⟪A VOICE ANSWERING A VOICE ⟫

"Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?" ( Orlando ). This apparently rhetorical question is, on the contrary, a challenge to explore the dialogic nature of poetry, and concerns a variety of discourses on "the poetical" that have characterized the literary and philosophical scene of the 20thCentury. This essay focusses on Martin Heidegger's observations on language and on some of Gilles Deleuze's views on literature, and aims to show that they are instrumental to a novel understanding of Wool f' s works and vice versa . A philosophical approach to Virginia Wool f' s universally acknowledged masterpieces, such as To the Lighthouse, The Waves , Orlando, Mrs Dalloway , allows an assessment of the conceptual depth of her writing, while it sheds light on the poetic quality of her novels, as well. Moreover, it makes clear why Virginia Woolf belongs to the "poets" that have influenced some of the major philosophers of the age. This interpretative exchange between contemporary literature and philosophy confirms - and this is the main thesis of this essay - that thought and poetry intrinsically convoke each other, and that they belong to each other.