Virginia Woolf is undoubtedly one of the most admired and influential modern novelists, pioneering new narrative techniques, expanding the ways to think about women’s writing and the novel as a genre, and probing deep political, social and creative issues. This class will examine and discuss two of Woolf’s mid-career novels – Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927) – each holding a key place in modernist literature. Together the class will explore Woolf’s historical and cultural contexts, her style, her use of narrative perspective and the “stream of consciousness” technique, and her ideas about fiction and what the novel can and should be. Engaging in close readings of the two books, participants will compare and contrast their major themes – especially her exploration of consciousness and the self, human relationships, and artistic creation.