The String Quartet

"Sir, I would trust you with my heart. Moreover, we have left our bodies in the banqueting hall. Those on the turf are the shadows of our souls."

Our narrator is attenting a classical music concert given by a string quartet, and while seated there, she catches snippets of conversations around her, and reflects upon the different responses listening to music can inspire.

Writing about music is difficult, but Virginia Woolf manages with poetic language and impressionistic images that awake with the reader exactly the music she's trying to convey. 'The String Quartet' was published in her short-story collection 'Monday or Tuesday' in 1921.



Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer who, despite growing up in a progressive household, was not allowed an education. When she and her sister moved in with their brothers in a rough London neighborhood, they joined the infamous The Bloomsbury Group, which debated philosophy, art and politics. Woolf's most famous novels include 'Mrs Dalloway' (1925) and 'To the Lighthouse' (1927).