Cooking “Imaginary Meals” The Aesthetics of Food in the Modernist Narratives of Two Rivalling Friends: Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield
Cooking “Imaginary Meals” The Aesthetics of Food in the Modernist Narratives of Two Rivalling Friends: Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield

Summary/Abstract: The theory underpinning this approach to the narratives of Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield is provided by the reletively new field of Food Studies. My aim is to show that food and beverage descriptions and the crucial significance of dinner table scenes in the private and public writings of these two rivalling friends developed and refined their modernist style. In spite of the enmity between them, especially on Woolf’s part, Woolf and Mansfield had a lot in common. Supporting my statements on passages from Mansfield’s letters, Woolf’s diary and from their fiction, I contend that in fact Woolf and Mansfield contributed to the larger literary and cultural context of modernism by almost echoing each other’s food imagery and its symbolism. The essence of my argument is that these two modernist writers made up their ”imaginary meals” to compensate for the ugliness and discord of reality, and for the transitoriness of life.

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