Flush

is generally regarded as one of Virginia Woolf's minor works, written as light-hearted relief from her more demanding and serious novels. Indeed,

Flush

does not present the stylistic complexity or the formal experimentalism that we find, for instance, in

To the Lighthouse

or

The Waves

(completed just before the writing of

Flush

); however, it also engages with many of Woolf's recurrent concerns.

Flush is often described as the biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning from the point of view of her dog, but, as the title and subtitle suggest, Flush: A Biography is in fact the biography of Flush himself. It is also a parody of biographical writing, mocking from the outset the technique of presenting the biographical subject in the context of his or her family and genealogy by tracing

1060 words

Citation: Boldrini, Lucia. "Flush". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5105, accessed 25 November 2024.]

5105 Flush 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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