woolf.
I think this is one of the greatest lectures I have seen in my life, I love Virginia woolf, and you just did a great lecture. thank you!
Ditto perfect brilliance!!
Possibly the best lecture on a literary work I’ve ever heard! Brilliant! Insightful!
I'm looking forward for your more lectures, particularly your unique research paper presentation... Thanks so much sir!
Extremely moving and informative lecture. Thank you for all the work you did to create it, deliver it, and make it available to the public.
You're most welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Impressive analysis of this work of art. Thank you.
Fantastic.. unbelievably fantastic...thank you
One of the best lectures on Virginia Woolf's To the lighthouse... Thank you so much professor... I learned a lot from it.
This is great. I need to re-watch this again, just like I need to re-read the novel itself! thanks
And the great Persian epic, The Book of Kings, by Ferdowsi
Thank u so much.. I feel like I too have had my vision though it might be less lasting than the color of the butterfly's wings...such a pleasure to listen to u..
Absolutely!
Thankyou so much for making it available here. It is profoundly informative and poignant.
This was amazing !
Thank you
thank you so much for this. i have graduated from school but have recently been craving to do some guided deep reading of books so i started watching some book reviews on virginia woolf but they are all not as thick and full and deep as this lecture is :)
Thank you so much Sir. ❤️ THANK U, THANK U, THANK U! 🙏🏻
Beautiful. Thank you
Thank you Nick Mount, I learned a lot.
very enlightening
Thanks a million
I can't get enough of this lecturer...just listened to his take on Godot & The Waste Land & now this. Excellent.
Thank you, thank you for understanding what she did and still does for the (un)common reader.
Thank you for uploading your lectures!They help me understand what I am reading more fully. I love the specific examples you make.
I enjoyed this lecture immensely
Wonderful. Thank you!
Great lecture, so helpful and very interesting...
Brilliant connections!
Nick, you deserve more subscribers.
Heck, I can't even get my own daughter to subscribe to my channel. :) But thank you.
Fantastic lecture. Thank you!
Thank you
Just... beautiful ❤
Professor Mount is truly a remarkable teacher and presenter. Wish I had an opportunity to take his course.
Thank you for an amazing, inspired and intimate lecture.
wow, incredible lecture sir. I know understand the novel very well thank you.
This was wonderful! Thank you for sharing.
Brilliant, Thank you Nick Mount. Excellent insight.
Just finished this book. I love Virginia Woolf.
Wonderful. Do you have a transcript available as I would like to reference this lecture.
+Annette Millar Sorry, no transcript. I suspect you could just cite the video. Glad you liked it.
This demonstrates that you can interpret a lot into simplistic novel.
This was really good.
What a great lecture, sir. I really like the style you deliver the information in a very smooth manner. Thanks so much
Glad you enjoyed it.
Hope to be one of your students, sir
I am doing MA now, and I wish that I can do my PhD with you Mr. Prof., sir
I don't have anything to do with admissions, but here's the application information: www.english.utoronto.ca/grad/programs/phdprogram.htm
Thanks a lot, sir
Thanks for this great insight!!
Thank you for this incredible video! Fascinating. Please do more! Possibly K. Mansfield?
I agree with the enthusiastic comments. I was also delighted to learn that Woolf did not like feminist categorization. I have never understood why the Room of your own should be called feminist when it argues against such art that interprets the world from a restricted feminine perspective.
Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” (1927) is a landmark achievement of the twentieth century fiction. When Mrs Ramsay tells her guests at her summer house on the Isle of Skye that they will be able to visit the nearby lighthouse the following day, little does she know that this trip will only be completed ten years later by her husband and her son. During those ten years, death and misery haunt the Ramsay family. Mrs Ramsay dies. In a sense, the quest to the lighthouse symbolises the inner journey of the characters towards self-realisation and fulfilment of their hopes. It is a symbolic quest or an epic quest of a father and son to realise the “spirituality” and beauty of Mrs Ramsay’s soul. At the same time, Lily Briscoe completes her painting that she has started ten years ago, and her painting becomes an emblem of the immortality of art - Mrs Ramsay lives within Lily’s painting. “To the Lighthouse” which is described as the finest fiction of the twentieth century depicts the inner lives of the characters - the emotional universe of men and women. Woolf’s narrative is fragmented, and her novel is unconventional in its narrative structure. Woolf gives the fragmented, rather disjointed facts about the Ramsay family and allows the reader to build up the story. Besides, it is a novel about feminist spirituality where women are depicted as spiritual, creative and artistic while men possess higher grounds of culture and education.
Absolutely wonderful to listen to
Thank you a million times over!
Deeply insightful and interesting interpretation to Woolf's "To the Lighthouse".
I'd love to know this handful of woman writers Woolf considered to be worth calling writers at all. Does anyone know who they are?
awesome
Oh we like him
Thanks. I would just like to mention, that I think it is over-looked how traumatised Wolfe was by the bombing of her home in Bloomsbury. Half the house still stood, and she remarks on seeing the half burned furniture in the living-room. All their memorabilia and books ruined etc. That whole life of theirs was taken away and they had only their memories left, of the gatherings and parties etc. It would have been hard for anyone to bear...but for her, with her fragile mental health, perhaps too much. This could have triggered off her demise ?
Agreed, certainly a factor for anyone. Thanks for this.
Nick Mountain
Sir kindly I have two questions regarding this novel...I couldn't sort it out.... kindly help me reply me so that I can my queries here.... please
It was good !
New recording: www.audible.co.uk/pd/To-the-Lighthouse-Audiobook/1908671173?qid=1567693965&sr=1-2&pf_rd_p=c6e316b8-14da-418d-8f91-b3cad83c5183&pf_rd_r=8PNR2WTDF3C393JKZE6S&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_2
2:14
I found this an absolutely impossible read. The grammar is just ridiculous. There are a hundred commas and bracketed sections within paragrahps making it difficult to remember what the first part of the paragraph was even about.
he lost me at the whole masculinity=hunting feminity=weather and emotions
Please make videos on parts and explain the whole novel by reading original text please its my humble request ....it will be so helpful if u do...
Stream of consciousness might be a fascination with the avant-garde, but if story has purpose then it must be accessable to the average reader else it falls on deaf ears.