Virginia Woolf lived in and responded to a world in which certitudes were collapsing under the stresses of changing knowledge,the civilized savagery of war,and new manners and morals. She drew on her personal,sensitive,poetic awareness without rejecting altogether the heritage of literary culture she derived from her family. ❖ Virginia Woolf lived in and responded to a world in which certitudes were collapsing under the stresses of changing knowledge, the civilized savagery of war, and new manners and morals. ❖ She drew on her personal, sensitive, poetic awareness without rejecting altogether the heritage of literary culture she derived from her family