‘Orlando the Man and Orlando the Woman’

Chapter 2 looks at Woolf’s writings from 1926 onwards in relation to both Louis de Broglie’s work on the wave-particle duality of radiation and matter and, more significantly, Niels Bohr’s development of the principle of complementarity in 1927. The chapter argues for Woolf’s increasing interest in, attempts at, and ease in writing complementary models, linking this to contemporary scientific developments, but also exploring a broader early twentieth-century interest in complementary approaches, including in psychology. It distinguishes between duality and complementarity, arguing that Woolf can usefully be understood as a complementary writer. Woolf’s conjunctions and pronouns are explored in detail, as are her ideas on androgyny and her writing of light, and the form of her writings is also considered, in particular her inclusion of what she herself called ‘facts’ and ‘vision’ in the same works. Among other texts, this chapter focuses on Orlando, The Waves, and The Years.