Gifts, markets and economies of desire in Virginia Woolf

About this book

"Drawing on a diverse range of ideas about gift and market economies, this fascinating study opens up a new avenue for exploring Woolf's ambivalent relationship to the literary marketplace and commodity culture. With a sustained attention to gifts and gift economies in Woolf's writing, it proposes a new lens through which to interpret Woolf's work in relation to the sexual and class politics of her writing, to her own practice of publication, and to her sense of herself as a woman and a modernist writer. Highlighting issues of gender, sexuality, creativity and, in particular, the homoerotic significance of the gift in much of Woolf's writing, Simpson offers a detailed, insightful and wide-ranging analysis, informed by feminist and queer theory, as well as by anthropological and sociological debates about the gift and gift economies. Twenty-five years after the publication of Lewis Hyde's groundbreaking exploration of the significance of gift economies for literary study, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, this is the first full-length study to focus on the relevance of gift theory for literary analysis. With its unique focus on the interrelation of market, gift and libidinal economies it offers original readings of Woolf's work and paves the way for further explorations in the literary sphere and beyond."--BOOK JACKET.