Sacred Spaces: Churches and Cathedrals

Abstract

This chapter examines Woolf’s conceptualization of sacred space in relation to her interest in the gendered division of space, and her interrogation of the concept of the sacred, with its implications of both exclusivity and holiness. The chapter examines Woolf’s experiences of churches and cathedrals, starting with her early journals and her formative encounter with Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in 1906. It then discusses her frequent references to English places of worship, most significantly St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, both as symbols of patriarchal and imperial power, but also as places for reflection, sanctuary and even prayer.