So begins "On Being Ill," an essay written by Virginia Woolf, in 1925, during one of her own many bouts of illness, and reprinted in a new edition from Paris Press. But by 1925, it was and had been for some time.”, A 2012 reissue of the essay, paired with a piece by Woolf’s mother and sometimes-caregiver Julia Stephen, shines further light on Woolf’s experience growing up ill, and how gaining attention and cultivating creativity despite of or perhaps because of bouts of illness played a key role from an early age. All these good works kept Stephen busy, and a young Woolf soon found that falling ill was the only surefire way to get time alone with her beloved mother. Nicole Kidman famously played Woolf in The Hours. Mann further notes, “An excellent read for both nurses and patients, this is also a book about mothers and daughters.”. in 2002, Judith Shulevitz posits, “”On Being Ill” also begins with a silly question: why isn’t illness one of the great themes of literature, up there with love and battle? Paris Press has paired Woolf's lovely essay with another essay on illness from the point of view of the caregiver. "Notes from Sick Rooms" is by Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, who wrote a few practical pieces and many letters over the course of her productive life as a caregiver. ISBN: 978-1930464131 A 2012 reissue of the essay, paired with a piece by Woolf’s mother and sometimes-caregiver Julia Stephen, shines further light on Woolf’s experience growing up ill, and how gaining attention and cultivating creativity despite of or perhaps because of bouts of illness played a key role from an early age. But Woolf offered a more personal contribution to the public discourse about disease with her 1925 essay, “On Being Ill.” Commissioned by her friend, the writer and critic T. S. Eliot, for the British literary magazine The Criterion, Woolf wrote the piece shortly after suffering a nervous breakdown. There is a virgin forest, tangled, pathless, in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds’ feet is unknown. Indeed, there is a whole section titled "Nerves," as well as sections on potential causes of irritation, including "Crumbs," "Fancies," "Visits," and "Noises." Novels, one would have thought, would have been devoted to influenza; epic, poems to typhoid; odes to pneumonia, lyrics to toothache. Often, Woolf’s real-life experiences made it into her fiction. Notably, Stephen also values a view of the sky as being beneficial for an ill person. So notable were Woolf’s struggles with what we now call bipolar disorder that several biographies, rather than focus on her brilliant modernist essays and innovative criticism, are almost solely devoted to dissecting her mental illness and its impact on her life and career. Eliot published “On Being Ill” in The Criterion in 1926, and a revised version was republished the same year in Forum magazine under the alternate name, “Illness: An Unexploited Mine.” Soon, more of Woolf’s more lighthearted works followed, including the novels Orlando and The Waves. Woolf was at different times in her life diagnosed with influenza, pneumonia, and something called a "tired heart." We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Woolf’s mother Julia died of influenza when Woolf was just 13–and Woolf’s beloved half-sister passed away within another few years–which lead to the first of her depressive episodes. The things that Woolf appreciates in sickness (even in her forties) are also the privileges of childhood: reading whatever she wants, staring up at the sky, long hours of doing nothing in particular.

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