The Stream of Consciousness Technique and the Poetics of Multiple Perspectives in Virginia Woolf's Novels

This article presents a comparative analysis of the stream of consciousness technique and the poetics of multiple perspectives in Virginia Woolf's novels Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927). The transition from traditional omniscient narrative to modernist internal focalization is examined on the basis of Gérard Genette's narratological theory and Henri Bergson's philosophy of inner time (durée). Comparative-analytical, linguo-stylistic and narratological methods were used as a methodological framework. The results show that Woolf's free indirect discourse, interrogative-exclamatory constructions, dashes and parentheses function as graphic-stylistic markers, lyrically reflecting the fragmentary inner world of the characters. In conclusion, it is substantiated that Woolf's 'lyrical' style of stream of consciousness, unlike the styles of James Joyce and Marcel Proust, is aimed at the aesthetic fixation of the exact tremor of the moment and set new standards in the world psychological novel.