Woolf, Virginia. 'Blue & Green.' from Monday or Tuesday, Hogarth Press (1921).

'Blue & Green' is one of eight short stories published in Woolf's 1921 short story collection, Monday or Tuesday. This book - Woolf's only short story collection - provides us with the bridge between her early novels and her later experimental modernism. As the British Library website describes: 'A radical departure from her two earlier realist novels, Monday or Tuesday is the puzzle piece that reveals how Woolf developed the modern novel in the 1920s. Woolf, both at the time of writing Monday or Tuesday and later in 1930, recognised the significance of the collection:

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The [sic] Unwritten Novel was the great discovery, however. That – again in one second – showed me how I could embody all of my deposit of experience in a shape that fitted it – not that I have ever reached that end; but anyhow I saw, branching out of the tunnel I made, when I discovered that method of approach, Jacobs Room, Mrs Dalloway etc – How I trembled with excitement.'

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'Blue & Green' takes the form of two complementary prose poems that allow colour to expand and develop into association and imagery. This short story 'sees Woolf develop her interest in fusing literature with techniques borrowed from other art forms. Evoking a painting or an artist’s eye, ‘Blue & Green’ uses colour to conjure a chain of images and associations.' (British Library). It is a text that offers so much possibility for interpretation across artforms; an obvious choice when selecting writing that lends itself to creative annotation.