Abstract:

The Waves is Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking novel of experimentation and one of her important intermedial works exploring the relationship between literature and music. It is evident that Beethoven’s music has a profound impact on the creation of The Waves from its conception to completion. There exists a significant relevance in both form and content between the novel and Beethoven’s late string quartets in B-flat Major. Within the framework of “covert intermediality” in the musicalization of fiction， Woolf draws an analogy between her novel and Beethoven’s string quartets in structure， thematization and imaginary content， and composition technique by way of implicit “showing” and explicit “telling”. Thus Woolf accomplishes an experiment in transmediation spanning from macrocosmic structural adaptation and thematic mapping to microcosmic perceptual activation. The profound convergence between The Waves and Beethoven’s music thereby establishes it as a paradigmatic text of Woolfian musicalization of fiction.

Key words: The Waves, Virginia Woolf, Beethoven’s string quartets, intermediality, musicalization