Modernism and the wreck of education: Lawrence, Woolf, and the democratization of learning

Employing aesthetic, epistemological, ideological, and Marxists theories, this dissertation, Modernism and the Wreck of Education: Lawrence, Woolf, and the Democratization of Learning, explores the reoccurring criticisms of democratic education found in the writings of two of Britain's most prominent modernists. Although radically divergent in their political and philosophical speculations, as well as social and educational backgrounds, both D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf scathingly opposed England's democratic model of education. My examination of Lawrence's novel The Rainbow, his "educational" poetry, and his essay, "Education of the People," reveals an organized indictment against state-promoted public education, a system he saw as unconcerned with authentic intellectual growth. Similarly, in A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas , Virginia Woolf demonstrates her distrust in existing methods and forms of higher education and offers sophisticated alternatives to those she felt subtly inducted its participants into false ideologies. Drawing on these works, my project provides an example of the extent to which classrooms, teachers, universities, and other pedagogical spaces, objects, and theories preoccupy modernist literature. It argues that both authors' epistemological and pedagogical theories significantly impacted their aesthetic practices and thus seeks to augment the ways in which modernist critics view the politics and art of this period. Additionally, this dissertation aims to enrich the philosophical and historical contexts for these two authors, while also increasing understanding regarding the motivations behind their rejections of such established traditions in their culture.