Flush: a Biography

From Free net encyclopedia

Flush is a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog written by Virginia Woolf and published in 1933. Commonly read as a modernist consideration of city-life seen through the eyes of a dog, Flush serves a harsh criticism of the supposedly unnatural ways of living in the city. The figure of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the text is often read as an analogue for other female intellectuals, like Woolf herself, who suffered from illness, feigned or real, as a part of their status as female writers.

This unusual biography traces the life of Flush from his carefree existence in the country, to his adoption by Ms. Browning and his travails in London, leading up to his final days in a bucolic Italy. Woolf ostensibly uses the life of a dog as pointed social criticism, ranging across topics from feminism, and environmentalism, to class warfare.

The text, due to its unusual nature, has received little attention by literary critics relative to Woolf's other texts, yet provides a pointed insight into Woolf's politics.