Vita Sackville-West and "Orlando".

Paper Summary:

Vita Sackville-West was done a monumental favor by Virginia Woolf when she chose to immortalize her colleague, friend, and lover by creating a character named Orlando in her image. This paper shows how we would have known little about Vita had it not been for this unusual character for which she had provided inspiration. The paper discusses the role played by Sackville-West in the creation of Orlando's protagonist and also sheds light on her relationship with Virginia Woolf.

From the Paper:

"Victoria Sackville-West who was an early-twentieth century novelist, biographer and gardener developed a deep bond of friendship with the well-known author of her times Virginia Woolf. This bond was soon transformed into a controversial love affair which was celebrated in Woolf's 1928 fictional biography titled Orlando. We must understand that Orlando was not a very famous work because of its surreal plot but it helped to give Vita Sackville-West a permanent and prominent place in the author's life. Woolf admired her a great deal and thus wanted to express her feelings for the writer in this book, which later inspired many other books, films and documentaries. Orlando would have never been written had it not been for the relationship that existed between the two writers because it was during these years, that Woolf observed her lover carefully and felt like paying her a tribute by immortalizing her existence. While most of us have heard and read about Woolf and her sexual orientation, we hardly know much about Vita who was a confirmed bisexual and a prolific writer. And therefore Virginia Woolf probably did her favor by encapsulating her personality in this fictional work."

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